DiviCom

Leaders in the Digital Media Compression Revolution

DiviCom is a leading developer of professional and consumer MPEG-2 media compression products and components essential to the creation of the emerging worldwide digital video infrastructure. The company is dedicated to merging video, audio and data compression technologies with communications into innovative products for producers, distributors and consumers of video and video-enhanced information. Through its exceptionally experienced and capable technical staff, its clear focus on open, MPEG-2 standards-based products, its expanding global partnerships and a solid financial foundation, DiviCom is well on its way to being the performance and value leader in digital compressed media systems.

Founded in April, 1993, DiviCom already is competing successfully with established industry notables in the cable and telecommunications industries, and has achieved a number of significant milestones in its brief history. In January, 1994, DiviCom was selected by Bell Atlantic to supply set-top terminals for its upcoming market trials of interactive video services to the home over the telephone network. In July, 1994, DiviCom began delivery on an order for Navigator 1000TM set-top terminals, worth in excess of $1 million, to Bell Atlantic. Working in conjunction with Oracle Corporation's Media ServerTM to deliver a variety of fully interactive video applications to the home, DiviCom's Navigator 1000 is Bell Atlantic's first set-top terminal to incorporate international standard MPEG-2 transport of MPEG-1 video and audio. That same month, DiviCom entered the MPEG-2 broadcast encoder market with a multi-million-dollar order from Bell Atlantic, the first large-scale commercial sale of fully MPEG-2 compliant real-time encoders, firmly establishing DiviCom as a key player in the emerging digital video compression market. And at the October 1994 World Media Expo, DiviCom provided the first live demonstration of its real-time MPEG-2 encoding and decoding.

Headquartered in Milpitas, in the center of California's Silicon Valley, DiviCom is funded by a consortium of French companies, including SAGEM, EURODEC and SAT. SAGEM is a $2-billion diversified European electronics manufacturer, and its affiliate, SAT, specializes in telecommunications equipment. EURODEC is a joint venture between SAGEM and CANAL +, one of Europe's leading broadcasters, and is Europe's leading manufacturer of set top terminals, producing over 1.5 million units per year. EURODEC also partners with DiviCom, providing manufacturing resources and European distribution for DiviCom products.

DiviCom also partners with other industry leaders to combine relevant technologies and bring complete products and applications to market. DiviCom's partnerships are based upon purchase or distribution of DiviCom-manufactured products, OEM arrangements to incorporate DiviCom components and assemblies, the licensing of DiviCom designs and overall system integration and compatibility assurance. DiviCom's industry partners include manufacturers of file servers, cable and satellite transmission equipment, semiconductors and software.

The Digital Media Compression Market

The age of digital video is upon us. Twenty years ago, speech went digital as the telephone companies began upgrading all their intra-office communications facilities to fiber-optic digital technology. Ten years ago, digital audio in the form of compact discs relegated the vinyl record to dinosaur status. Today, the convergence of a mature compression algorithm base and inexpensive computing power has set the stage for an explosion in the production and distribution of digital video and video-enhanced information.

For years, working with video in digital form as a post-production tool has offered several benefits for manipulating video information. Digitizing color components before combining them into the economical NTSC format for transmission and distribution allows video to be recorded over and over again with no loss of quality. This multigenerational transparency enables scenes to be edited and re-edited without affecting quality. Component digital systems also offer production techniques that have dramatically changed the look of television, including layering -- adding images to scenes on successive passes -- and digital matte and chroma keying techniques that are so superior to their analog predecessors that historians and lawyers have expressed concerns over the veracity of historical footage and videotape evidence.

Now, an exciting new digital compression technology, MPEG-2, holds the potential to redefine the video marketplace by dramatically reducing the cost of video distribution, opening the door to low-cost international distribution for smaller regional programmers, enabling new distribution methods and creating new services.

Digital video compression reduces the cost of distribution by enabling more information to travel through existing channels. CATV operators, for example, generally want to deliver as many movies as possible through a 6-MHz cable channel, as long as the quality of the image is as good as that of a VCR. At a data rates as low as 3 megabits per second, MPEG-2 compression can provide at least 5 or 6 channels of good-quality NTSC video over a single 6-MHz cable TV channel. Cable programmers, on the other hand, usually want the highest quality video signals for satellite delivery to cable head ends. By employing higher data rates, MPEG-2 is capable of providing virtually studio-quality video while still yielding more channels per transponder than analog technology.

Digital video compression has also dramatically lowered the price of entry and cost of satellite distribution by making it possible to utilize just a fraction of the transponder capacity. At the 3 megabit-per-second MPEG-2 data rate, a single satellite transponder can be divided into 9 or 10 discrete channels, providing greatly improved price/performance. The lower cost makes satellite transmission affordable for many small regional programmers who would not otherwise be able to obtain international distribution for their programming. Not only can U.S. companies have greatly expanded distribution overseas, but the reverse is true, also, providing access to U.S. markets for many international programmers, and increasing the diversity of programming available in the U.S. In October, 1994, PanAmSat, the dominant satellite presence in Latin America, is expected to launch its PAS-3 satellite, employing compressed digital video on all transponders to provide coverage to Europe, Africa and the U.S., in addition to Latin America. And because per-channel rates are cheaper than leasing a full transponder, compression makes it easier for educators to get access to satellite transmission.

New methods of distribution, made possible by digital video compression, are opening new markets, especially in third-world countries. In some large cities, multi-channel, multi-point distribution services (MMDS) are providing an effective way of targeting affluent communities without having to install a large, expensive cable infrastructure. In smaller communities and regions where mountains or other features can interfere with the MMDS signal, direct-to-home (DTH) broadcasting may predominate. Digital video compression is reducing the cost of accessing these distribution methods by increasing their capacity. Digital video compression also provides a solution to one of the greatest challenges facing broadcasters in third-world countries: piracy. Digital video compression is in itself a form of encryption that requires a decoder to process and reassemble the original signal, and an extra layer of encryption is often added to provide viewing and subscription management.

In the U.S., the regional Bell operating companies are relying on compressed digital video to enable them to expand their service offerings and increase revenues by offering video-based programming over their digital networks. And cable operators, caught between the telephone companies on one side and the satellite broadcasters on the other, increasingly are being forced to react to remain competitive. From interactive TV to video on demand, they are upgrading their systems to offer more channels and greatly expanded services, both made possible through compressed digital video.

MPEG-2 offers high-quality digital compression that can be adjusted to accommodate a broad range of needs for producers, distributors and consumers of video and video-enhanced information:

The widespread adoption of an open, international standard like MPEG-2 further enhances the economic viability of digital video by fostering interoperability and lowering component costs through the sheer volume of international orders and the efficiencies of high-volume manufacturing. Eventually, MPEG-2 also will allow the decoder to be built directly into the receiver, further reducing the cost, as well as the complexity.

According to VLSI Research, the total market for video compression and decompression products is estimated to grow from $250 million in 1993 to $1 billion by 1997. A recent report published by Washington D.C.-based Irwin Communications, Inc. states that 1.75 million orders for MPEG-2 set-top terminals already exist, not including an unknown number of direct-to-home broadcast users.

DiviCom's MPEG-2 Products

DiviCom's mission is the creation of exceptional products that merge video, audio and data with digital compression and communication technologies. Toward that goal, the company is dedicated to providing and supporting MPEG-2 standard solutions through its products, technical support, service and training.

The result of more than 200 person-years of effort by the world's best research minds, MPEG-2 is the standard for digital broadcast. MPEG-2 builds on the initial success of MPEG-1, a more limited technology, by improving image quality and transport capabilities for broadcast, cable or satellite transmissions. MPEG-2 supports variable video data rates up to 15 megabits per second, interlaced video formats and a range of picture aspect ratios, including today's standard 4:3 and Advanced Television's 16:9. The MPEG-2 transport stream supports the multiplexing of several programs for transmission and storage on a variety of media, single-program storage on digital videotape, robust performance against channel errors, conditional access to programs and maintains synchronization over complex networks and through editing operations. MPEG audio provides CD-quality monophonic, stereophonic and multichannel programming, enabling services such as commentary, multilingual broadcast and digital radio.

Not all MPEG-2 is created equal. Sometimes described more as a toolkit of techniques than a single standard always applied the same way in all situations, MPEG-2 provides only a defined language and syntax for a digital bit stream that describes the particular compression functions applied to a digital signal representing images, audio and other data. It does not mandate which compression functions must be applied nor how these functions should be implemented. But because of the asymmetrical nature of MPEG-2, the ultimate picture quality is dependent almost entirely on how carefully the digital signal is initially compressed -- what compression functions are used and how they are implemented -- which is determined by the sophistication of the compression algorithm and all its associated variables. As a result, the decompressed signal quality can vary greatly.

DiviCom applies its unique algorithms and techniques for obtaining optimal performance in its MPEG-2 encoder systems, as well as its MPEG-2 decoder systems and components, including:

DiviCom's Digital Broadcast System provides fully compliant, real-time MPEG-2 video compression, audio compression and transport stream multiplexing. It's flexible, modular design combines several high-performance components, including a real-time Program Encoder, ReMultiplexer and System Controller. The Digital Broadcast System supports small, low-cost, standalone configurations for private broadcast and backhaul, and large, fully featured, highly redundant configurations for high-capacity business-oriented studios, uplink transmission systems and high-end live encoding facilities. All components are controlled and monitored through standard 10Base-T Ethernet connections and feature full SNMP management facilities.

DiviCom's Program Encoder compresses a single video channel and one or more audio and data channels, multiplexing them into a single fully compliant MPEG-2 transport bit stream. The Program Encoder incorporates DiviCom's proprietary compression algorithm technology while maintaining full MPEG-2 compatibility for the highest video and audio quality. It is also the most compact encoder on the market, measuring just 3 standard rack units (5 1/4 inches high) in a standard rack-mount enclosure. Extensive signal preprocessing enhances picture quality, and multiple resolutions, formats and data rates are supported. Its modular design offers the most flexible array of input source available anywhere, including CCIR 656-1 and SMPTE 259M serial digital video, 625/50 or 525/59.94 analog component Y / R-Y / B-Y at Betacam or MII levels, NTSC or PAL composite with loop through and analog and AES/EBU digital audio. The Program Encoder is also available in a 4-standard-rack-unit (7-inch high) rack mount enclosure.

The ReMultiplexer combines the outputs of a number of DiviCom Program Encoders, other ReMultiplexers and alternative MPEG-2 encoded sources, such as disk-stored or remotely encoded material, into a single, higher-rate MPEG-2 transport stream. It can also be used to inject local data inputs directly into an existing MPEG-2 transport stream.

DiviCom's System Controller offers full monitoring and control of all DiviCom Broadcast System products at the system, component and module level through an easy-to-use graphical user interface, layered menus and context-sensitive help files.

The DiviCom Interactive Encoder provides the highest quality MPEG-2 compression possible in a post-production environment. The system combines a real-time compression engine with a computer workstation and professional decoder for fully interactive control of a compression session. With the Interactive Encoder, the initial encoding pass can be monitored in real time on the workstation or studio monitor, and can be reviewed again after completion. Easy review and modification of an extensive array of video encoder algorithm parameters provides precise control over the compression process on a scene-by-scene or frame-by-frame basis, as needed. Software utilities provide translation to a variety of output formats, and compressed streams can be transferred to any standard SCSI peripheral.

Available as a complete circuit-board module or as a licensable design, DiviCom's Decoder Core incorporates DiviCom's proprietary demultiplexer ASIC and provides real-time decompression of main-level, main-profile MPEG-2 transport streams. The core accepts high-speed baseband MPEG-2 transport streams up to 60 megabits per second and outputs digital, analog and S-video, analog stereo audio, a high-speed data stream, IIC bus interface and low-speed data for the microcontroller. A set of software interfaces provide control over the selection of data source, destination and core parameters. Based on a 68302 processor, the Decoder Core supports on-screen display of simple graphics, anti-copy protection and can be integrated with high-speed PRBS or DES descrambling.

DiviCom's decoder products include a Monitor Decoder that is fully integrated as a module within Program Encoders or ReMultiplexers, providing decoding and observation of user-selected audo-video streams. A full-featured Professional Decoder offers high-quality, multi-format, digital and analog video and audio outputs. Its Ethernet and RS-232 interfaces provide data output and enable remote monitoring and control by a computer-based system controller. A Commercial Decoder provides an integrated and economical receiver for higher-volume applications such as private business TV and educational TV broadcasts.

The Executive Management Team

DiviCom is staffed with some of the industry's most experienced developers of video and audio compression systems. Team members include:

Nolan Daines, President
Mr. Daines has earned a reputation as an exceptional manager of high-technology product development. Prior to founding DiviCom, he was Executive Director of Engineering and System Architecture at Compression Labs, Inc. (CLI), where he led a 40 member department devoted to development of CLI's flagship H-261 compliant videoconferencing product introduction of 1993.

Mr. Daines' broad experience in product development includes ten years with Tidewater Associates, a contract development company he co-founded, where he participated in development of a wide range of products from local area networks to workstations. While at Tidewater, he led the design effort for CLI's proprietary broadcast video compression decoder silicon, as well as a number of other system and VLSI design efforts. Other clients included Xerox, Northern Telecom, 3Com, Pacific Bell, National Semiconductor, and Bell+Howell.

Tom Lookabaugh, Vice President, Research and Business Development
Dr. Lookabaugh brings experience in the research and engineering of video and audio compression and high performance multiplexing systems, as well as in developing and managing partner relationships with other technology companies.

Prior to joining DiviCom, Dr. Lookabaugh spent five years at Compression Labs, Inc., ultimately achieving the position of Executive Director of Research and New Business Technology. During his tenure at CLI, he was intimately involved in the algorithm development and system engineering of numerous compression-based systems, including three product generations each in the areas of videoconferencing and digital compressed video for broadcast, as well as building and sustaining customer and partner relationships in support of product development. He assumed project management responsibility on the development of an MPEG-1 decoder for video-on-demand trials.

Dr. Lookabaugh holds a B.S. degree in engineering physics from Colorado School of Mines, and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering, statistics, and engineering management and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He speaks often at technical conferences, and has been widely published in the academic literature, where his awards include the IEEE Signal Processing Society's "1992 Best Paper Award (Speech Processing Area)."

Brian Johnson, Vice President, Engineering
Mr. Johnson brings a solid background in state-of-the-art electronics product development, including high-volume consumer-oriented products, as well as a deep familiarity with compressed video and audio implementations based on the MPEG standards. Mr. Johnson received extensive management and personal experience with the design of ASICs for signal processing operations.

Mr. Johnson has eighteen years of experience in designing and managing the development of digital processing systems. Following engineering and project lead experience in several projects at General Electric, he joined Magnavox CATV (now Philips Broadband Networks), where he managed development of an addressable cable TV set-top converter and systems for locating and reporting faults in large cable TV systems. His extraordinarily quick grasp of complex technical issues motivated Philips to promote him to research and leadership positions at Philips Laboratories in Briarcliff Manor, where he ultimately led the development of Philips' HDMAC-60 high definition TV decoder and Philips' Media-1, an MPEG-based compressed digital video system for cable and consumer applications.

Mr. Johnson holds a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Renselear Polytechnic Institute and an M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Syracuse University, as well as several patents in computation, compression, and video processing applications.

Bob Natwick, Vice President, Sales and Marketing
Bob Natwick is spearheading DiviCom's worldwide sales and marketing efforts, and brings to DiviCom more than 25 years of experience in the broadcast equipment market.

Most recently, Mr. Natwick held the position of Vice President of Sales, Americas, for the Grass Valley Group, a manufacturer of broadcast television production equipment. In these positions, Mr. Natwick was responsible for managing a direct sales team and resale organization. Prior to his work at the Grass Valley Group, Mr. Natwick spent nine years with the Ampex Corporation, maker of video tape recording equipment and other production equipment, ultimately becoming their National Sales Manager.

Mr. Natwick holds a B.A. in political science from Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.

Mike Perkins, Manager of Algorithm Development
Dr. Perkins anchors the video algorithm and microcode development activity at DiviCom. He brings a broad professional background in compression research as well as detailed knowledge of the MPEG standard including continuing service on the MPEG committee itself.

Dr. Perkins joined DiviCom from Scientific Atlanta, where for the previous two years he was responsible for the selection and development of video compression algorithm technology. He conducted extensive algorithm development and simulation activity and frequently briefed both Scientific Atlanta executive staff and key customers on compression technology for broadcast systems. He was Scientific Atlanta's principal representative to the MPEG standardization committee, and continues in that role today for DiviCom.

Prior to Scientific Atlanta, Dr. Perkins conducted research at DLR in Oberpfaffenhoffen, Germany, in the area of efficient data compression over noisy communication channels. Dr. Perkins has published and spoken at numerous conferences in the areas of image compression and communication systems theory.

Dr. Perkins holds a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Kansas, as well as M.S. degrees in electrical engineering and statistics and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

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