Verizon Digital Media Services (VDMS) announced this morning that it has acquired upLynk, which offers content providers an innovative cloud-based adaptive streaming platform for multi-device TV Everywhere distribution. upLynk gained wide visibility earlier this year when it announced that Disney was using it to power the Watch Disney apps, ABC player and ABC Family player.

upLynk's platform allows content providers to simplify one of the most complex and costly pieces of their workflow - the encoding and transcoding processes needed to properly serve various connected and mobile devices. With upLynk, content providers upload their video to the cloud platform in chunks, where it is simultaneously encoded, transcoded and stored for playback.

One of upLynk's big selling points is guaranteed transcoding for subsequent devices/formats so the content provider is essentially future-proofed. Another upLynk differentiator is server-side ad insertion, which  reduces insertion complexity and smoothes out the user experience.

In a briefing, VMDS's chief product officer Chris Carey noted that upLynk's emphasis on simplification and cost-reduction appealed to VMDS, which positions itself as an end-to-end digital supply chain solution for content providers and pay-TV operators to deliver online. Ken Brueck, upLynk's CMO added that for its part, VMDS offers scale and resources to grow that it didn't have a startup.