Most enterprises looking for immediate ROI on streaming media will find it prudent to embrace a software solution like Apple's Darwin Streaming Server. Why? Because it's free. Although designed for the Mac OS X Server, Darwin is also available as open-source software for Linux, Sun Solaris and Microsoft Windows NT/2000.
Darwin, coupled with Sorenson's compression technology, displayed the best desktop video quality in our recent tests. It delivered top-quality images over a range of bandwidth, and sported the most bandwidth-efficient streams with the fastest buffering. Although you will still need one computer to encode the source and a second to deliver the video, you won't need a proprietary decoder on the desktop. Apple's Quicktime Player will do nicely.
Apple has taken video very seriously over the past few years. In 1999 it supported standards-based RTP and RTSP. It has since added support for MPEG-4 to improve its streaming technology in a quest to broadcast video content to the world. It has also created killer tools, like DVD Studio 4 for editing video content.
Apple, (800) MY-APPLE, 408-996-1010. www.apple.com
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Categories: Broadcast-Quality Video Solution | Streaming-Media Server |
Unified-Messaging Solution | Content-Delivery Device | Content-Delivery Solution
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Broadcast-Quality Video Solution
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WINNER: Amnis NAC-3000 with LivePlayer
Broadcast-quality video solutions aren't for every enterprise. Although they deliver high-quality MPEG video to desktops, they have a higher price tag than their software counterparts and they use more bandwidth. These solutions are, however, a clean one-box solution to streaming media in the enterprise. With hardware encoders, you simply need the video source and a network connection to deliver high-quality video to the desktop.
The NAC-3000 with LivePlayer from Amnis Systems (formerly Optivision) rose above other contenders to receive our Well Connected Award. It delivers crisp video with less bit-rate variation over an Ethernet network and provides enough multiple resolution and bandwidth limiting capabilities to stand out in a crowd. Plus, the NAC-3000 excelled when combined with a hardware decoder.
Amnis Systems (formerly Optivision), (800) 239-0600, (650) 855-0200. www.amnisinc.com
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Finalists:
• Minerva VNP 201 and VNP 40, Minerva Networks, (800) 806-9594, (408) 567-9400. www.minervanetworks.com
• Vbrick 6200 with StreamPlayer II, Vbrick Systems, (866) 827-4251, (203) 265-0044. www.vbrick.com
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Streaming-Media Server
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WINNER: QuickTime Streaming Server 4
See Product of the Year, Above
Finalists:
• Windows Media Services, Microsoft Corp., (800) 426-9400, (425) 882-8080. www.microsoft.com/ms.htm
• RealSystem iQ, RealNetworks, (800) 444-8011, (206) 674-2700. www.realnetworks.com
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Unified-Messaging Solution
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WINNER: Nortel Networks CallPilot 201i 1.07
UM (unified messaging) solutions that offer seamless unification and easy access to voicemail, e-mail and fax transmissions raced for their own Well Connected Award this year, with Nortel Networks' CallPilot taking the prize. Although there were plenty of UM contenders out there, we chose to go with finalists that supported VoIP (voice over IP) to provide enterprises with messaging solutions that converge onto an IP network.
CallPilot edged out rivals by supporting multiple e-mail systems, including Lotus Notes, Exchange and GroupWise, while including an IVR (interactive voice response) system. With its voice-activated commands, CallPilot provides the hands-free operation our judges were looking for. Although it does not have a text-to-speech component that would allow users to listen to e-mail messages over the telephone, CallPilot's client-side integration and message store synchronization will speed development efforts in 2002.
Nortel Networks, (800) 4 Nortel. www.nortelnetworks.com/products/01/callpilot/index.html
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Finalist:
• Cisco Unity 2.46, now shipping 3.1; CallManager 3.07, now shipping 3.21, Cisco Systems, (800) 553-6387, (408) 526-7208. www.cisco.com
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Content-Delivery Device
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WINNER: CacheOS 5, part of CacheFlow Security Gateway 600 Series
While all of our finalists served up content from a device, each did so in a different way. CacheFlow's SGA (Security Gateway Appliance), which uses the company's new CacheOS Version 5, did it best and wins our Well Connected Award. As a cache server, the SGA speeds content to users by caching Web objects and reusing them on demand. It also acts as an Internet gateway for the desktop and provides authentication (LDAP, NTLM, RADIUS) and antivirus services to secure content, all while supporting filtering services to block unwanted Web sites from view.
CacheFlow, (888) GO CFLOW, (408) 220-2200. www.cacheflow.com
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Finalists:
• Transforce 1.0, PictureIQ Corp., (866) 844-4449, (206) 628-5222. www.pictureiq.com
• Surgient eQ2500, Surgient Networks, (888) 240-6997, (512) 241-4600. www.surgient.com
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Content-Delivery Solution
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WINNER: Rich Media Starter Kit
InfoLibria's Rich Media Starter Kit uses a turnkey solution to deliver live, on-demand streaming media and Web objects to users. This solution serves up streaming media content to remote users while reducing bandwidth requirements and latency in rich media applications. A dedicated application interface manages content on origin servers and integrates with content creation tools like MS-Producer to distribute content to MediaMalls positioned close to end users. A global redirection application then allows clients to find the closest available content directly from MediaMalls.
InfoLibria, (781) 392-2200. www.infolibria.com
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Finalists:
• NXT 3, NextPage, (800) NEXTPAGE, (801) 768-7500. www.nextpage.com
• Warp 2063 Application Pre-Processor, WARP Solutions, (800) 688-9277, (212) 962-9277. www.warpsolutions.com
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