House intelligent: Lucent Technologies and Safari Technologies team up to produce a video- and information-on-demand system in Canada

Interactive entertainment, hyped to little avail, appears to be getting a warm reception in the hospitality, planned community and health care industries.

Ironically, the heavily publicized but failed interactive TV trials of the last decade helped advance its cause. Those trials were aimed at the business-to-consumer public domain network market but failed to win consumer acceptance and, therefore, business viability.

Yet the technical advances produced by the trials in particular and the communications industry in general are finding a home in the more controlled environment of private domain applications. Here, the necessary networking and information technology infrastructure are either already in place or can be implemented with greater ease and cost-effectiveness.

The smart home is one example. Safari Technologies Inc. in Otsego, Mich., and Lucent Technologies Inc. in Murray Hill, N.J., have integrated their products and technologies to render the smart home even smarter.

Information blitz In March, the two companies introduced their first video- and information-on-demand system for the residential and hospitality markets at the state-of-the-art Residence on Georgia condominium and hotel complex in Vancouver, British Columbia. The system, which uses the Lucent CineBlitz server, will let the 500 residents simultaneously access the Internet, video-on-demand, cable TV, music channels and security cameras from their homes or hotel rooms.

CineBlitz is based on technology developed by the Information Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs (Lucent's research and development division) and delivers continuous and non-continuous data. It is platform-independent.

Safari's networking technology enables the delivery of two-way analog video and 10Base-T data on the same Category 5 twisted pair wiring. All the services at the Residence on Georgia except cable TV are delivered to the end user through a single Category 5 twisted pair.

Safari developed its server to receive Internet protocol (IP) commands from the end points, or set-top boxes, then pass the commands to the video server for appropriate action-play, stop and pause.

Each unit in the complex has access to a wide variety of services via the television-controlled with a wireless keyboard or hand-held remote control. Services include:

* High-speed Internet access. Each residence has a 10BaseT Ethernet connection fed by T-1 Internet access supplied by BC Tel Advanced Communications, which also supplied the communications infrastructure within the complex.

* E-mail access. Units have multiple accounts. Some are permanent and others-for hotel guests-change on a daily basis.

* Movies on demand. Residents have the ability to play, stop and pause digitally stored movies. Movies are truly on demand: As soon as one is requested, it begins to play. Video streams are sent through 64 CineBlitz decoders to third-party decoders, which then transfer the digital video to analog streams. The analog streams are then transferred to Safari switches, which carry the streams over CAT-5 wires. Voice and data streams are multiplexed by Safari and then sent to a matrixed switch. Then the voice and data are sent over twisted pair routers from wiring closets to patch panels. Finally, video, voice and data streams go from the patch panels to the residents' rooms over twisted pair cables. A single copy of each available movie is stored on the server, and yet any number of residents may view the same movie at the same time at a different point.

* Music on demand. Residents can choose CD-quality music delivered via satellite, uninterrupted 24 hours a day. The user also can browse the Internet while listening to music.

* Security camera access. Residents can access security cameras inside and outside the complex. A pictorial representation of camera locations lets each resident select a particular camera for viewing.

* Community information. Residents and guests also can use the CineBlitz system to tap into community news, airport schedules, stock market information, in-room shopping, videoconferencing and cable TV.

The system features an open architecture so that future technology and equipment can be introduced seamlessly.

Technology collaboration As part of the collaboration, Safari integrated its 96 video network routing switch, terminal (set-top box) and software server with Lucent's media server to provide the video-on-demand capability (Figure 1).

Safari designed and implemented the Web browser user interface and the interfaces to the Web and e-mail servers in the Residence on Georgia complex. Lucent provided Safari with a video server system that stores up to 40 hours of content and 64 simultaneous video streams-MPEG 2 at 6.3 Mb/s per stream.

This solution streams digital video up to 64 rack-mounted decoders that convert the digital streams to analog and deliver the analog streams to the Safari switch. Lucent and Safari also worked together to make set-top box IP commands to the Safari video network software server compatible with the client application programming interface. Safari, working with BC Tel and the Residence on Georgia, provide the other capabilities.

Together, Lucent and Safari plan to expand their offerings to the hospitality, residence, health care, education and entertainment markets.