e-BOX to build MPEG-4 demo centers

By Jeff Baumgartner
from CED Broadband Direct, May 17, 2002

e-BOX Corp., a joint venture that’s developing a digital cable system based on MPEG-4 technology, plans to establish demonstration and development centers in California’s Silicon Valley and the city of Burbank.

e-BOX, which counts Comcast Corp. as an advisor, says its seven member companies support the move. Those members include Pioneer Corp., Sharp Corp., National Semiconductor Corp., Sigma Designs, CMC Magnetics, iVAST Inc. and Modern VideoFilm Inc.

Sigma Designs’ headquarters in the Silicon Valley is slated to be home of one of demonstration centers, which is slated for a June opening. In addition to demos, that center will serve as the initial point of system integration and validation, e-BOX says. The other center, to be located at Modern VideoFilm’s Burbank headquarters, will open this July and demonstrate MPEG-4 compression capabilities and authoring.

e-BOX claims that leveraging lower bit-rate MPEG-4 compression will allow cable operators to free up bandwidth for advanced service offerings such as high definition television and video-on-demand. In future demos, e-BOX said expects to show off a system capable of compressing 24 programs on one channel.