PA-ComNet Meeting June 2, 1999

Meeting began at 7:35 AM at the Lucie Stern Center. Margaret Cooley introduced Hank Magnuski who is CEO of NetVideo a company that pioneered video transmittal over the Internet.

Hank began by saying that Palo Alto is a broadband island which will have local broadband services connected by thin relatively expensive links to other broadband data islands. Broadband includes video on demand, video conferencing, tele-commuting, media rich data retrieval, and file transfer. A broadband portal provides the ability to offer video streaming, video capture, video archiving, video conferencing, multicasting of audio and video, movie and music delivery, community services, and governmental services. Routers can send the needed services to users very efficiently.

Question: Can large files also be uploaded?

Hank said “Yes, but most people are not going to want to do much of it. There are people who want and need the ability to upload large files regularly, but they are a minority.

Data rates presently available vary from the most common phone dial up rate of 28.8 kbps to 3 mbps. It requires 1.5 mbps for MPEG1 VHS quality, 3 mbps for MPEG2 SVHS quality. A data rate of 112 kbps is OK for small scene limited motion, with 384 kbps OK for video conferencing.

Hank demonstrated an old video played at various data rates, starting at 28.8kbps which has a stamp sized picture with jerky motion, muddy sound. At 56kbps the picture is twice as large, but motion still is jerky and sound often indistinct. At 500kbps the picture is more than 2/3 of the scene , action is smooth, audio is much better. It had the appearance of a VHS tape or better. Some words in the video were understandable only at 500 kbps.

Marvin Lee asked “Do camera capabilities make a difference in picture quality?”

Hank said no, we have pretty much the same level of camera quality for all systems now. Data rate is the big factor.

The video example which was shown at 500 kbps is the standard (bronze) cable modem speed available from Cable Co-op.

David Harris asked “Is that what people get now with cable modems?”

Bob Moss said yes, when the number of users is limited and full system capability is used. Adding fiber trunks to coax nodes makes it possible to have more people on line at the same time before data rates are reduced.

Hank noted the cable system is asymmetric and they can’t upload as fast as they can download.

Bob noted the highest cost modems (gold) are 1 mbps each way, but it costs much more.

Keith Cooley asked if anyone has any experience with the RCN video on demand service which has been touted. There is no report of any direct experience with it, so it can’t be evaluated.

Hank next described some of the facilities needed for broadband data services. Portal facilities needed include editing rooms, video on demand servers, a video capture server, a multicast server, a video conference server, a list server and a chat server.

The video on demand server needs gigantic storage capacity to play video streams on demand, and transcode streams to lower data rates. Storage costs have dropped dramatically in the past few years, so storage capacity and cost is not as big a factor as it used to be.

The video capture server encodes video, archives meetings and sessions, indexes video scenes, converts speech to text, and creates web presentation pages.

The multicast server archives video and audio files, advertises multicast sessions, multicasts video/audio to the network, collects participation reports, and accepts schedule requests. It can provide a list of users for every session.

The video conference MCU is a meeting point for video conference participants which bridges audio and video streams, controls conference access, and transcodes data rates and formats. It provides cross-connections.

Revenue sources from the various services can be local ads, Pay Per View programs, video conference MCU rental, government fees and grants, ISP support, or commercial subscriptions for services.

Bob Moss asked about offering to do development and testing for organizations who will fund the operation in exchange for getting information and background that they could use on their own systems.

Hank said outfits like @Home have a national outlook and a particular technical level such as speeds, bidirectionality, etc. They may not be interested in more locally oriented operations.

Marvin Lee said that local over time will be redefined and expand to much larger areas. What is of local interest today for the Peninsula will become interesting to East Bay and North bay people later, so there will be a broader market.

Richard Adler asked if adding people in other states to the user group also might be useful. Local interest is very limited for most people. There are other interests than those which are purely local that are far broader. Economics favors a broader scale of topics and issues, but there still is a great deal of interest in local issues.

Elliot Margolis said there is a real need for teleconferencing and other aspects of data services, but many people can’t afford cable modems today.

Richard Adler suggested looking for government grants to do tests on a wider basis.

Marvin Lee said we just have to convert Cable Co-op to a fiber system.

Elliot Margolis asked why won’t AT&T do it when they take over?

Margaret Cooley said why do we need anyone else involved, we can just expand the city FTTH trial area.

Hank said he gets lots of value today even from his existing DSL modem speeds.

Discussing what it would take to upgrade MPAC, or otherwise provide broadband data services, Hank said most of the expense is people. Cost of the needed hardware would be relatively low, maybe $50,000 for the type of system which was described. Cost for the service really is in labor. Also the home computers have to be adequate. Slow home computers won’t keep up with the necessary data rates. Users need at least a 150 mhz Pentium, but they are pretty cheap today.

The group thanked Hank for his very interesting and thoughtful presentation.

Margaret announced that the next meeting will be Wed. July 7 at 7:30 AM. Featured speaker will be Mohammad Fattah who will give a status report on the FTTH trial. Mary Jo reminded us that the meetings will be moved back to Terman Library, so meet there in July.

Meeting adjourned at 8:35 AM.

Respectfully submitted, Bob Moss