Artel Enhances Its Cross Stream Product Line, Giving Cable TV Providers Advanced Multi-Program Digital Television Transport Functionality for Packet Networks.

Business/Technology Editors

MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 20, 2001

New functionality enables digital television network operators to

transport Multi-Program Transport Streams (MPTS) over ATM networks

with advanced Quality-of-Service (QoS) features.

Artel Video Systems today announced a significant enhancement to its Cross Stream(TM) product line. The Cross Stream products now support the transport of digital television Multi-Program Transport Streams (MPTS) in addition to Single Program Transport Streams (SPTS). The addition of MPTS functionality creates a powerful solution for cable television providers planning to interconnect bundled MPEG services from master headends to remote headends over packet-based networks. As cable television networks adopt packet-based network infrastructures for the transport of multiple data types, standard network interfaces and quality of service (QoS) functionality become baseline requirements that the Cross Stream product line offers, enabling robust and cost effective service provisioning.

MPTS transport of variable bit rate satellite downlinked programming over asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks allow program line-ups to be re-multiplexed and transported from the master headend to remote headend distribution networks. This enhancement makes entire MPTS line-ups available for transport over a single virtual connection on asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks.

The ability to transport program line-ups at master headends using statistically multiplexed multi-program transport streams expands the flexibility and bandwidth utilization of packet-based transport of digital video programming between headends by facilitating the adding and dropping of programs at the master headend.

John Amaral, Artel's CTO commented on the new functionality saying, "The keys to the enhancement of Artel's VideoStorm(TM) technology, which powers the Cross Stream product line, are its ability to deal with variable bit rate streams coming from statistical multiplexers and to perform program clock reference (PCR) correction at the demultiplexing edge of the headend network. These MPTS re-multiplexing and PCR correction enhancements greatly expand the applications for Cross Stream in the video service market."

The Cross Stream product line incorporating MPTS transport functionality over ATM networks with quality of service (QoS) level exceeding standards requirements, gives cable television providers an ideal digital television transport solution built for future scalability, full bandwidth utilization and real-time applications.

About Artel Video Systems

Artel provides video networking systems to cable TV and telecommunications service providers who need to satisfy the consumer's ever growing appetite for broadband digital entertainment. Artel's products are transforming the world's networking infrastructures by enabling the transmission of broadcast and interactive TV over standards based multi-service networks. Artel is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts, USA, with sales and service centers worldwide. Further information about the company is available on the World Wide Web at www.artel.tv.