Internet Solutions

The IP/TV Server captures live or prerecorded video and audio streams using a variety of third-party video capture cards. One real-time stream and several stored streams can then be sent by the IP/TV Server throughout a corporate intranet using IP Multicast and Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) technologies. In this way each stream can serve any number of viewers, without any increase in network bandwidth consumed.

The IP/TV Viewer communicates with the IP/TV Program Guide to present the list of scheduled multicasts at the user's desktop and displays the actual audio/video program content. Users can sign up for a particular multicast using the IP/TV Viewer, which provides VCR-style controls along with the ability to "channel surf" among multiple multicast programs. IP/TV provides facilities for collecting management information, displaying network performance statistics, and exercising administrative controls to manage network and bandwidth utilization. Any Windows 95 or Windows NT system can run the IP/TV Viewer to "tune in" to the desired stream, or channel.

The Server and Viewer are Windows applications that support Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG-1) compression as well as H.261, Indeo, VXtreme, or future ActiveMovie-compatible hardware or software codec, and can play back any files in both MPEG and Video-for-Windows format (AVI). IP/TV will also work with MPEG and other hardware decompression boards, if available on the viewer system.

The IP/TV Program Guide, used for multicast program setup and management, is accessed via any HTML network browser. The IP/TV Program Guide provides channel and program scheduling information that both the Server and Viewer systems can reference, including parameters for limiting the number of audio/video streams allowed on a network. The IP/TV Server delivers multicast programs according to parameters entered in the Program Guide, including start time, audio only, or audio/video. The Program Guide requires a Windows NT system running Microsoft's Internet Information Server or a Unix platform with a web server.

The IP/TV Streamwatch is a software utility that measures reach and ROI (return of investment). Additionally, it logs user subscription and demographic information for each broadcasted video stream.

IP/TV uses state-of-the-art Internet standards such as IP Multicast, Real-Time Transfer Protocol (RTP) (RFC 1889, 1890), Real-time Transport Control Protocol (RTCP), and Windows application program interfaces (APIs).