Ascent Media Group and HP Form Alliance to Deliver Digital Media Services for Major Hollywood Studios and Leading Broadband Portals

Ascent Media Group (AMG) and HP (NYSE: HPQ) today announced a strategic alliance to co-develop, market and deliver enterprise-level services and technologies that enable studios, content providers and aggregators to archive, repurpose and distribute media digitally for the multi-channel market.

The announcement formalizes the companies’ three-year collaboration through which they have successfully enabled customers, such as Sony Pictures Entertainment and Paramount Pictures, to meet growing consumer demand for entertainment content on broadband, mobile, and other digital outlets and devices.

Through this alliance, the companies intend to transform the media supply chain by providing a hybrid solution to address both digital and physical media requirements. It marks the first formal pairing of a leader in transaction processing and IT with a leader in media operations.

“The media industry is in the middle of a massive shift from physical to virtual processes, and a transformational solution is needed that addresses both,” said Jose Royo, chief technology officer, Ascent Media Group. “When you combine HP’s leadership and expertise in large-scale transactions with Ascent’s deep knowledge of media workflows, the result is an extensible platform that enables media companies to scale their businesses for the digital realm cost-effectively.”

Since 2004, AMG and HP have been working together to customize solutions for studios and content distributors based on AMG’s Viia™ suite of file-based media services and the HP Digital Media Platform. The combined service platform enables a company to digitize content once, then store, manage, re-purpose and distribute it globally in multiple formats and languages to numerous providers simultaneously — all according to specified formats and delivery methods. It reduces time-to-market significantly, facilitates new revenue streams for existing assets, and can be implemented as a fully outsourced services platform or as individual managed services.

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