Flexistream™ MPEG Transport Stream Solution Reduces Cost And Complex ity Of Moving Audio, Video And Data

—Grass Valley Group's solution Bridges the Gap between Digital Production and Digital Distribution—

Amsterdam, IBC, 7 September, 2000 — Whether for digital TV transmission, digital broadcast services, spot and program distribution, remote ad insertion, or new data-enhanced services, the MPEG Transport Stream (MTS) is becoming more important in the contribution and distribution of television programming.

Able to transfer compressed video, it provides improved video quality at lower bandwidth and is an enabler for many new business models. In response, the Grass Valley Group today unveiled its Flexistream™ MTS interface to its Emmy^® award-winning Profile XP Media Platform.

Unlike restrictive MPEG transport stream-only storage products, Flexistream leapfrogs existing solutions and maintains editing flexibility while reducing the number of encoding and decoding steps. In some distribution applications, this implementation may actually eliminate transport stream encoder costs since the original encoding may be done upstream or when the material is recorded on the server.

Flexistream is able to eliminate multiple packaging steps traditionally required in the encoding process because it is able to reconfigure video inventory dynamically in the MTS domain directly on the server. In addition, Flexistream allows the insertion of data into video streams to increase revenue opportunities, by enabling broadcasters to tap into new digital business opportunities, such as data enhanced and interactive TV.

The Grass Valley Group's approach to implementing MTS is achieved by "unwrapping" MPEG transport streams and storing them in their elementary form as separate audio, video and data tracks. By isolating MPEG data within elementary streams, the Flexistream MTS interface allows individual editing and customisation of video, audio, and data content.

All the while, Flexistream maintains the integrity of content and, using the same technique, enables broadcasters the potential to insert data into their video streams for more efficient customisation of content for broad repurposing. The Flexistream MTS option supports audio, video, data, data essence (data delivered to either enhance the program content or to deliver Internet data), and metadata (control data such as that needed for set-top box pan and scan).

"The growing acceptance of MPEG Transport Streams as the preferred method of real time compressed video distribution, coupled with the number one market share held by the Profile XP, make the Flexistream the most accessible MTS solution available. Broadcasters need make only an incremental investment to tap the efficiencies offered by Flexistream— as with our Internet (WebAble), high definition, and shared storage solutions," said Tim Thorsteinson, president of the Grass Valley Group. "More broadcast content is currently stored on the Profile XP than on any other video server."

Grass Valley's MTS solution further enhances the company's leadership position in solutions for delivery of video, audio, and data in real-time or faster than real time. Another example of such leadership is the Grass Valley Group's High Bandwidth Streaming Format (proposed to SMPTE as GXF), which has the capability to stream, record, and playback video simultaneously, delivering on the productivity promise of streaming technology overcoming limitations of networking in applications such as recording of news feeds.

A groundswell of industry support from the likes of Avid Technologies, Inc., Avalon Consulting, IBM and Panasonic and Vibrint Technologies for the Grass Valley Group's format for streaming compressed video and audio over data networks is rapidly pushing the company's standard to defacto status. To facilitate implementation by other vendors, Grass Valley has documented its current practice and submitted this to SMPTE for standardisation.

Freeing Bandwidth, Offering More Services

Digital Television's requirement for additional channels of program distribution to affiliates has hastened the move to compressed delivery both for current standard definition programming and the new multi-channel standard definition or high definition program services. Compressed distribution frees bandwidth on existing transponders to add the new channels without increasing space segment charges; these streams can be ingested directly to the Profile XP through the Flexistream interface.

With the Flexistream MTS option for the Profile XP Media Platform, broadcasters are not confined to the transport stream domain. Now, they can ingest a transport stream and playout baseband video to their master control switcher, allowing the same flexibility in on-air presentation as they have today. The MTS interface also provides for direct connection to multiplexers with the ability to source transport streams directly from the Profile XP.

In many digital broadcast service or cable environments, bandwidth is at a premium and programming abundant. Services providers are always eager to add new services.

To support more various bouquet services, which these users want on a single transponder, the Grass Valley Group's Flexistream MTS option for their Media Platforms facilitates the transfer and acquisition of pre-compressed material without decoding. This improves quality by bypassing a codec stage in the distribution path, and also permits facilities to receive data enhancements synchronised with the video for interactive television.

Further, Flexistream's technique of storing the recorded material in its elementary stream format on disk permits increased flexibility for trimming and re-ordering material for subsequent replay.

Today's announcements are part of the Grass Valley Group's Media Without Bounds™ technology and solutions initiative to optimise video and other content creators' digital distribution strategies. Key to that optimisation is the ability of these emerging digicasters to leverage the increased use of MPEG compression formats in both contribution (venue to production facility), distribution (production facility to distributor), and emission (to the consumer) applications. To achieve this, broadcasters, or digicasters must be able to leverage increased use of MPEG compression formats in both contribution (source materials) and distribution (getting signals out) applications.

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Notes to Editors

The Grass Valley Group knows more about high-quality video than anybody else—especially as video goes digital. Interactive television. Digital cinema. Data-enhanced broadcasting. Internet. It's a world of Digicasting™—of Media Without Bounds™. Whether online or on the air, the Emmy^® award-winning Grass Valley Group, a privately held digital media leader, has the hardware, software, and new media technologies necessary to get content wherever it needs to go. For the latest Grass Valley Group product information, visit /.

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