IPTV Trial
Texas A&M University ITEC, InVision.TV, and Internet2 are partnering to design, build and evaluate an IPTV delivery platform and play-out model for the Internet2 student audience.
The project will build an operational IPTV service to trial with a limited audience from participating member institutions across Internet2. Understanding the advantages and disadvantages, as well as the economics of a network-centric IPTV delivery system and the applicability of Internet2 and Regional Networks to deliver these types of services are the main goals of the trial.
Overview
The trial is a multicast-based IPTV service originating from the TAMU ITEC Head-end location, and is delivered via the Internet2 national network and regional networks to member university campuses. Once on the campus network, the encrypted multicast streams are again delivered across the campus backbone to student residences and administrative or academic locations requiring television programming. The content format with be encrypted MPEG4, streaming at approximately 2Mb/sec/channel for standard definition programming. It is anticipated that 20 channels participate in the trial. Member institutions will be required to ensure available (allocated) bandwidth, multicasting and support on site. Participants will also be asked to provide feedback to be used when evaluating the viability of any future service. There is no member cost to participating in the trial.
Participation Requirements
There is no financial commitment required to participate in the trial. The trial is open to all Internet2 member universities with a focused interest in IPTV as a possible campus technology solution.
- Campus and residence network must support Multicast.
- IPv4 Multicast support is required in order to participate in the trial. Does your network support multicast all the way to the residences block? Use the Internet2 Detective (and the Multicast Detective http://imj.ucsb.edu/mcast_detective/) in order to confirm multicast capabilities within the residences. The trial streams will be multicast to the 233/8 GLOP address space and exact groups will be published.
- Bandwidth - There will be approximately 20 Standard Definition streams in the trial, encoded using H.264. Each Standard Definition stream will require approximately 2Mbps of bandwidth per watched channel. Ensure that you have capacity to support 40Mbps to the residence.
- The university must be willing to install and run video monitoring software, provided at no cost (hardware excluded, specifications to follow)
- The university will be required to identify a dedicated (not full time) project and support prime assigned to the project.
- The university commits to provide feedback information to TAMU ITEC.
- Each campus will get 15 end user accounts for approximately 1 month evaluation, following which a survey and telephone interview will be completed with the project and support primes
- The university must have endorsement of their Internet2 interconnect/RON
- Where applicable, the ResNet must have the support of the Campus IT
Supplementary Information
Trial Site Equipment
As a network-based IPTV delivery system, there is no traditional IPTV head end equipment required on site. The required service monitoring software runs on standard industry servers. Specifications will be provided.
InVision.TV will provide trial participants with a pre-assigned account ID and instructions for accessing the IPTV client. System requirements for the application will be made available with the account information. Support, FAQ and Contact information will also be provided.
Project Management
Project Management provided by a joint team of Internet2, InVision.TV and TAMU ITEC staff.
End User Training and Feedback Sessions
End user training will be made available online, in printed form and provided in person during the deployment phase. In addition, InVision.TV periodically surveys students about the service and future considerations, as well as conducting on site focus group feedback sessions.
Support
It is expected that the trial University support prime operate as first level technical help for the IPTV trial. InVision.TV will provide a Second-level Support contact from its Technical Assistance Centre
Head End Equipment
All IPTV equipment located at the trial head end on the campus of Texas A&M University in the ITEC facility will be provided by InVision.TV partner companies. This may include all/some of the following: Satellite reception equipment, encoders, routers, servers, and encryption servers.
Content
For the trial period, InVision.TV will provide one basic package of channels to all participant universities. While it is understood that individual institutions wish to define their content packages and pricing to students, one of the primary goals of the project is to assess the model of network-centric delivery, not the individual packaging requirements.
While only national broadcast channels will be included in the initial trial service, it should be clear that the content package commercially available to any school can include local programming, student/university generated programming and Video on Demand (VoD) content.
Contact Information
For more information or questions about the trial, please contact:
TAMU ITEC: Walt Magnussen wmagnussen@mail.telecom.tamu.edu
Internet2: Ellen Vaughan evaughan@internet2.edu
Trial Participation Submission form:
* Fields marked with an asterisk are required.
