An Insider’s View

Through my explorations at the crowded JVC booth at NAB 2002 in LasVegas last spring, I got to speak with Juan Martinez, national productmanager for the Streamcorder and someone who’s been intimatelyinvolved with the birth of the world’s first streaming camcordersystem.

VS: What were the challenges in developing the Streamcordersystem?

Martinez: Creating the first truly professional 1/3in.,12-bit camcorder or the KA-DV300 streaming adapter alone are very toughjobs by themselves. We created the Streamcorder system; the camcorder,software, and the streaming adapter were all completely developed inparallel, from scratch and in record time.

VS: I understand that there are some even newer PCMCIA cards forthe Streamcorder system. Are there any system requirements at theserver/IP level?

Martinez: At this time there are two wireless LAN cardscertified to work with the KA-DV300: the Linksys WCF-11 and theTrendNet TEW-PC16. These may be used in "ad hoc" mode - this meansusing another wireless LAN card in the PC - or "infrastructure modem,"where a wireless access point is used. Soon we expect another majormanufacturer of wireless LAN cards to widen the choices even farther.For wired LAN we recommend Socket Communications’ Low PowerEthernet card. Although we’ve tried other manufacturers, werecommend SanDisk CF cards.

VS: Why didn't JVC use an IEEE 1394 implementation for thetransmission protocol instead of the PCMCIA approach? Are there anyfuture plans for that?

Martinez: Compared to IEEE 1394, the MPEG-4 signal has a verylow bit rate; thus it can travel worldwide over standard wired orwireless LAN infrastructures. The use of a PCMCIA slot provides wideconnection flexibility and reduces cost. In other words, JVC's KA-DV300provides the hardware and software for the digital interface, picturescaling, video and audio codec, and web and realtime servers; thePCMCIA hosts standard PCMCIA networking cards. These PCMCIA cards areconstantly being refined and their price is very low thanks to theeconomy of scale created by the laptop computer and PDA userpopulations.

However, the IEEE 1394 transmission standard can play an importantrole for streaming. Through IEEE 1394 it’s possible to use theStreamcorder as a streaming appliance. Let’s say that you shootDV, edit on a PC or Mac, then output the edited piece to Streamcorderover IEEE 1394. Now you can even record to DV tape and streamsimultaneously the signal directly from the IEEE 1394. [This is a newcapability introduced since NAB.]

VS: Can users record to DV simultaneously while streaming, andcould you please describe the process of streaming a meeting inrealtime over the Internet or a WAN/LAN?

Martinez: The Streamcorder can record to DV tape and streamsimultaneously. The streaming process might vary slightly from the twoexamples that follow, depending on the "net" we want to stream over.First case using Streamproducer: If the number of clients is less than10, the camera connects to a PC via a private wireless or wired LAN toa PC running Streamproducer. Streamproducer receives the signal fromthe camera(s) and casts. Up to 10 clients can connect toStreamproducer's URL. If more than 10 clients need to connect, then theoutput from Streamproducer should be routed to a PC running WidowsMedia Server or to a streaming service such as Akamai orNetbriefings.

Second case using Streamcapture: Using Internet Explorer, connect tothe KA-DV300's web server, enter the login and password. When the mainpage appears, invoke Streamcapture [requires version 1.5]. OnceStreamcapture starts it is possible to stream to one client. Formultiple users, the client could be Widows Media Server or a streamingservice such as Akamai or Netbriefings.

VS: Who created the Streamproducer software?

Martinez: Streamproducer was created by the JVC softwaregroup led by Mr. Kainuma at our Hachioji factory in Japan.

VS: Is the MPEG-4 format the camera uses easily compatible withMPEG-2 and creating DVDs?

Martinez: Of course. The DV tape content can be easilyconverted to MPEG-2. The MPEG-4 file needs to be converted to DV firstby using a third-party file-conversion software package such as Cleaner5, however.