High-Quality Streaming Video Platform Built for Low Bandwidths

Equator Technologies and Snell & Wilcox announced that they have developed an optimized digital video platform that will enable low-cost consumer products to deliver better-than-VHS quality video at sub-megabit bandwidths.

"We've brought our experience in broadcast-quality video processing to broadband media delivery. Our technology coupled with Equator's MAP-CA processor in the set-top box allows us to deliver for the first time a video experience superior to VHS at sub-megabit bandwidths," said Snell & Wilcox chairman David Youlton. "Alternative solutions using fixed-function MPEG-2 codecs require twice the bandwidth of the MAP-CA solution."

Equator's MAP-CA processor is fully C-programmable, and as such is designed to offer software flexibility at the price of fixed-function media solutions. "This performance and flexibility facilitates the development of fast-to-market high-quality consumer video systems," said Dr. Avi Katz, CEO of Equator.

Video pre-processing and encoding, MAP-CA codecs and post-processing software, and MAP-CA components implementing this technology will be available from Snell & Wilcox and Equator in the fourth quarter.

"The video quality that Snell & Wilcox and Equator have demonstrated at just 800 kilobits is amazing -- better than VHS quality," said Richard Doherty, director of research for the Envisioneering Group, a technology assessment and market research firm. "Adopting this technology, broadband system operators can now provide customers with a quality video experience at half the bandwidth of competing fixed-function solutions."

What this means to consumers, according to Doherty, is greater program variety and higher-quality content. "Cable and wireless operators benefit from both increased subscriber choice and reduced carriage costs. DSL system operators for the first time can offer quality video over real-world ADSL links," he said. "In each instance, this technology allows operators to get to market faster and to reach larger audiences. As the MAP-CA is a programmable platform, operators can remotely reconfigure and upgrade set-top boxes, avoiding costly truck rolls."