dicas and Wowza Media Systems unveil multiple bit rate live Flash® streaming with dicas2020 encoders

Berlin, Germany, and San Jose, USA, December 15, 2008 - dicas, the German MPEG-4 experts, and Wowza Media Systems, a US-based developer of Flash streaming media server software, have announced the interoperability of dicas MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 encoders with Wowza Media Server® Pro. Broadcasters, operators and enterprises delivering IPTV and streaming services now have at their disposal a versatile and cost-effective conduit for the live distribution of broadcast-quality video content in multiple bit rates to Internet-connected Flash player clients.

Wowza Media Server Pro is an award-winning solution for Flash streaming that counts more than 15,000 global licensees across a broad range of industries. Its popularity is due in large part to its exclusive ability to stream to Flash players using both RTMP and non-RTMP live encoders.

“We knew that a server allowing non-Flash RTP/RTSP encoders for H.264 live Flash streaming would be an extremely attractive product,” says David Stubenvoll, CEO & Co-Founder, Wowza Media Systems. “But we never foresaw such a broad and deep affection for what we have done. Now the combination of Wowza Pro with dicas2020 multiple bit rate ability offers customers a great way to stream Flash while simplifying encoding infrastructure and reducing cost.”

“The compatibility with Wowza Media Server Pro is a natural advancement of our product portfolio,” says Sebastian Moeritz, CEO at dicas. “In addition to the dicas Flash plug-in allowing for H.264 live Flash streaming over RTMP, clients now have the choice of using RTMP or delivering streams to the media server at multiple bit rates over a standard non-Flash transport protocol that best fits with their needs.”

The recently launched dicas2020 multi-format encoder is a perfect complement to Wowza Media Server Pro. The dicas2020 encodes a single input channel into up to six parallel output signals at varying bit rates (adjustable from 40 kbps to 6 Mbps), resolutions (from QCIF to SDTV), and transport protocols (RTMP, RTP/RTSP, MPEG-TS). Wowza Media Server Pro can ingest streams over any transport protocol from the dicas2020 encoder, selecting from a bit rate appropriate to the user’s bandwidth and reliably deliver it over RTMP to the Flash player.

About dicas
Founded in 1999, dicas is an innovative MPEG-focused video coding specialist and a leading developer of ISO MPEG-4 real-time video coding products and solutions. For almost a decade, dicas products and solutions have been pioneering next generation media services and products being deployed worldwide in many Broadcast, IPTV, Mobile TV, Internet Streaming, Multimedia and Security applications. Under the brand name mpegable, dicas offering a family of MPEG-4, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 (SD and HD) and 3GPP compliant professional software tools and components for a number of operating systems and DSPs/ICs. At present dicas is developing an HD encoder for Cell processor platforms in collaboration with IBM. For more information visit dicas at www.dicas.de.

About Wowza Media Systems
Wowza Media Systems is a software company solely focused on making industrial-strength media servers. With the February 2007 introduction of its award-winning product, Wowza Media Server® Pro, Wowza has taken a leadership position in redefining Flash streaming. Wowza has not only radically changed Flash streaming economics, it has also revolutionized online media by introducing innovative and exclusive capabilities that make live, on-demand, and interactive Flash media streaming feasible for a broad range of customers. Deployed by thousands of global licensees in entertainment, social media, advertising, enterprise, education, government, and Internet commerce, Wowza customers include such well-known companies as Macy's, Sun Microsystems, Interoute, RAINet, Astral Media, and T-Systems. For more information, visit Wowza Media Systems at www.wowzamedia.com.

Wowza and related marks are registered trademarks of Wowza Media Systems. dicas and mpegable are registered trademarks of dicas digital image coding GmbH. Adobe and Flash are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.