(30 April 2007 3:20 pm)

MUMBAI: Sun Microsystems in the US has introduced the Sun Streaming System -- the industry's first massively scalable and cost-effective video delivery platform for cable and telecommunications operators.

This helps operators increase subscriber revenue by offering new video-based services and personalised, unique video streams to each consumer.

The system leverages the Solaris) 10 Operating System (OS) to deliver video streaming capacity by enabling cost-effective personalised video delivery over existing optical network infrastructure -- consequently reshaping the economics and quality of video delivery
services.

Designed by Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, Sun's cutting-edge system design enables the Sun Streaming System to support up to 160,000 simultaneous, unique video streams at the rate of 2Mbps and a price of less than $50 per stream for complete video headend -- which is approximately 10 times the streaming capacity of competitive platforms.

32 integrated 10 Gigabit Ethernet optical networking ports combine multiplexing, switching and routing all in one high-density video streaming package.

Bechtolsheim says, "Video on demand and IPTV are expected to become widely available by 2010. The Sun Streaming System's revolutionary design allows operators to capitalise on that market opportunity and deliver unique content and relevant advertising to each subscriber, increasing revenue for
operators and advertisers. As the first industry solution to offer 160,000 video streams per switch, it is also the industry's most scalable and cost-effective solution. We are extremely excited to see where the industry
will go with this new architecture."

The Sun Streaming System is an integrated platform that is composed of a distributed software suite running on Sun Fire x64 systems, storage and switching technologies. Key components of the Sun Streaming System are the new Sun Streaming Software, the new Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch, the Sun Fire X4500 data server and the Sun Fire X4100 systems, which together provide the highest streaming throughput in the video services industry at the lowest cost.

-- Sun Streaming Software: Based on open industry standards, the Sun Streaming Software is a single point of control to operate and manage the entire video streaming system. The software enables operators to reduce time to market for deploying new services by supporting more than 20 video streaming features, such as: MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 formats; bit-rate support from 1Mbps to 20 Mbps; standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) streaming; encrypted and clear content streaming; at least six trick-play settings; Network Personal Video Recorder (nPVR) capabilities; and splicing and personalSzed playlists for permission-based target advertising. Open software standards, such as Corba, XML, HTTP and RTSP, allow operators to easily integrate third-party components for an end-to-end video headend solution.

-- Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch: A scalable memory cache-based content switching and streaming engine, the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch provides streaming density at 320 Gbps and up to 2 terabytes (TB) of memory to enable scalable video streaming with a low cost per stream.