nCUBE Debuts MediaCUBE 4 - Next Generation Video Server

San Francisco 09 Sep 99 nCUBE's new scalable video server is called the MediaCUBE 4. It is nCUBE's third generation video server and fourth generation hypercube computer, MediaCUBE 4 can scale from under 500 Megabits per second (Mbps) to 132 Gigabits per second (Gbps) of sustained video delivery.

Targeting high quality, video-on-demand markets and mid-band streaming media applications, the MediaCUBE 4 provides broadband network operators the lowest capital and operating cost platform available.

"This latest generation nCUBE video server will revolutionize the video server industry. It's exponentially more powerful than our nearest competitor, " said Michael J. Pohl, president of nCUBE. "We are extremely excited to offer the most scalable, reliable, and economical video server to Cable, Telco and Enterprise environments -- worldwide."

Pohl also noted that nCUBE has more than six years of real-world VOD experience, more than 100 installations worldwide, and an aggregate of 17,000 VOD streams, all with VCR functionality. MediaCUBE 4 is nCUBE's third generation video server and fourth generation hypercube-based computer platform.

The building block of the MediaCUBE 4 solution is the MediaHUB server, a compact computer containing all the components needed to operate as an independent video server, including hard disk drives, output modules, and CPU. A single MediaCUBE 4 can deliver 516 Mbps streams and occupies only five standard rack units.

Using nCUBE's scalable hypercube interconnect architecture, up to 256 MediaCUBE 4's can be connected to function as a single computer (e.g., up to 44,000 simultaneous broadcast-quality video streams at 3-Mbps with no content replication). By avoiding content replication, nCUBE customers can deploy very large content libraries using fewer hard disk drives than previously required. A single 19" rack can house eight MediaHUBs and provide over 4 Gbps of sustained video delivery.

The MediaCUBE 4 supports streaming media using standard and widely deployed codecs and file/transport formats. Supported codecs include the MPEG family, comprising MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, as well as the following AVI compressions schemes: Iterated Systems ClearVideo, Intel Indeo video, Motion JPEG (MJPEG), Radius CinePak, and Voxware MetaSound and MetaVoice. File formats include MPEG-1 System, MPEG-2 Transport and Oracle Streaming Format (OSF). AVI files can be streamed once they have been converted to Oracle Streaming Format (OSF). Input/Output options for the MediaCUBE 4 include DVB-ASI, QAM 64/256, ATM OC-3 and OC-12, and Fast Ethernet.

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