Broadcast International announced a new MPEG-4 H.264 encoding technology that it says will cut MPEG-4 H.264 encoding rates in half for both HD and SD content. It has developed a software encoder that will operate on IBM BladeCenter servers. It calls this product CodecSys and it is able to operate multiple codecs simultaneously, each based on different image assumptions, to identify the most efficient encoding. The company stated that its encoded MPEG-4 H.264 output can be rendered by most MPEG-4 IPTV set-top boxes.
While CodecSys running on a BladeCenter is expensive for a single stream, Broadcast International stated that it is competitive with hardware encoders for four streams and significantly less expensive for 20 streams.
Broadcast International has been providing systems for satellite video networks for 25 years. It demonstrated CodecSys at NAB in April 2008. The product will be in beta test in the summer of 2008 and will have its formal announcement at IBC.
Encoding rates are a key issue for broadband delivered IPTV. Cutting rates in half will have a significant effect on ADSL and VDSL delivered IPTV, especially where HD and multiple streams are involved. ATT should find this product to be quite interesting.
Showing posts with label MPEG-4. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MPEG-4. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Packet Vision & Tandberg TV Solve MPEG-4 Ad Insertion Problem
Packet Vision ran into a problem with its targeted ad insertion project with the Inuk PC-based Internet IPTV service that serves about 150 thousand college and university students in the UK due to the use of MPEG-4 compression.
MPEG-4 has a latency of one or two seconds between I-frames that contain an entire screen. Between the I-frames only the incremental changes are transmitted. The ad insertions start with the I-frame but the ad being over written may have already run up to two seconds before the inserted ad starts. This creates a rather jarring experience where the viewer sees the ad to be over written for a bit before seeing the new ad.
This was not as significant a problem with MPEG-2 because the latency between I-frames is about 1/2 second, which does not create as bothersome an overlap with the over written ad.
Packet Vision worked with Tandberg TV, the company providing the encoders to Inuk, to carefully encode the broadcast streams from Channel 4 in the UK and to mark the insertion points. Tandberg TV made sure that ads started with an I frame so that a clean splice is made. This has provided a much better viewing experience.
This looks like a problem that is inherent in MPEG-4 that all encoder and ad insertion systems will need to solve. Packet Vision and Tandberg TV have done pioneering work to get targeted advertising to work in Telco IPTV services.
MPEG-4 has a latency of one or two seconds between I-frames that contain an entire screen. Between the I-frames only the incremental changes are transmitted. The ad insertions start with the I-frame but the ad being over written may have already run up to two seconds before the inserted ad starts. This creates a rather jarring experience where the viewer sees the ad to be over written for a bit before seeing the new ad.
This was not as significant a problem with MPEG-2 because the latency between I-frames is about 1/2 second, which does not create as bothersome an overlap with the over written ad.
Packet Vision worked with Tandberg TV, the company providing the encoders to Inuk, to carefully encode the broadcast streams from Channel 4 in the UK and to mark the insertion points. Tandberg TV made sure that ads started with an I frame so that a clean splice is made. This has provided a much better viewing experience.
This looks like a problem that is inherent in MPEG-4 that all encoder and ad insertion systems will need to solve. Packet Vision and Tandberg TV have done pioneering work to get targeted advertising to work in Telco IPTV services.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Starz Goes MPEG-4
Starz Entertainment will use Motorola encoders to distribute its content using MPEG-4 AVC.
This is another step in the trend for the content producers to do the MPEG-4 AVC encoding themselves, thus eliminating the need for IPTV service providers to transcode from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4.
This is another step in the trend for the content producers to do the MPEG-4 AVC encoding themselves, thus eliminating the need for IPTV service providers to transcode from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
HBO to go MPEG-4 HD
The premium channel HBO announced that it will introduce HD versions of all 26 of its channels in MPEG-4 format. HBO said that it had no choice because of the bandwidth savings of MPEG-4 over MPEG-2. This transition will start in the fourth quarter of 2007 and complete in the first quarter of 2008. HBO will transmit the HD channels using 8 Mbps of bandwidth for each.
This is good news for the TelcoTV providers virtually all of whom will used MPEG-4 as their native format for HD programming. They can take these MPEG-4 feeds and use them directly.
It is not as simple for the cable companies. They will have to transcode these MPEG-4 feeds to MPEG-2. This involves extra expense for the transcoders and potentially some loss of quality.
This is good news for the TelcoTV providers virtually all of whom will used MPEG-4 as their native format for HD programming. They can take these MPEG-4 feeds and use them directly.
It is not as simple for the cable companies. They will have to transcode these MPEG-4 feeds to MPEG-2. This involves extra expense for the transcoders and potentially some loss of quality.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
