TORONTO — Broadcast technology solutions provider Nextologies has recently landed a couple of major partnership deals with the Associated Press and PSSI Global Services. The Associated Press (AP) has selected Nextologies to deliver AP’s global Live Choice video product, and in a separate deal, Nextologies is expanding its existing partnership with PSSI to provide satellite and IP transport and encryption facilities for high-profile international events.
Nextologies said it beat out several competitors to be chosen as the video transmission partner for AP’s Live Choice live video product distributed to digital and broadcast customers across the globe. Nextologies and AP designed and integrated their technology systems to provider users with a simple interface to book and activate live video transmissions and integrate them into their own production environment by using Nextologies’ proprietary NXT-4 hardware and software, Nextologies explained in a news release announcing the companies’ partnership. The project was rolled out over a four-month period after comprehensive design work, the company said.
“Nextologies’ solutions have allowed AP to provide its broadcast clients with an all-in-one device that delivers reliable and error-corrected video over the Internet or private fibre lines,” said Matthew Durbin, deputy director of global video operations at AP, in the news release. “They also provide multiple one-time setup options for streaming video delivery and social media integration.”
Darren Long, director of international video platforms at AP, added: “Bringing Nextologies in as our solutions provider has simplified how AP customers access our live video news feeds and alleviated any pain points. We now have easy setup and robust delivery for all our customers, which range from traditional broadcasters to emerging digital services.”
Nextologies CEO Sasha Zivanovic said his company aims to be the most trusted broadcast services provider in signal transport worldwide. “That means finding ways to help broadcasters focus on creating content, while we take care of the technical support in the back-end — from providing hardware, online portal management to reliable signal transport globally,” Zivanovic said in the news release.
In its expanded partnership with PSSI Global Services, Nextologies’ hybrid IP encryption technology is now being deployed for Live WWE and UFC pay-per-view events held globally. With the largest fleet of transmission vehicles in North America and one of the largest privately-owned teleports in the world, PSSI Global Services provides comprehensive event, transmission and connectivity solutions via satellite, fibre and IP.
However, the recent UFC Fight Night from Shenzhen, China, held at the end of August, presented the PSSI team with some unique challenges due to overlapping feeds in multiple locations across the city, Nextologies explained in a news release announcing its expanded partnership with PSSI. Senior project manager Keith Valeri, along with Tracy Michaels, PSSI’s director of project engineering, deployed Nextologies’ IP encoding and transport solutions to support the UFC athletes’ weigh-in at the Futian Shangri-La hotel in Shenzhen. PSSI transmitted encrypted, redundant feeds of the weigh-in back to Nextologies’ headquarters in Toronto, as well as the PSSI International Teleport which, in turn, uplinked the signal to a domestic satellite for multiple distribution outlets and social media platforms, Nextologies explained in the news release.
In addition, PSSI and Strategic Television’s UFC team also used Nextologies’ equipment to provide an IP transport pathway for last week’s UFC 242, the first UFC pay-per-view event to originate from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Nextologies will continue to play a key role in PSSI’s transmission plans for big events in the Middle East, including the upcoming WWE Live Riyadh event in November, the company said.
