Deliver Video for Small Business Customers

The latest media gateway from Optibase may bring streaming video within the reach of ISPs and CLECs and their small- and medium-sized business customers.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Associate Editor [November 11, 2002]

Today, Optibase is releasing its latest media gateway, the MGW 2400. It is a Windows-based product designed to work with Microsoft's Windows Media Player and its proprietary media formats. The product builds on the company's previous success with its MGW 2000, a standards-based product that uses the MPEG-1 and MPEG 2 formats and is compatible with a variety of platforms including SGI, Apple, and Sun.

"We see companies using our product for three types of content," says Bill Reckwerdt, marketing manager for Optibase. "First, we expect companies will want to stream training material, such as OSHA training, event training, or computer training. Second, the CEO, a team leader or product manager, or the human resources department may use the product to communicate with employees. Third, companies may want to repurpose live content such as news to transmit it over their network."

The MGW 2400 encodes video in the NTSC and PAL formats into the Windows Media Format. The NTSC is standard in the United States, and PAL is dominant in Europe. The product can also handle S-Video, Composite Video, and SDI input, and can handle analog or digital audio inputs.

The product is housed in a 2U rackmount chassis, and can hold up to six encoding modules, each of which can encode a separate video stream. A fully-loaded MGW 2400 can therefore encode six simultaneous video streams.

Says Reckwerdt, "If you just use Windows software on a PC and allow the PC to encode and stream the material, it's an algorithm, so there will be latency. Our encoding is done in hardware, and we can guarantee that there are no spikes. If you ask for a 100 Kbps stream, we can guarantee that the stream stays at 100 Kbps. We can make sure that when we output data we output the data at the rate that you requested."

He says that there is real demand for a Microsoft-compatible product. "It works with any networking equipment that is Microsoft-aware: caching equipment, CDNs that are Microsoft aware, and any other Microsoft-aware product."

Pricing and availability
The price of the MGW 2400 depends on the number of encoding modules and video inputs. Pricing starts at $9,000 and reaches about $35,000 for a fully-loaded product with 6 modules and both analog and digital inputs.

The product is available today.

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