AWS Elemental

Last updated
AWS Elemental
FormerlyElemental Technologies
Company type Subsidiary
Industry Video software
Founded2006
Headquarters Portland, Oregon (incorporated in Delaware)
United States
Key people
Alex Dunlap
(General Manager) [1]
Revenue$49.2 million (2014)
Number of employees
209 (2014)
Parent Amazon Web Services
(Amazon)
Website elemental.com

Elemental was an American software company based in Portland, Oregon, and active from 2006 to 2015. It was founded by three engineers formerly of the semiconductor company Pixel works: Sam Blackman (CEO), Jesse Rosenzweig (CTO), and Brian Lewis. [2] In 2015, it was acquired by Amazon.

Contents

History

In July 2012, Elemental products supported the broadcast of the 2012 Summer Olympics on internet devices for media companies including the BBC, Euro sport, Terra Networks, and others. [3] [4]

In September 2013, Elemental was named to the Silicon Forest top 25 by The Oregonian . The company ranked #24 among the region's largest technology companies. [5]

In October 2013, Elemental provided live 4K HEVC video streaming of the 2013 Osaka Marathon in a workflow designed by K-Opticom, a telecommunications operator in Japan.

In April 2017, the company changed its name from Elemental Technologies to AWS Elemental. [6]

Feared security compromise

In 2015, during security testing conducted as a prelude to a possible acquisition by Amazon, it was reported that some Elemental servers contained chips from Chinese manufacturing subcontractors that allowed backdoor access. [7] According to a U.S. government investigation, the chips were inserted by a People’s Liberation Army unit. [7] These reports were denied by all of the companies involved, no such chips were ever found, and the acquisition proceeded without further incident. [8]

Funding

Elemental received its initial investments in 2007 in the amount of $1.05 million from three angel funds: the Seattle-based Alliance of Angels, the Oregon Angel Fund, and the Bend Venture Conference. [9]

In July 2008, Elemental announced it had closed its first round of venture capital financing, receiving $7.1 million, which included investments from General Catalyst Partners of Boston, Massachusetts and Voyager Capital of Seattle, Washington. [10]

In 2009, Elemental formed a partnership with In-Q-Tel – the venture capital arm of the Central Intelligence Agency. [7] Elemental servers were subsequently used in various secure capacities, including by the United States Department of Defense, the United States Navy, NASA, the United States Congress and the Department of Homeland Security. [7]

In July 2010, Elemental raised an additional $7.5 million in Series B financing. Steamboat Ventures, a venture capital firm affiliated with The Walt Disney Company, joined existing venture funds General Catalyst and Voyager Capital in the financing round. [11]

In May 2012, Elemental closed its Series C financing for $13 million from Norwest Venture Partners. [12]

In December 2014, Elemental closed its Series D financing for $14.5 million led by Telstra and Sky. [13]

In September 2015, Elemental was acquired by Amazon Web Services, for an estimated $350 million. [14] [7]

Products

AWS Media Services

In November 2017, Amazon Web Services announced AWS Media Services, a group of five services that are intended for video providers to generate video offerings in the cloud, with the ability to scale.

AWS Media Services include the following individual services:

AWS Elemental MediaConvert transcodes file-based video content.

AWS Elemental MediaLive encodes live video for televisions or connected devices.

AWS Elemental MediaPackage prepares and secures live video streams for delivery to connected devices.

AWS Elemental MediaStore delivers video from media-optimized storage.

AWS Elemental MediaTailor inserts targeted advertising into streaming video.

AWS Elemental MediaConnect transport stream based video contribution and distribution.

Elemental Live

In April 2010, Elemental introduced its enterprise product, Elemental Live, a video processing system that provides video and audio encoding for live streaming to media platforms. [15]

Elemental Live made its debut at NAB in Las Vegas April 12–15, 2010, with a four-screen demonstration featuring simultaneous real-time encoding of multiple video streams targeted to mobile, tablet, web and HDTV platforms.

Elemental Server

In November 2009, Elemental released the first video server appliance to utilize the graphics processing unit for video on demand (VOD) transcoding. The company claims its performance equals that of seven dual quad-core CPU servers. [16] Other potential benefits include conversion speed, reduced power usage, less physical space, and overall cost, which is reported to be less than half of a CPU server. [17] Elemental Servers reportedly sold for as much as $100,000 per machine, with a profit margin of up to 70%. [7]

Elemental Delta

Elemental Delta is a video delivery platform designed to optimize the monetization, management and distribution of multiscreen video across internal and external IP networks. Elemental Delta has been presented at IBC in September 2014 and won the IABM Design and Innovation award for Playout and Delivery Systems. [18]

Elemental Cloud

Elemental Cloud provides transcoding services in a cloud computing environment using clustered graphics processors.

Elemental Statmux

Elemental Statmux is a software-based statistical multiplexer that optimizes content delivery for pay TV operators by reallocating bits in real time between video encoders and combining the outputs from multiple encoders into a single transport stream.

Elemental Conductor

Elemental Conductor is a scalable management system of two or more Elemental video processing systems.

Badaboom

BadaBoom logo Vertical.png

On October 23, 2008, Elemental released Badaboom, a consumer media converter, in partnership with NVIDIA Corporation. Badaboom uses Elemental's video engine to transcode video files from several formats, including MPEG2, H.264, HDV, AVCHD, and RAW, into the H.264 format for devices such as the iPod, iPhone, and Sony PSP.

Elemental Technologies announced Badaboom 2.0 is the final version and stopped producing the product. [19] The company supported Badaboom until April, 2013, without further software updates.

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silicon Forest</span> Nickname for the cluster of high-tech companies near Portland, USA

Silicon Forest is a nickname for the Washington County cluster of high-tech companies located in the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon, and most frequently refers to the industrial corridor between Beaverton and Hillsboro in northwest Oregon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ateme</span>

Ateme S.A. is a multinational company that specializes in video delivery, namely software for video compression based on H.265 / HEVC standards; MPEG4; MPEG2 encoding / decoding software for contribution links, as well as for multi-screen live streaming, OTT and CDN software; origin-server and packaging software; and cloud DVR technology. The company has its headquarters in Vélizy near Paris, France, with offices that spread over Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Australia. The company also has a worldwide resellers network and operates globally with clients in more than 60 countries.

The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, or Technology and Engineering Emmys, are one of two sets of Emmy Awards that are presented for outstanding achievement in engineering development in the television industry. The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards are presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), while the separate Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards are given by its sister organization the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS).

ATI Avivo is a set of hardware and low level software features present on the ATI Radeon R520 family of GPUs and all later ATI Radeon products. ATI Avivo was designed to offload video decoding, encoding, and post-processing from a computer's CPU to a compatible GPU. ATI Avivo compatible GPUs have lower CPU usage when a player and decoder software that support ATI Avivo is used. ATI Avivo has been long superseded by Unified Video Decoder (UVD) and Video Coding Engine (VCE).

Webtrends is a private company headquartered in Portland, Oregon, United States. It provides digital analytics, optimization and software related to digital marketing and e-commerce. It provides services to approximately 2,000 companies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital Trends</span> Tech news, lifestyle, and information website

Digital Trends is a Portland, Oregon-based tech news, lifestyle, and information website that publishes news, reviews, guides, how-to articles, descriptive videos and podcasts about technology and consumer electronics products. With offices in Portland, Oregon, New York City, Chicago and other locations, Digital Trends is operated by Digital Trends Media Group, a media company that also publishes Digital Trends Español, focusing on Spanish speakers worldwide, and a men's lifestyle site The Manual.

HTTP Live Streaming is an HTTP-based adaptive bitrate streaming communications protocol developed by Apple Inc. and released in 2009. Support for the protocol is widespread in media players, web browsers, mobile devices, and streaming media servers. As of 2022, an annual video industry survey has consistently found it to be the most popular streaming format.

Kulabyte was a private company headquartered in San Marcos, Texas that developed live video encoding and video streaming software and provided streaming event services. KulaByte was acquired by Haivision in 2011 and is now part of Haivision's product line. Kulabyte's claimed advantage in video encoding is that it provides higher quality live HD H.264 video than any other encoder on the market while requiring lower delivery bandwidth.

Adaptive bitrate streaming is a technique used in streaming multimedia over computer networks.

Wowza Streaming Engine is a unified streaming media server software developed by Wowza. The server is used for streaming of live and on-demand video, audio, and rich Internet applications over IP networks to desktop, laptop, and tablet computers, mobile devices, IPTV set-top boxes, internet-connected TV sets, game consoles, and other network-connected devices. The server is a Java application deployable on most operating systems.

x265 HEVC/H.265 encoder

x265 is an encoder for creating digital video streams in the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265) video compression format developed by the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC). It is available as a command-line app or a software library, under the terms of GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later; however, customers may request a commercial license.

Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), also known as MPEG-DASH, is an adaptive bitrate streaming technique that enables high quality streaming of media content over the Internet delivered from conventional HTTP web servers. Similar to Apple's HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) solution, MPEG-DASH works by breaking the content into a sequence of small segments, which are served over HTTP. An early HTTP web server based streaming system called SProxy was developed and deployed in the Hewlett Packard Laboratories in 2006. It showed how to use HTTP range requests to break the content into small segments. SProxy shows the effectiveness of segment based streaming, gaining best Internet penetration due to the wide deployment of firewalls, and reducing the unnecessary traffic transmission if a user chooses to terminate the streaming session earlier before reaching the end. Each segment contains a short interval of playback time of content that is potentially many hours in duration, such as a movie or the live broadcast of a sport event. The content is made available at a variety of different bit rates, i.e., alternative segments encoded at different bit rates covering aligned short intervals of playback time. While the content is being played back by an MPEG-DASH client, the client uses a bit rate adaptation (ABR) algorithm to automatically select the segment with the highest bit rate possible that can be downloaded in time for playback without causing stalls or re-buffering events in the playback. The current MPEG-DASH reference client dash.js offers both buffer-based (BOLA) and hybrid (DYNAMIC) bit rate adaptation algorithms. Thus, an MPEG-DASH client can seamlessly adapt to changing network conditions and provide high quality playback with few stalls or re-buffering events.

New Relic is a US-based web tracking and analytics company. The company's cloud-based software allows websites and mobile apps to track user interactions and service operators' software and hardware performance.

Unreal Media Server is a streaming server software created by Unreal Streaming Technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital Rapids Corporation</span> Software company in Canada

Digital Rapids Corporation is a privately held technology company headquartered in Markham, Ontario, Canada that produces hardware and software for the digital media industry. Founded in 2001, Digital Rapids develops systems and software for media ingest, multi-screen video encoding, transcoding, streaming, and workflow automation. Media and entertainment companies using Digital Rapids products include Deluxe, Foxtel, the Miami Heat NBA team, NBC Universal, Starz and Turner Broadcasting. A variety of customers in education, government, corporate and worship markets also use Digital Rapids products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portland Incubator Experiment</span> Business incubator in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

The Portland Incubator Experiment, often abbreviated as PIE or PIE PDX or stylized as Pie, is a business incubator based in Portland, Oregon that provides mentorship and resources to select startup companies. Co-founded by Renny Gleeson and Rick Turoczy, PIE is run by the Portland-based advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy (W+K). The program was informally launched in 2009 before converting to a formal structure in 2011. PIE participants are chosen by a selection committee, following an application process. Startups receive seed money and spend three months developing their businesses with support from W+K and participating mentors. Companies that have provided financial assistance and mentorship include The Coca-Cola Company, Google, Intel, Nike, Inc. and Target Corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haivision</span> Canadian video streaming technology company

Haivision is a Canadian company focused on developing video streaming technology. Haivision is headquartered in Montreal and Chicago with about 250 employees and 7 offices around the world, including one in Rendsburg, Germany. Haivision has additionally been credited with the development and maintenance of the Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) protocol, along with the associated SRT Alliance. Notable members of the SRT Alliance include Microsoft, Alibaba, and Harmonic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomson Video Networks</span>

Thomson Video Networks (TVN) was a technology broadcast company that used to provide video compression, transcoding and processing solutions for media companies, video service providers, and TV broadcasters. The firm has offices in 16 countries and headquarters in Rennes, France. TVN has been acquired by Harmonic Inc. in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oregon Venture Fund</span> Venture capital fund

Oregon Venture Fund makes venture investments in the Portland, Oregon area and throughout Oregon and SW Washington. The fund consists of 180 institutional and angel investors, of whom 85% have run or founded a business. The fund evaluates up to 300 business plans per year, selecting five to seven to invest in annually. In 2018, the fund changed its name from Oregon Angel Fund to Oregon Venture Fund and launched a new $30M fund. Since its inception, Oregon Venture Fund has generated an average annual rate of return of 34% and a return on investment exceeding $3.50 for each dollar invested.

Ian Bell is co-founder of technology news and reviews site Digital Trends and men's lifestyle site The Manual, both owned by the privately held Designtechnica, where he is CEO. In 2017 he was a finalist for EY's Entrepreneur of the Year award in the Pacific Northwest. Prior to founding Digital Trends, Bell held positions at Intel, Lockheed Martin, and The Ostler Group, a strategic marketing firm.

References

  1. ↑ "Leadership". www.elemental.com. AWS Elemental. Retrieved 2018-10-05.
  2. ↑ "Pixelworks Invests in Elemental Technologies Inc". Business Wire. October 16, 2006. Retrieved 2012-07-30.
  3. ↑ Siemers, Eric (July 16, 2012). "Elemental Helps Power Olympics Coverage". Portland Business Journal . Retrieved 2012-07-30.
  4. ↑ Markowitz, Erik (July 11, 2012). "Now Playing on Your iPhone: The Olympics". Inc. Retrieved 2012-07-30.
  5. ↑ Rogoway, Mike (September 23, 2013). "Silicon Forest 25 -- 2013 edition". The Oregonian . Retrieved 2013-09-23.
  6. ↑ Rogoway, Mike (April 17, 2017). "Portland's Elemental Technologies changes its name – and logo". The Oregonian. Retrieved 2017-08-30.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Robertson, Jordan; Riley, Michael (October 4, 2018). "The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies". Archived from the original on October 4, 2018.
  8. ↑ Naughton, John (13 October 2018). "The tech giants, the US and the Chinese spy chips that never were… or were they?". The Guardian . Retrieved 23 August 2019.
  9. ↑ Brinckman, Jonathan (July 18, 2008). "Portland startup success is on (electronic) display)". Oregonlive.com . Retrieved 2012-07-30.
  10. ↑ Rogoway, Mike (July 17, 2008). "Elemental Technologies lands first venture investment". Oregonlive.com . Retrieved 2012-07-27.
  11. ↑ Rogoway, Mike (July 27, 2010). "Elemental Technologies wins backing from Steamboat Ventures, Disney's VC arm". Oregonlive.com . Retrieved 2012-07-27.
  12. ↑ Rogoway, Mike (May 7, 2012). "Elemental Technologies raises $13 million venture round, prepares global marketing push". Oregonlive.com . Retrieved 2012-07-27.
  13. ↑ Rogoway, Mike (December 22, 2014). "Elemental Technologies adds $14.5 million investment, led by global broadcasters Telstra and Sky". Oregonlive.com . Retrieved 2014-12-22.
  14. ↑ "Elemental Technologies, Portland's biggest young tech company, sells to Amazon Web Services". The Oregonian. September 3, 2015. Retrieved 2015-09-03.
  15. ↑ "Elemental Live Shakes Up The Economics of Video Streaming". GigaOM. April 6, 2010. Archived from the original on 2012-10-15. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
  16. ↑ "Elemental Takes Transcoding to the GPU". Contentinople. May 20, 2009. Archived from the original on 2009-05-23. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
  17. ↑ "NewTeeVee's Next Big Thing List 2009". GigaOM. May 19, 2009. Archived from the original on 2012-01-22. Retrieved 2009-05-19.
  18. ↑ "IABM Design and Innovation Awards 2014". IABM. September 13, 2014. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved 2014-09-26.
  19. ↑ "Badaboom End-of-Life Announcement". Elemental Technologies. April 18, 2012. Archived from the original on 2013-01-17. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
  20. ↑ "NAB Best of Show awards", NAB, 2023, retrieved 2023-06-05
  21. ↑ "NewBay Media Best of Show awards", NewBay Media, 2017, retrieved 2017-05-04
  22. ↑ "EY Entrepreneur of the Year", EY, 2016, retrieved 2016-06-20
  23. ↑ "TVB Awards", TVB, 2014, retrieved 2015-10-23[ permanent dead link ]
  24. ↑ "IABM Design and Innovation awards", IABM, 2014, retrieved 2014-09-26
  25. ↑ "CSI 2013 Award Winners", Cable & Satellite International, 2013, retrieved 2013-11-01
  26. ↑ "ConnectedWorld.TV 2013 Award Winners", Connected World, 2013, archived from the original on 2013-09-30, retrieved 2013-09-16
  27. ↑ "PBJ100: See where the fastest-growing companies rank", Portland Business Journal, June 20, 2013, retrieved 2013-01-22
  28. ↑ "The Technology Association of Oregon Names 2013 Oregon Technology Award Winners", Technology Association of Oregon, 2013, retrieved 2013-04-26
  29. ↑ "America's Most Promising Companies", Forbes, 2012, retrieved 2013-11-01
  30. ↑ "The 2012 Inc. 5000 List", Inc., 2012, retrieved 2012-08-29
  31. ↑ "America's Most Promising Companies", Forbes, 2011, retrieved 2012-07-30
  32. ↑ Schumacher-Rasmussen, Eric (2011), "2011 Editors' Picks for the Best in Streaming Video", Streaming Media Magazine, retrieved 2012-07-30
  33. ↑ "TV Technology Announces STAR, Mario Awards for the 2010 NAB Show", TV Technology, 2010, archived from the original on 2012-10-03, retrieved 2012-07-30
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.