White House to Stream Video for National Security Staff

The White House has set up a secure streaming video intranet for the National Security Council and the White House Situation Room. The streams will be delivered to 285 White House desktops using technology from VBrick Systems(www.vbrick.com), of Wallingford, Connecticut.

Staff at the NSC and the White House Situation Room, a 24-hour media and intelligence monitoring center, will watch live and stored video feeds using VBrick's Model 3200 video appliance and StreamplayerII software. The feeds include security video from foreign-based surveillance cameras and news media from CNN, FOX and NBC.

The Model 3200 allows organizations to multicast live video to a large number of desktops with little network impact. The streams are multi-cast through a secure IP network using MPEG servers and encoders.

The VBrick technology was chosen by the White House Systems and Technical Planning Office, which gives IT support to the President and National Security Adviser.

The NSC was not available for comment on the details of the new video system, but VBrick founder and president Richard Mavrogeanes said that the White House was attracted to the "complete system proposition" provided by the company. Mavrogeanes visited the White House Situation Room earlier this month. "There was a certain gee-whiz quality [amongst NSC staff] for the first week the technology was deployed," he said.