As demand for high definition media skyrockets, DMP turned to NETGEAR® to provide the reliable, high-speed connectivity to stream content seamlessly throughout the network.
Profile
Digital Media Projects (DMP) designs and develops leading-edge, triple-play products to provide television, telephone and broadband services for hospitality, education, residential and corporate environments.
DMP's high definition media server is capable of simultaneously receiving and distributing six multiplexes of terrestrial and satellite transmissions to accommodate a limitless number of PC desktops and televisions.
Background
The High Definition Media Server (HDMS) is the DMP’s first IPTV product, allowing users to choose a mix of digital terrestrial, satellite, pre-recorded video, advertising and audio channels that can be changed as frequently as required.
The company uses Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP), a communications standard that allows one computer to send content throughout the network to make more efficient use of resources when supporting high-bandwidth programmes. This means that DMP’s media server can be integrated into the IT infrastructure in almost any office, trading, commercial or leisure environment without disruption to existing services. The result is superb quality video over almost any distance.
Objective
With the rapidly increasing demand for high definition media content, DMP’s business has grown significantly in the past year. DMP’s growing subscriber base meant that the company needed to ensure that each of its customers’ in-house IT systems had the necessary backbone and speed required to handle the increasing volume of content coming through the network. DMP’s customers required a solid, reliable foundation and at least 300Mbs output per HDMS unit. The infrastructure also needed to intelligently filter the network’s traffic on a per-request basis, so IGMP support was therefore essential.
Nick Fearnley, Director at Digital Media Projects, Ltd. stated, "We did some research and tested IGMP enabled switches from the major names in the market including Cisco, Linksys, HP, but found issues with all. We just weren’t getting the throughput we needed, which caused severe picture deterioration. In addition, some of the switches had port limits, which again affected the quality of the video even after the IGMP issues were resolved."
Solution
As Iain Kilner, fellow Director of DMP, was already very familiar with NETGEAR’s reputation for highquality
home and small business networking products, DMP turned to NETGEAR® to evaluate its
ProSafe™ line of business-class networking products. NETGEAR® reviewed the needs of DMP and its
customers and suggested the FSM7328S ProSafe 24-port 10/100 L3 Managed Stackable Switch with
4 gigabit ports.
NETGEAR’s FSM7328S is a powerful, easy to use managed switch with front-panel stacking capabilities
that enable DMP to overcome the problem of port limits by connecting up to eight individual
switches utilising standard copper or fiber gigabit interfaces and cards, building a single-IP
manageable device. This creates a cost-effective infrastructure that grows with the network, for
maximised flexibility and scalability.
"The NETGEAR® team helped us test and develop the necessary firmware upgrades to get the switch
filtering correctly," said Kilner. "The stacking capabilities mean we can scale according to our
customers’ individual needs, ensuring that the content runs smoothly throughout the network.”
The gigabit connectivity of the FSM7328S enables DMP to overcome the limits of the standard 10/100
Mbps Ethernet to facilitate the high speeds required for the streaming video from the server. Kilner
remarked, “We have tested the FSM7328S with our server streaming video out at 200Mbps and above.
The NETGEAR® switch distributed the incoming content so fast that we ran out of channels we could
transmit above this level! This has not always been the case with other vendors’ equipment."
DMP also required an easy-to-maintain solution, as its growing customer base means that after the units
are installed, the network should be easy for administrators to manage. NETGEAR’s FSM7328S Managed
Switches provide GUI-based device configuration to simplify and reduce the workload for IT staff.
Business Impact/Result
After successful trials and installations with the FSM7328S, DMP was impressed with NETGEAR’s
superior performance and recommend NETGEAR® L3 switches to complement its customers’ IP TV
head units.
Kilner commented, "We have found the NETGEAR® FSM7000 series of switches to provide almost ‘out
of the box’ support for our high-bandwidth, triple-play backbones. It has proved to be the most
reliable switching platform we have tested to date, combined with simple, yet powerful configuration
and management."
"NETGEAR’s FSM7328S offered us the reliable performance and low maintenance requirements we
were looking for, while also having a lower cost-per-port than the other products on the market.
NETGEAR® has a fantastic support team that played an active part in working alongside us to make
sure all our requirements were fulfilled."
"In the future, we are looking to offer triple-play to residential customers, so we’ll need high
throughput with maximum security and are hoping to work closely with NETGEAR® to ensure this
happens!"
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