Broadcast International is beginning a major effort to sell
its CodecSys product, which allows operators to use less bandwidth in
delivering its HDTV content, to IPTV
providers on the Microsoft Mediaroom platform.
The move follows completion of rigorous testing by Microsoft
certifying the compatibility of CodecSys platform with Microsoft's Mediaroom,
which is widely deployed by a number of Internet-protocol television providers
around the world.
"We're excited that we passed it with high marks and high
performance," said Steve Jones, general manager and vice president of Broadcast
International's CodecSys Division. "We're now moving to market it to the joint
prospects that we have with IPTV providers using Mediaroom as their IPTV
platform."
The principal focus of those efforts will be international,
particularly in Europe, where the majority of IPTV
deployments have occurred. The Mediaroom platform has been deployed in the United
Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, Macedonia, Russia, Singapore, Canada,
India and the United States, where AT&T uses it to deliver its U-verse TV
product.
The CodecSys system should be particularly appealing to IPTV
players that are trying to expand their HD offerings, said Jones, as it
provides both bandwidth and cost savings.
In terms of bandwidth, the CodecSys video-asset optimization
software offers significantly improved performance ranging from 12% to 65% depending
on the operation, Jones noted.
"We excel with file-based VOD
with improvements of 50% to 60%, while live broadcast is in the lower range of
12% to 15%" Jones explained. "To give you an idea of the bandwidth savings we
are pushing 1080p over the wire at 6 Megabytes per second and 720p at 3 [Mbps].
So that is a pretty compelling argument in term of performance."
Broadcast International's software approach to encoding,
decoding and transcoding high-definition video is also more cost-effective
those of its competitors, Jones added, because it can be easily upgraded.
"With our competitors, you have to come in and take the box
out and put in a new one if you want to upgrade the system," Jones said. "For
us, it is just a CD and a software upgrade."
That also makes it easier to integrate CodecSys with
newer equipment being installed in the network, he added.
