--Billed as a Eliminating "Bandwidth Silos" for Linear and Non-Linear Video Services
Digital video networking specialist, BigBand Networks, launched a new product, Monday, called the Converged Video Exchange (CVEx), which it bills as an intelligent software control plane that provides a unified means of delivering and managing linear and non-linear video services, across the network edge, to traditional MPEG set-top boxes, PC's, and next-generation IP devices. According to the company, the new product meets operators' need for a converged video delivery solution that combines increased efficiency of spectrum across their applications today with a "graceful migration path to tomorrow's converged network."
BigBand claims that CVEx is the first platform to remove the boundaries between disparate video service types by dynamically controlling the allocation of all RF and IP video services within a single bandwidth pool, and providing a "holistic" view into service usage and resource utilization. The company says that it is designed to 1) offer a single control plane as operators move toward eliminating dedicated bandwidth silos for individual services such as VOD, switched digital video and IPTV, while 2) simultaneously improving spectrum utilization. It is billed as supporting multiple industry-standard protocols, offering interfaces for third-party applications, and being designed to integrate with CMTS architecture.
According to BigBand, deploying a unified control plane in a converged video environment will result in high transaction rates with fast response times required for both multicast and unicast session requests. Performance, reliability and redundancy will become increasingly important, the company says, as operators add services and adopt network-based set-top box guides. BigBand says that it is "well positioned" to provide a product like CVEx, based on its experience in delivering fully redundant session managers capable of very high session transaction rates for switched digital video: it clams to currently execute billions of real-time transactions per year across more than 24 million households passed. "Transitioning to next-generation networks capable of seamless video delivery to multiple networks opens up tremendous complexity," BigBand COO, David W. Heard, said in a prepared statement. "By unifying the video through our intelligent software control plane, CVEx can help transform today's architecture into a true converged video solution delivered to any device so that in the future, it won't matter if it is wired or wireless, legacy or next-generation IP. Our job is to arm our customers with a more simplified and nimble video delivery solution that consistently delivers a quality video experience to multiple devices, anywhere."
According to BigBand, CVEx--which it claims will create a "video unification strategy" for multicast and unicast services that support converged delivery--offers a number of new capabilities:
- A common interface and single means to rapidly deploy and ensure a quality video service experience across traditional MPEG set-top boxes and next-generation IP devices, including PC's, TV's and, ultimately, mobile devices.
- The ability for bandwidth to be pooled and reallocated on an as-needed basis.
- Various subscriber and video service measurement tools that cross multiple data planes with holistic views of program and service behaviors, network resource usage and "what if" scenario planning.
BigBand describes CVEx as an intelligent software platform that will provide a "single context" for simultaneously managing video services, regardless of whether those services are broadcast, multicast or unicast. The company claims that the platform's "flexibility" will support future applications and offer service providers a vehicle for quickly launching new services, such as the delivery of traditional video services to PC's and other devices. It says that the platform's unified approach to video delivery will help transition today's cable infrastructure into a single, converged network. The initial implementation of the CVEx platform will include application sharing between RF applications, and additional functionality will be implemented as the industry further evolves toward IP, the company says.
