• Installation — RGB offers two standard on-site installation packages, with a duration of one-and-a-half or five days. Each package provides installation at one or more locations within driving distance of each other.
  
  
• Training — RGB offers a flexible training program designed to satisfy the specific requirements of each customer. RGB’s formal training program consists of a mixture of modules on a variety of digital video topic, which can be covered in one to one-and-a-half days. Each class is designed to support up to 20 participants.
  
  
• Warranty & Maintenance — RGB’s comprehen-
  sive hardware and software maintenance and warranty services are designed to support you throughout the life of your RGB products. Whether you require a hardware repair, software upgrade or live telephone support through our Technical Response Center, we have the people and services in place to meet your needs.
  
  

As competition in the video services market heats up and consumer expectations grow, operators continue to look for ways to offer new and enticing video services to reduce customer defections. In order to secure this competitive advantage without sacrificing video quality, they need an efficient, high-performance delivery system coupled with a high-quality digital video processing solution that can help them deliver the advanced, personalized services their customers are demanding.

High definition (HD) services are becoming a primary differentiator for video service providers, however they must find a way to deliver more and more. The challenge for operators is adding more HD channels in the most efficient manner possible, while still maintaining top-notch video quality. This challenge can be met through 3:1 HD statistical multiplexing—supporting three HD programs in a single 38.8Mbps MPEG-2 MPTS MUX. Operators typically receive HD programs from broadcast partners with 14 to 19.2Mbps MPEG-2 compressed bandwidth per program, meaning that achieving a 3:1 HD program per MUX ratio requires significant processing through sophisticated algorithms and statistical multiplexing techniques.
 
Advanced video processing plays a significant role in managing the quality of video multiplexes, for both SD programs and especially for HD video formats. RGB’s Video Intelligence Architecture™ (VIA) uses both short- and long-term analysis of video usage and video characteristics in order to optimally process and manage video multiplexes. The SD and HD video content of these multiplexes are a mix of variable and complex video streams. Through patented technology, RGB’s VIA is able to maintain optimal quality for each video stream while taking full advantage of available bandwidth through real-time statistical multiplexing.
 
While the use of statistical multiplexing to solve the challenge of 3:1 HD program multiplexing would seem to be the most natural fitting solution, several vendors have attempted to address the bandwidth efficiency requirements using alternative solutions. Decode and re-encoding solutions, for example, can offer similar functionality, but at higher cost. These systems typically require multiple boxes for separate decode / re-encode cycles or for separate processing and multiplexing. The decode and re-encode process may also add additional unwanted artifacts to the video streams which lower the overall video quality. Additionally, these systems offer very low densities and capacity requiring multiple boxes to support a single multiplex (in some cases up to five devices to support three HD programs in one multiplex). With the flexibility of compressed video statistical multiplexing, a single video processing platform can be used to dynamically address the delivery of high-quality, high-density, optimally processed video in real time, resulting in no limitation in application usage across all HD and SD programs in the channel lineup being offered by the operator.
 
While video quality management can be implemented in a variety of forms, a high-density video processing solution, such as RGB’s VIA platform offers a solid foundation for such functionality, as it is positioned within the network to observe all video streams simultaneously and to create the final optimized multiplexes. The importance of maintaining high-quality multiplexes in dynamic video environments—both broadcast and on-demand—will be essential to customer acceptance of, and satisfaction with, new, advanced services.
 
By leveraging the VIA architecture in its Broadcast Network Processor (BNP), RGB gives cable operators confidence in deploying 3:1 HD program multiplexing today to achieve ambitious video quality and bandwidth-savings goals. The BNP accomplishes this objective, with real-time processing that also simultaneously supports digital program insertion (DPI) applications for ad splicing into HD programs, as well as program substitution for regional markets. Delivering all of these applications in a single rack unit chassis is glowing evidence of the power that VIA brings to RGB customers today.

RGB’s Simulcast Edge Processor (SEP) delivers the cable industry’s most complete solution for digital simulcast edge decoding applications. With the industry’s highest density, full manageability and high reliability, the SEP allows operators to simplify cable system operations, save bandwidth and pave the way to a fully digital network, while still supporting their existing analog subscribers.

Deployed by eight of the top 10 U.S. MSOs and over 100 operators of all sizes throughout North and South America, RGB’s SEP provides a highly scalable, seamless solution for a smooth transition to all-digital.

Learn more about RGB’s Simulcast Edge Processor >>