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Optibase Tuesday rolled out MGW 2000, it's new line of streaming media server technology for the enterprise and broadband Internet markets.

The MGW 2000 was evaluated by more than a dozen leading network equipment vendors, telecom operators, DSL vendors and network operators in a successful Beta program previous to its release.

The MGW 2000 is a plug-and-play, multi-channel streaming server with an embedded operating system capable of encoding and transmitting 16 live and pre-recorded streams simultaneously, including up to six in real time, and delivering full-screen, full-motion video. Packaged in a 17" rack-mounted, modular platform with a variety of network interfaces, the MGW 2000 features field swappable and upgradeable slots capable of hosting a mix of new modules, which currently include MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MP3 streaming from 32Kbit/s to 10Mbit/s. A SCSI interface connects the MGW 2000 to an external storage device for on-demand services and an Ethernet port provides connectivity to the Web for remote management.

"The MGW 2000 addresses the needs of those who need to deal quickly and easily with multi-format, multi-rate streaming media content," said Gary Schultz, president and founder of Multimedia Research Group Inc (www.mrgco.com), a firm that provides market analyses of new technologies for the communications industries. "The MGW 2000 addresses the largely unmet needs of real-time distribution over IP of Media in multiple formats and rates at a reasonable price. This makes it possible for content owners and developers to have better control of the distribution of their work; and opens up new revenue possibilities for ISPs, hosting services and content suppliers."

The MGW 2000 addresses applications such as video on demand, time shifted TV applications over xDSL, interactive TV services, business TV, distance learning, B2Bcommunications, Web TV, broadcast TV over IP, video to the desktop and video over DSL.

"The deployment of broadband connections is underway, creating an answer to the rising demand for rich media applications," says Yaniv Garty, vice-president of marketing and business development at Optibase. "The MGW2000 serves as an instrumental part of the infrastructure, enabling service providers to offer value-added media services. Because we've engineered this device to be very extensible, we'll be able to release the MPEG-4 and Microsoft's Windows Media Technologies product for Beta testing during Q1 of 2001. The third roll out of the Media Gateway family, a carrier class solution, will follow in mid-2001 and enable the support of multiple streams, MPEG-2 over DVB to IP conversion and transcoding all in a carrier class package."

The MGW 2000 with an MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 module starts at $15,995.