First let me state that I am no expert on Video transmission
systems. My personal area of specialisation is digital
networking i.e. ATM, switching, routing etc. Everything
That I know about NUKO comes from 2 months of hard, nose
to the grind stone research based on personal contacts,
web based research, competitive analysis and just blatant
personal opinion.
Now down to your questions.
1. What will NUKO technology be used for?
2. How will NUKO's technology be deployed?
3. Will it only be used by Cable/TV Stations?
Next post will be
3. What is the market potential?
4. What is the competition like?
5. and one of my own - Why the current share price?
6. Then I will address another concern, streaming video.
1. What will NUKO technology be used for?
IMHO NUKO's technology will find its home first and foremost
in the distribution of Broadcast quality Video signals across
the next generation of Digital network.
Todays Video distribution networks are based on proprietory
techniques such as ADC DV6000 platform, also Nortels. These
platform basically takes analouge Video signals and digitises
then into a constant bitstream (approx 150Mbps per signal).
The systems are limited in as much as they do not compress
the signal at all and each channel is a fixed rate stream.
They are designed for people who own their own dark fibre
networks as they use a massive ammount of bandwidth, neverthe
less they work and have gotten us where we are today. They
have some major limitations however. They are not very good
at multi-point video distribution, i.e to multiple different
cable head ends in different cities. They use too much bandwidth, which is not quite as free as some would like you to believe.
NUKO's Highlander could put 10 video signals down a 150Mbps
channel. Think about the VYVX networks New York-London
transatlantic Fibre.
2. How will NUKO's technology be deployed?
NUKO's highlander product needs an ATM/Sonet network to connect
to before ANYTHING can happen. What we are currently seeing
are private networks, i.e those with dark fibre, putting
in high bandwidth ATM/Sonet networks. VYVX is putting this in
place this summer, as are RBOC's etc.
Once complete a NUKO highlander attached at one point will be
able to send Video to a NUKO highlander at any other point
in the same network, or to multiple points
(called multicasting-important point here is that the
highlander only sends one packet and the ATM network takes care
of the multicasting itself). Signals can take any path, route
around bottlenecks/faults and all across an OPEN STANDARDS
based platform. Oh I forgot to mention, data and voice can
also flow across the same ATM network infrastructure at the
same time. Imagine one network that can deliver any form
of media anywhere with delays of only 10usec's per hop.
Once data is in the network it can be routed onto OC-48
or even OC-192 speed links (OC-192 is 9.6GBps or 640 channels
of broadcast quality video down 1 strand of glass, When we
install fibre we normally put in 24 strand cables, thats
15,360 channels down one CABLE).
So it is clear that Large ATM networks will exist, such as
VYVX,GTE, AT&T,MCI etc. Lets look at how VYVX could use such
a Network. Firstly existing backhaul video transmission could
be converted onto ATM network via Highlanders at their teleports.
For a while conventional methods will be used to get signals
from the source to teleport, and teleport to home station.
As time goes on the Highlanders could start to appear at the
signal source. These deployments will enable VYVX to service
more clients via their exisiting fibre network, then they can
at the present time.
Another deployment could be for Advertising distribution. i.e.
Coca Cola has a new TV advertisment to be distributed to 50
different TV stations. The advertisment will be stored on a
video server at VYVX's Tusla central office. This server will
spool advertisement via NUKO highlander at central office to
NUKO VF1000 decoder at TV stations across ATM network. This
could be Multicasted or unicasted to each station, but most
importantly this can happen across the same ATM VYVX network
will use for backhaul, as ATM QoS will ensure network bandwidth
is not overcommited. Imagine a network where your clients could
request and be provisioned bandwidth from a screen in their office
, think about the possibilities.
Think about how that advertisement was put togther in the first
place. Designed by an agency, shot be a production company,
edited by post production company, previewed by client etc etc
All this could, and will, happen across VYVX First Video network.
In time this will also use core ATM network, economics will
preclude any major operater from operating multiple physical
networks at one time. They will all just co-exist on the single
ATM/Sonet switch fabric.
The example I gave above assumes that only high-end users will
have access to the necessary bandwidth to recieve MPEG2 signals.
This will require a minimum of 3Mbps and more likely 6Mbps for
Video on demand. xDSL will change all this!!!!!
3. Will it only be used by Cable/TV Stations?
No I see other uses, such as the ability for a specialist surgeon
to watch an operation and give advice to local surgeon via MPEG2
video stream. This type of solution must be redundant and give
some form of service gaurantee.
I would like to attend a Harvard/Stanford/MIT MBA course from
London and sit in front of a screen at home or in the office just
like I was in the lecture hall. NUKO's solution is economic
for this high end distance learning application.
Applications for this technology that no one even though of
will become possible, because of the underlying network. No
one probably thought about movie theather owners viewing
movies via MPEG before ordering before it was possible, now
NUKO has SONY as a client.
I will post an analysis of competition in a week, I am still in
the process of getting Divicom, GI information etc . I know that
some other companies AGCS have a cheaper solution but it does not
have anywhere near the features that NUKO can offer. From personal
experience I also know it is much easier for a company like NUKO
to quickly take features out and produce a low end box then the
reverse.
I will post more soon! |
