Koz makes Forbes Article!
By Jeffrey S. Young
ark Koz is the founder and president of Sunnyvale, Calif. InnovaCom. For years he toiled in the underbelly of Silicon Valley, creating video compression schemes and software that other companies have used in their products. He was one of the principals in a company--FutureTel--that tried to exploit the VideoCD format a few years ago.
A member of the original group that specified the MPEG-2 format--a widely adopted method of compressing live video that has made the advent of digital video possible--along the way he has also been granted patents on a number of items including set-top boxes and a video server. Now, in registration for a full listing and with $13 million in cash, he is setting out to re-create the broadcast industry in the PC mold.
"Think of what we've done as a PC style network for full broadcast-quality video," he explains. "We're using standard components for networking, along with PC board-based encoders and decoders to take in video in any format and convert it--transcode it--to any digital format." The system is built around a video server that he patented, which enables numerous people to work on the same clip of video simultaneously--and all to do so over an Ethernet
and fiber channel network.
This was the starting point for the system. But beyond simply storing video on hard disks, he is after something much more ambitious, and ultimately, more important. The system InnovaCom is building--fully equipped and outfitted it might cost as much as $500,000 for a typical newsroom operation at a midsize station--replaces tape decks with software equivalents since in this digital domain all the video is archived on hard drives anyway. But it
doesn't have to. By putting his company's own encoders at the center of the system, the TransPeg system can also take control of most gear like tape decks and video switchers that a station already has and move video into and out of the digital format at will. Furthermore, the system offers complete virtual control of all the equipment (assets) that a station has over the Ethernet network, or from a web browser anywhere in the world.
By contrast, Sony is offering a new digital format called Betacam SX. This family of gear replaces existing analog equipment at TV stations. Price tag: $3 million.
Essentially, what InnovaCom is doing is using its knowledge and understanding of digital video and MPEG-2 encoding to build a complete command and control system on top of PC industry networking gear. (Encoding is the hard part of the digital video operation.) By doing so "we give a station a system where all the digital video can be manipulated in a manageable way, where the station can choose what bit-rates and formats to work with instead of being
at the mercy of the network or content provider," Koz says. And all at a price that is a fraction of what is currently available. "We offer more capability, lower prices, and it's fully digital today. And, because we've built it on top of PC gear, it won't be obsolete tomorrow," he boasts.
InnovaCom isn't alone in creating this kind of PC-oriented digital video system. This is one area that will see plenty more competition.
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See also:
Blowing up the priestdom
The PC revolution is about to turn the TV business upside down.
Digital game plan
Digital TV will not only change what you see, but the business behind it, as well.
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