C-Cube Microsystems has teamed up with the newly-formed Vela Research Inc, the technology development subsidiary of Home Shopping Network Inc to jointly develop video-on-demand systems based on Vela’s marketing analysis and video server technologies and C-Cube’s digital video compression technology. The system stores movies in compressed digital form but is compatible with today’s analogue cable systems, says C-Cube. The base system stores 10 movies and can be scaled in modular fashion to store up to 500. The company says it can be configured to provide near-video-on-demand operation by transmitting the same movie at intervals over separate channels, or to transmit any movie on the server via any one of up to 500 channels, enabling cable system operators to implement a complete video-on-demand service. Vela’s output channel boards for the video file server are based on C-Cube’s CL950 MPEG Broadcast Video Decoder. Each board decodes a single programme of compressed MPEG video and audio and converts it to an analogue TV signal, which can then be transmitted to the consumer via a standard analogue cable system.
