Digital Rapids, a provider of tools and solutions for bringing television, film and Web content to wider audiences, has signed an agreement to join the Polycom ARENA partner program. Polycom, a major player in telepresence, video and voice communication solutions, initiated the ARENA program to allow software application providers, hardware device manufacturers, and conferencing solution providers to integrate their products with Polycom's unified collaboration platform to create new applications.
 
Officials with Digital Rapids said that the integration of the company’s encoding and streaming solutions with the Polycom unified collaboration platform allows enterprises to extend the reach of their video beyond videoconferencing to additional viewing devices from Internet-connected PCs to mobile phones.
 
Company officials said that supporting both live streaming and recording for on-demand distribution, Digital Rapids' flexible solutions seamlessly enable multi-platform distribution with simultaneous encoding to multiple output resolutions, bit rates and formats.
 
Video from Polycom video conferencing endpoints and other sources can be encoded for streaming within or outside an organization, while integration with the Polycom Video Media Center (VMC) provides enterprise users with content management, publishing, tracking and viewer access control.
 
"Enterprises and institutions in the corporate, government and educational markets are investing in solutions that improve productivity, accelerate decision making and lower costs. Through our involvement in the Polycom ARENA program, we are delivering integrated solutions that support these initiatives by enhancing video communications and streamlining video operations," said Wesley Thiessen, product manager at Digital Rapids, in a statement.
 
Thiessen said that the company’s combined solutions allow Polycom customers to easily incorporate multi-format streaming video into their unified communications architectures, enabling them to reach broader audiences with the same outstanding visual quality that leading media companies have long benefited from in the encoders.
 
"Polycom and its ARENA ecosystem partners such as Digital Rapids are focused on proliferating new collaborative communications solutions that will benefit organizations worldwide. Digital Rapids' encoding and streaming solutions enable all types of organizations to extend and enhance their internal and external video communications across multiple viewing platforms," said Mark Roberts, vice president, Polycom ARENA Program.
 
Roberts said that the company is pleased to welcome Digital Rapids into the Polycom ARENA program and look forward to working them to deliver this important solution to customers.

By Anil Sharma.