RGB Networks Upgrades Dynamic Bandwidth Manager To Support MPEG- 4/H.264s

RGB Networks recently upgraded its Dynamic Bandwidth Manager VOD transrater to make it compatible with MPEG-4 and H.264 video formats, according to the company.

 MPEG-4 and H.264 video formats provide excellent video compression which is ideal for solutions involving high bandwidth utilization, including high definition video and a plethora of other on demand services.

 

With the installation of DBM which is reputed to be the only real time video-on-demand transrating application available currently, service providers can be assured of capabilities that will see a 50 percent higher supply of VOD to users without needing to upgrade their present transmission framework or incur expenditure on node split.  

 

Global consulting firm and industry expert InStat believes that HDTV services will witness a 30 percent growth during 2009. An increasing number of subscribers are opting for pay-per-view and free VOD. Analysys (News - Alert) Mason also expects Western Europe’s VOD segment to cross 1.1 billion Euros by 2013 from 350.7 million Euros last year. These growth figures augur well for the cable industry but meeting bandwidth requirement along with this with current infrastructure deployments will be the real challenge.

 

With the DBM operators can expand the scope of their current network capabilities by merely opting for a simple ‘drop-in‘upgrade. Previously every program would get a preset amount of bandwidth. With RGB’s new transrater, a statistical multiplexing algorithm is used which will constantly adjust the bit rates of component program. The DBM also improves the SD Program supply, up from 13 to 20 in an 8MHz channel system and from 10 to 15 for 6 MHz channel system without going in for expensive bandwidth upgrades and preserving picture quality. Operators can now save precious bandwidth in MPEG-4/H.264 and MPEG-2HD on-demand services with the DBM.

 

The VOD transrating by DBM happens instantly and thereby does away with any pre processing requirements or complicated integration with VOD servers. The DBM latches on to current installations and works well with all the key parts of VOD systems. It is compatible with VOD servers, resource managers and QAM modulators. One DBM can process almost 1000 streams at a point and these have been made commercially available in a single rack unit.

 

With the inherent low latency rates with the DBM users will also perceive no delays when using such features as fast-forward, rewind and pause. DBM is also compatible with SNMP, Java and HTTP interfaces which help it to manage elements with ease and faster integrate into SNMP-compliant network management systems.