PostScript (85 KB)Video Pump Design for Interoperability with Set Top Units:
The Case Against Small PDUs
Proceedings, 6th International Workshop on Network and Operating System Support for Digital Audio and Video (NOSSDAV), Zushi, Japan, April 1996, pp. 123-129
Abstract
The deployment of video services to the home will continue to push the development of low cost Digital Set Top Units (STUs) for decoding MPEG video. One technique for reducing cost is to minimize the buffer space in the network interface. This means that the STU will only accept small packets. Video pump design for this situation is complex when the video pump is based on a general purpose workstation. Traditional timing mechanisms cannot be used in this situation due to the high resolution required by the small packets. A novel video pump design is presented which meets the strict STU requirements. Scalability issues are addressed and performance results are presented.