Solutions for Internet TV
The team at Envivio has been developing the technologies required to power high-end Internet TV applications for the past eleven years. No other company in the world understands more about streaming high quality video to the PC. Not only are we able to compress video and audio streams efficiently, we also know how to implement RTP delivery correctly so these streams can be delivered reliably, even over imperfect IP networks such as the public internet. As a recognized leader in this field we are already quietly helping numerous high profile customers implement their Internet TV vision.
On-Network (Private Network) Live Internet TV: A typical example of an on-network Internet TV application is the PC playback of an IPTV service delivered to the home over a managed private network. This might be to enable more viewers in a household without the need for more set top boxes, or to allow users to try an IPTV service before making a commitment. In some emerging markets it may also be used to alleviate the need for a set top box entirely. Often, in order to provide consistency with existing IPTV deployment infrastructure, and because on-network IP quality of service levels are easier to guarantee, content is multicast to the PC using MPEG-2 Transport Streams in the same way it is delivered to set top boxes. However, many providers are also opting to use RTP transport because of the resulting lower transport overhead and improved error resilience.
Off-Network (Public Internet) Live Internet TV: A typical example of an off-network Internet TV application is the PC playback of TV services subscribed to at home while connected anywhere on the public Internet – a Slingbox-type service provided directly by the CableTV or IPTV operator. As the content is streamed over the public internet, which does not support multicast delivery, encoded streams need to interoperate correctly with commonly used unicast streaming servers, and must be based on RTSP/RTP protocols rather than MPEG-2 Transport Stream, if reliable delivery is to be ensured.
In order to give operators flexibility when designing their Internet TV solution, Envivio supports a very wide range of compression, delivery and playback options:
Multiple Codecs: Envivio's 4Caster C4 encoder supports all of the video and audio compression profiles commonly used for Internet TV. These include MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) Baseline and Main Profile (for QuickTime, VLC and Flash), as well as Window Media Video & Audio (for Windows Media Player).
Multiple Streaming Formats: The C4 supports delivery of live Internet TV streams as: MPEG-2 Transport Streams, for on-network IPTV service expansion to the PC; RTSP/RTP streaming, for on- and off-network delivery to PC players such as QuickTime and VLC; and UDP or TCP delivery using RTSP/MMS/HTTP, for on- and off-network delivery of Windows Media streams to Windows Media Player.
Multiple PC Players: Our broad support of codecs and streaming formats means operators can chose from a wide range of PC media players, including QuickTime (Windows and MAC), Windows Media Player and VLC. Support for Flash streaming will be added shortly.
Multicast and Unicast: Envivio supports both multicast delivery for on-network applications and unicast delivery for off-network delivery on the public internet.
DRM: Although Envivio does not provide DRM systems directly, we have integrated our encoding products with DRM companies who provide solutions for Internet TV. An Envivio solution offers access to a secure content delivery platform that has already undergone extensive end to end system testing.
Envivio's solution for Internet TV is based around the 4Caster C4 encoder and the Convergence Generation video headend. The C4 encoder is a high availability hardware platform with an embedded software encoding core. This is the same hardware platform used to provide our IPTV solution loaded with a different set of encoding profiles. This unique compression architecture offers numerous major benefits to network operators:
Encoding Quality Upgrades: Unlike most professional encoder suppliers in the market, Envivio actually develops its video compression algorithms in-house. Our implementations are not rigidly coded into a hardware processor but run as embedded software on a high power, flexible Intel processing core. Encoding performance can be upgraded with each software release with no need to buy and install new hardware.
Codec Flexibility: The C4 already supports a wide range of different video and audio codecs to deliver a variety of Internet TV and IPTV profiles. Video codecs include: H.264 AVC (H.264) Main and Baseline profiles; AVS (the Chinese video compression standard); and Windows Media Video. Audio codecs include: MPEG Layer II; MPEG-4 AAC; MPEG-4 HE-AAC v2; and Windows Media Audio. This range will expand as support for more applications are added to the C4 encoder.
Multi-Service Flexibility: Envivio's 4Caster C4 encoder and Convergence Generation headend support both Internet TV and IPTV applications from the same platform, and more applications will be added shortly. The flexibility of Envivio's solution means that the platform can evolve and grow with changing operational requirements.
Feature Flexibility: The powerful multi-purpose processors used within Envivio's encoding products are totally flexible and can easily be used to support new features. Features such as encryption and advanced rate control have already been added as software options to some of Envivio's other encoder product lines. In fact most new features can be added in software with no need for hardware upgrades.
Rapid Product Development: Software based architectures can be upgraded more frequently and more rapidly than hardware-only based systems. Development and upgrade times for the Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) powering most professional encoders on the market today are very slow. With ASIC based systems, bug fixes are neither quick nor easy to implement and major upgrades require a hardware change.
Envivio currently has deployable solutions for the Internet TV applications described above. However, we realize that the market is at an early stage of development and would be pleased to discuss other applications or special requirements you may have. Our in-depth knowledge of all the elements in the content delivery chain puts us in a unique position to be able to provide world class advice and solutions for practically any new media application.
