Billions Of Dollars Of Video Infrastructure Will Be Obsolete As New HD Video Standards Like H.264 Emerge, According To Broadcast International

Buyers Can Avoid Costly Product Obsolescence by Purchasing Upgradeable, "Future-Proof" Video Solutions

October 23, 2007

As the latest HD video standard, H.264, emerges on the market, replacing the current MPEG 2 standard, billions of dollars in video infrastructure will be rendered obsolete. The adoption of the new standard is critical to the fulfillment of a federal mandate requiring that all video broadcasts be delivered in digital format by 2009. This FCC mandate, along with unprecedented user demand for HD video, are the driving factors in the most significant video infrastructure replacement cycle in over 10 years. More than 90% of the existing video infrastructure is still based on the MPEG 2 standard which will not support the quantity or quality of video demanded by the market and the new regulations. But according to Rod Tiede, CEO of Broadcast International, a leading video technology innovator, buyers must be mindful to make replacement purchases with upgradeability foremost in mind in order to avoid costly infrastructure obsolescence, especially since the new standards are likely to change frequently for the foreseeable future. The ability to adapt to change is a particularly important buying criterion with video compression technology - one of the most critical and rapidly changing components of the video infrastructure, according to Tiede. "Perhaps the most important factor in the purchase of a video compression solution is whether or not the product is 'future proof,'" said Tiede. "H.264 is not a single standard, but a rolling standard with important iterations every year or so. As the standard evolves and new codecs come out, video content producers and delivery providers could be faced with enormous replacement costs in as little as a year if they don't choose wisely." The video compression market is one of the few technology areas in which the hardware and software in most products has remained tightly coupled in embedded systems. "That's just a bad model," said Tiede, "and one that has been rejected in nearly every other segment of the technology industry. You don't have to throw your computers out every time Microsoft launches a new version of software, but that's exactly what video compression vendors have asked their customers to do." Broadcast International's CodecSys video compression software is based on an entirely different model -an open software architecture that can accommodate new standards, such as H.264, as well as new specialized codecs as they come onto the market. With CodecSys, codecs can be upgraded and added through simple, cost-effective software downloads; other solutions require costly, full replacement. BI has a joint development effort with IBM to integrate its CodecSys software with IBM's BladeCenter QS20 "Cell Blade" multi-core processor. The new hardware platform is also highly scalable, allowing customers to easily add additional processing power by simply adding extra processors or "blades." At IBC in Amsterdam in September of this year, Broadcast International and IBM demonstrated the jointly developed product publicly for the first time. Not only is CodecSys the only "future-proof" video compression solution, it also offers unrivaled levels of video compression, reducing bandwidth needs by more than 80%, from the current MPEG 2 standard of 19.8 Mbps to 3 Mbps for HD-quality video over satellite, cable, IP and wireless networks. CodecSys achieves its breakthrough level of performance through a patented multi-codec approach, using artificial intelligence to analyze a video stream and select the codec best-suited to a particular video frame or sequence from an entire library of codecs. By selecting the best codec for the job, CodecSys is able to offer performance several times higher than competitive products, which rely on a single codec for every type of video stream. The looming bandwidth crisis According to Tiede, explosive user demand for video -- and particularly for HD quality -- in markets such as cable, IPTV, Internet video and wireless is precipitating a bandwidth crisis. According to comScore, for example, there were more than half as many video views as searches conducted last year on the Internet, and video is much more bandwidth-intensive. The bandwidth crisis is particularly troublesome in the U.S., which has dropped from fourth to 15th place on the broadband ranking kept by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. "Video compression technology like ours will go a long way toward alleviating the bandwidth crisis," said Tiede. "But just as important as compression efficiency in a buying decision is the ability to adapt to change. Infrastructure providers need to make sure that they aren't simply choosing an expedient solution for the near term, but one that is scalable and upgradeable as standards change and video volumes continue to skyrocket."

Read More: