Toshiba claims world’s first for multiplatform IP video delivery

Editor ©RapidTVNews | 09-04-2012


CE and video technology giant Toshiba is claiming to have launched the world’s first hardware engine for streaming servers that directly delivers video content from SSD to IP networks, without accessing the server’s CPU or memory resources.
The new NPEngine is said to be able to deliver simultaneously up to 64,000 high quality video streams at a rate of 40 Gigabit per second, a figure that the company says surpasses not only typical server performance benchmarks but also with reductions in power consumption, the number of servers and space required.
In launching the product, which is compliant with the newest HTTP adaptive bit rate streaming standards, Toshiba believes that it can capitalise on opportunities created by the trend for more and more video being delivered over IP networks to PCs, tablets, smartphones and connected TVs. As this volume continues to grow, on a daily basis, asserts the company, it is driving a need for powerful video streaming equipment on the server side.
Moreover, argues Toshiba, successful streaming requires servers to retrieve and deliver large quantities of stored data. It notes that current servers handle this with software, utilising the server’s integrated CPU and SDRAM but that such an approach limits the number of video streams that can be delivered simultaneously to approximately 20,000 on a typical 2RU server. With these limitations, the solution to handle hundreds of thousands of streams at once has been to increase the number of servers. This approach requires more servers, more space and more power consumption.

By contrast, and aiming to address such concerns, NPEngine is claimed to eliminate burdens on server CPU and memory resources, boosting the number of high quality video streams that can be delivered at once to 64,000 at 40Gb per sec. This it claims not only more than triples the performance of a 2RU server, it also cuts space requirements by 70% and power consumption by 77%, for server arrays supporting simultaneous delivery of 1,000,000 video streams.
The product will be showcased at the forthcoming NAB show and server products running NPEngine will be available later in 2012.