After teaming with Motorola [then General Instrument] at the 1999 Western Show to demonstrate how cable operators can send data within compressed digital video streams, SkyStream Networks has now extended the idea into a commercial product.
SkyStream's DBN-45 source media router is aimed specifically at "in-band" data broadcasting over cable pipes: inserting IP packets into MPEG-2 compressed video streams that can be stored and displayed by a digital set-top.
The product, which will be demonstrated at NCTA this week, is similar in technology to SkyStream's DBN-25 and DBN-35 routers, which are aimed at satellite and terrestrial DTV applications, respectively.
It costs $37,500 and will support insertion of IP data across the full bandwidth of a QAM-modulated 6 MHz cable channel.
