CNN Field Trial for Multicasting Broadcast Video Over IP a Success

SAN DIEGO (Nov. 7, 2001) -- CoreExpress, Inc., and Path 1 NetworkTechnologies Inc. today announced the successful conclusion of a 90-dayfield trial with CNN to test multicasting of broadcast quality videoover an IP network.

Coordinated by a team of leading technology companies, the fieldtest has shown that IP networks can be used as a high-quality andreliable means for exchanging live and taped news material between CNNaffiliated stations. The field test, which linked stations in LosAngeles, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, and Atlanta, requiredcoordination by seven companies: BellSouth, CoreExpress, Path 1 NetworkTechnologies, Leitch, Cisco Systems, Pixelmetrix, and TandbergTelevision.

"The possibilities yielded by this field test are very exciting,"said Tony Seaton, vice president corporate technology and standards,Turner Broadcasting System. "The trial achieved the desired level ofmulticast capability, latency, and video quality, and delivers thelevel of service we need to exchange news with CNN affiliates rangingfrom large metropolitan to small market stations. In fact, during thefirst days of coverage of the September 11 attacks, we were able to usethe IP circuits to deliver material from Washington D.C. and LosAngeles to Atlanta for live news coverage."

Each trial participant provided a key technology or service pieceintegral to building a video exchange service using IP multicast:

BellSouth provided project management expertise and BellSouth'sMetro Ethernet Service, running at speeds up to 100Mbps. BellSouthrecently announced the availability of Metro Ethernet Service withspeeds up to 1Gbps as part of its Metro Ethernet Service portfolio.

CoreExpress provided a nationwide private, quality ofservice-enabled IP network capable of delivering MPLS Fast Re-route,and guaranteed service level agreements over multiple ISPs. The companyalso provided lead technical project coordination and networkmonitoring.

Path 1 provided first-of-its-kind video gateways that convert MPEG-2video to IP and support multicasting, and acted as lead technicalcoordinator and support arm for the project.

Cisco Systems provided routers and switches.

Leitch provided servers and business and technical coordination fornon-realtime file transfer tests.

Tandberg Television provided MPEG-2 encoders and decoders.

Pixelmetrix provided the monitoring and validation of TransportStreams and Picture Quality performance assessment.

"We leveraged a unique combination of technologies and products todemonstrate that a carrier IP network can be a reliable transport oflive broadcast quality MPEG-2 video," said Mike Brown, lead productdeveloper from CoreExpress. "The use of IP multicast for the MPEG-2video demonstration proved that high volumes of video traffic can becost effectively delivered to large numbers of affiliates."

There were many firsts demonstrated with this trial, including:

- Inter-carrier delivery of live MPEG-2 video at 30Mbps withoutETR-290 errors
- Simultaneous transfer of both realtime and non-realtime (filetransfer) contents
- End-to-end QoS on an IP network that guaranteed the delivery of MPEG2 4:2:2 traffic
- High availability of an IP backbone (99.9%)
- IP multicast over a carrier MPLS backbone using Juniper and Ciscoequipment
- Protection switching of IP multicast traffic using MPLS Fast Re-routein less than 15 milliseconds
- Exceeding SLAs (in jitter, latency, loss, burst loss duration,re-order rate, etc.)
- Adapting MPEG-2 to IP without undue degradation of jittercharacteristics
- Remote monitoring and control of multiple vendor's video and LANequipment (gateways, video servers, analyzers, LAN switches, IProuters).