NASA Conducts Live HDTV-over-IP Demonstration

San Jose, Calif., Aug. 6 -- Technology from 2netFX, a provider ofenterprise network media software for intranet and broadband Internetmedia delivery, was used in a recent HDTV-over-IP live demonstrationconducted by the government's NASA Research and Education Network(NREN). Specifically, the company's ThunderCastIP HDTV, a multicastserver for high-definition video streaming over ordinary IP-basednetworks, was used.

The entire demonstration involved the simultaneous feed of a 20MbpsHDTV signal through a satellite uplink and an optical ground network.The feed was sent from the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington,D.C., to the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in California.The demonstration provided NREN with the opportunity to work with anHDTV feed in three distinct formats: ATM, DVB, and the Internet.

The demonstration originated at the Naval Research Laboratory inWashington, where a stored high-definition video was sent to twodifferent transmission sources. One was a terrestrial feed via ATDNetand NREN by way of the NASA Goddard Research facility. The other was asatellite feed via Telstar 6. Both feeds were directed to the AmesResearch Center in California.

The 2netFX ThunderCastIP HDTV server was used to transcode anddecode the satellite feed and deliver it to the monitor used to displaythe life-like images.

The demonstration successfully proved the technology exists today todeliver stunning HDTV imagery virtually anywhere in the world -- orabove it. Besides the practical applications of delivering data fromone earthbound structure to another, HDTV-over-IP data delivery andreception also has critical applications in any of NASA's outer-spaceprograms.

"The selection says a lot about the capabilities of our technology,"said Eric Yao, 2netFX Chief Technical Officer, who participated in thedemonstration. "Hearing all the positive comments when thecrystal-clear HDTV video images first appeared on the screen made mefeel proud of our company and of all our engineers and technicians whohave worked so hard on this technology."

According to the company, ThunderCastIP HDTV is the first multicastserver for high-definition live or prerecorded video streaming from10Mbps to 50Mbps over ordinary IP-based networks, including futureadvanced Internets. Engineered into the unit are advanced serverfeatures such as remote management and scheduling, multiple liveencoder support, group and user management, video-on-demand mediamanagement, and support for MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and HDTV. It allowsplayback on a standard PC or set-top appliance, which are displayed onmost PC monitors or HDTV sets.

Yao said future upgrades will include fully scalable distributedclustering architecture with media asset management, media replication,media migration, datacasting, and store-and-forward functionality.

The goal of the NASA Research and Education Network (NREN) is toenable more effective communication and information exchange amongpeople at remote locations. It provides a test bed for anext-generation network that fuses new technologies with NASA missionapplications. These networking technologies provide NASA missions withthe advantages of enhanced data sharing, interactive collaboration,visualization, and remote instrumentation.

NREN partners with various technology companies, governmentalagencies, and research institutions to integrate multicast technology.Additionally, it partners with the NASA Integrated Services Network(NISN) and NASA local area networks (LANs) in upgrading NASA multicastsolutions. Plus, it is working with major NASA programs to incorporatethe use of high bandwidth multicasts in revolutionary NASAapplications.