Videofurnace demo

I attended a presentation hosted by TNS of the Video Furnace IP Video solution. This was a very impressive array of hardwarre and software. VideoFurnace is a cross platform distribution system that could be useful in distributing video at Penn State. VideoFurnace recently merged with the H.264 encoders and codec systems vendor HaiVision. If you are connected to a Multicast enabled network you can watch C-SPAN & C-SPAN2 24/7 using the VideoFurnace InStream Viewer thanks to Northwestern University. Here is a wiki page with instructions on how to access the player. Using their Makiio encoder on the broadcasting end, they can create video streams in both SD and HD which can stream across multicast or unicast networks simultaneously using h.264 compression. The latency is only 70 milliseconds, so you can see what is broadcast in less than a tenth of a second. Almost real time. The video can be broadcast live, recorded prior and scheduled to play at a scheduled time, and also archived for later playback. The encoders are small, lightweight, and can be  set up to be stationary or portable. They can be powered by a battery pack. It only takes 13 watts to run. The encoders are always on and take very little manpower to support. They are very reliable. On the user end there is no video player to download a java applet runs the video in the computer's RAM, not caching on the user's computer, so it could be TEACH Act compliant. It can be used to broadcast television  via IP. Dartmouth runs 67 channels on their system and Northwestern runs 45 channels. This will replace their RF systems. 

The activity of any user can be tracked, and content can be controlled using LDAP credentials. Emergency messages can be broadcast immediately to all users, and you have complete control over what anyone sees. It can also broadcast to iPhones if a $1000 Wowza media server is used (Wowza is a competitor to Flash Media Server). The admin software can create histograms and usage data for all chnannels.