Emmy Awarded to Vela for Technological Advancement in MPEG Encoders and Decoders Vela Credited with "Pioneering Development" of Full Motion Broadcast Quality Compression Cards. Vela, a long-time leader in the broadcast and cable industries for its video compression products, today announced that the company has been recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences with the Academy's prestigious Emmy Award. Presented for outstanding achievement in technological advancement, the Emmy commends Vela for "pioneering development of full motion broadcast quality PC video and compression plug-in cards utilized in the manufacture of non-linear editing systems or video servers," according to a statement released by the National Academy.

"In the history of broadcasting there has never been a more critical and exciting time than today," said John Cannon, President of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. "We at the National Academy are totally and sincerely committed to the strongest encouragement of technological accomplishments. Vela can be rightfully proud of its singular achievement."

Mike Reddy, Vela's President and CEO, said, "Compression cards used in many video systems, especially video servers, have changed the dynamic of the television industry. Vela's standards-based PC cards have provided content distributors and broadcasters with cost-effective, high-quality means to enable the revolution in storage and distribution of digital video a practical reality."

Vela's MPEG compression cards allow the use of general-purpose hardware and software to construct reliable, cost-effective and innovative products. The company's MPEG-2 encoders and decoders were first demonstrated to the public at the National Cable Television Association trade show held in New Orleans in May 1994. Digital Equipment Corp. was the first company to use the cards, in 1995, employing them in their digital ad insertion system for unattended multichannel commercial playback in cable television headends. Since that time, the cards have enabled the development and proliferation of thousands of channels in applications such as near-video-on-demand, video archiving, ad insertion, video kiosks, and video servers.

Vela's board-level products are used in some of the industry's most advanced video servers, by such manufacturers as IBM, EMC, Silicon Graphics, and Sun Microsystems. Major media and broadcast users of Vela's products include the BBC, Children's Television Workshop (known for the Sesame Street television series), DG Systems, Disney Animation, MTV Europe, and Vyvx. Vela continues to supply many of the world's top companies the core technology that allows them to implement digital video applications.