Imagine Communications is expanding its industry-proven playout portfolio with the launch of XVR™, an all-new offering of scalable, deployment-optimized playout engines designed from the ground up to streamline the launch and management of broadcast-quality linear and live streaming channels across on-prem, hybrid, and cloud environments.
Built on Imagine’s decades of expertise in powering top-tier broadcast operations, XVR engines are ideal for ingest, playout, and unified origination environments of any scale — especially in SMPTE ST 2110 or cloud-hosted scenarios. The new playout engines run on modern Linux foundations and leverage data center technologies to enable rapid, repeatable, and highly secure deployment.
With the addition of XVR, Imagine now offers the most complete playout and automation portfolio in the industry. The company’s high-performance Nexio+™ AMP SDI media servers, ideal for fast-turnaround news and sports, are stalwarts of production, preparation, and distribution facilities worldwide, with more than 50,000 channels deployed to date. Its pioneering Versio™ integrated playout platform — which produces television channels with graphics, branding, and finishing suitable for direct-to-air applications — is the industry’s top choice for robust, turnkey channel origination. Bringing unique cloud and deployment capabilities to the mix, XVR rounds out the Imagine family of playout engines to meet every customer requirement.
“XVR brings a powerful new option to our proven playout portfolio — purpose-built for scalable, cloud-optimized deployments,” said John Mailhot, senior vice president, product management, at Imagine Communications. “With XVR, we’re expanding the range of choices available to media companies navigating today’s hybrid environments. It’s about adding to our portfolio to meet customers where they are, whether that’s SDI, IP, or cloud, and giving them the best tools to navigate the combination.”
Offering competitive pricing options, including usage-based subscription pricing, XVR playout engines are designed to meet the demands of media companies facing pressure to increase channel count without increasing costs. Leveraging high-availability shared storage, XVR scales dynamically to match evolving system sizes while driving down costs through high channel density on-prem and reduced per-instance cloud costs.
Imagine’s XVR playout engines will support the full range of interface requirements found in modern facilities, including SDI, 12G SDI, ST 2110, TS, and SRT. Customers benefit from a consistent feature set regardless of deployment model — ensuring operational continuity, simplified training, and lower total cost of ownership. Building on Imagine’s extensive experience in broadcast playout, XVR engines natively play all typical industry video file formats, including XAVC, ProRes, DNxHD, and more, eliminating the expense and delay of transcoding.
The new XVR playout engines are deployed by Aviator Orchestrator for maximum operational agility — enabling users to spin up resources on demand and burst to the cloud when needed. They are also fully compatible with Imagine’s widely deployed Aviator Automation™ and ADC on-prem playout automation, which power more than 5,000 channels at 700 sites worldwide.
Notably, XVR is among the first playout engines to utilize the Intel Ethernet E810 Network Adapter in conjunction with components from the Intel Tiber Broadcast Suite, delivering robust ST 2110 performance on all-COTS platforms — reinforcing Imagine’s leadership in software-defined, standards-based broadcast technology on COTS compute platforms.
As part of Imagine’s commitment to strong industry collaboration, XVR supports open APIs, enabling seamless integration with customer DevOps tools and systems. These modern APIs also enable leading third-party automation systems, including Aveco, Crispin, and Florical, to automate the XVR engines. Like the proven Nexio and Versio systems, XVR playout engines integrate with Imagine’s high-bandwidth IOX™ Storage, the scale-out storage platform designed for optimal operation in the most demanding environments.
“No two media operations are the same — and our approach to playout reflects that,” Mailhot continued. “XVR gives customers an exciting new option for scalable, data center-native playout, while our trusted solutions like Versio and Nexio+ AMP continue to deliver unmatched reliability and performance in SDI and hybrid workflows.”
Media companies attending IBC 2025 can visit the Imagine stand (1.B73) for a hands-on demonstration of the XVR engines and all the latest advances in the company’s broad, industry-proven playout portfolio.
