Screen play: RGB acquires RipCode to enhance video processing offerings

Hoping to get a jump on what it perceives as a consolidation trend within the video processing space, RGB Networks has acquired privately held RipCode and will incorporate its mobile video processing technology into the RGB Video Multiprocessing Gateway.

The RGB platform is built to work with conventional cable and telco video delivery systems for set-top boxes connected to TVs and PCs. "What it couldn't do, until we made this acquisition, was go into a mobile environment. The reason for acquiring RipCode is to acquire mobile capabilities to this platform," Jef Graham, RGB's CEO told FierceCable. "As we complete the integration we'll be the only carrier class IP video platform in the world that can deliver to three screens."

RGB will modularly incorporate RipCode's technology into its gateway. At the same time, it will establish a new mobile video division under the direction of RipCode CEO Brendon Mills.

"Our strategy is to target the existing video service providers. We want to be their migration partner as they move to IP video and migrate to deliver to three screens in a live or linear fashion and also on an offline or on-demand fashion," said Graham. "They no longer want headends that are purely siloed delivering only one type of device or one type of location; they want to move to IP video and deliver to three screens."

Consolidation, the two companies believe, is a distinct enough trend to encourage this acquisition.

"You're going to see the policy of video transcoding across a network take a much more powerful position," said Mills. "This policy control of transcoding, whether it's mobile carriers or eventually all the way through the cable infrastructure, is where the future is and something that RGB Networks, with this merger, is positioned for."

For more:
- see this news release [1]