Minerva bulks up with Philips partnership

Minerva Networks has added muscle to its IP television office management software product line offering by partnering with international video behemoth Royal Philips Electronics. The combined companies will sell integrated hardware and software for distributing video-over-IP networks, particularly in the international marketplace.

“Philips is a really strong player in the digital video space, and they see this new IP television opportunity as one that they want to address aggressively,” said Mauro Bonomi, Minerva’s president and CEO.

The two parties, he said, bring ingredients to a mix that will take digital video, translate it into IP and then transport it across telephone networks.

“We have technology to turn a DVB [digital video broadcast] feed into IP to inject into an IP network,” said Bonomi. Philips has “very efficient MPEG encoders that can produce broadcast-quality video at bit rates below 2 Mb/s.”

These low bit rates, he said, enable ADSL video transmissions up to 10,000 feet from a central office because “if you’re able to squeeze video down to 2 megabits per second while preserving broadcast quality, you’re able to provide television services over ADSL infrastructure,” Bonomi said.

The partnership will aim primarily at the international marketplace, which is ripe for video delivery over telephone lines because cable and satellite are not as deeply entrenched as in the U.S. Additionally, because of the structure of international telephone systems and the tightly knit community structure, more subscribers can be reached more readily via ADSL than in the United States.

“If you’re going after a big telco internationally, they love to deal with a company the size of Philips,” said Bonomi, calling it “essential” for a small company like Minerva to have such a partner when approaching a company the size of France Telecom or Telecom Italia.