All things related to multicast

[Wilson Dillaway <>]

     Tufts University has not done much with multicast
so far, but the TUTV student television station, which
currently broadcasts only over the campus analog cable
TV network, would like to experiment with MPEG-2
multicast transmission to all desktops on campus.  We
think a 24-hour, 7-day MPEG-2 multicast stream would
be a great way to debug our router structure (not to 
mention the other benefits!).  Does anyone have 
experience with this application (continuous 
broadcasting to a large audience) and can share some 
impressions?

     We are reasonably confident about our overall
infrastructure (mostly 100-switched to the desktop;
gigabit ethernet between buildings; Foundry routers
in the backbone).  To minimize the support 
implications, we would like to purchase an appliance-
type MPEG-2 encoder rather than build something from
generic servers and software.  (Happy to have 
recommendations on brands and models.)  Alot of the
MPEG-2 products on the market seem to be more focused
on the point-to-point bidirectional videoconferencing
need rather than one-way broadcasting, although I 
guess they can do both.

     For this particular application, we would want to
distribute client viewing software that could display
full-screen video (or partial-screen video in a window,
at the viewer's discretion).  Is there such a thing as
a generic MPEG-2 decoding client?  Every vendor seems 
to have its own proprietary software product, which
the viewer must download and install.  That's a 
manageable problem, but the bigger issue is that these
proprietary software products are not free.  I have no
problem with the software producer being fairly 
compensated for their work, but an enterprise-wide
site license for this software can be many times the
cost of the hardware encoder.  For this particular 
application, the students may only attract hundreds
of simultaneous viewers, at least to start, but there
is no easy way to make software available on a more
restrained basis than enterprise-wide.

     Anyone have any experience with this, or any 
thoughts to share?

      Wilson Dillaway
      Tufts University