By Daniel Howard, CTO and SVP, Engineering of SCTE
As you know, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) continues to strive to provide new and unique ways to both train and challenge the cable workforce and our members. Through our Chapters, we have been holding a very successful Olympic-style challenge for field-level employees that includes both hands-on skill assessments and knowledge-based contests, and this continues to be a big hit with our members and the industry. But one thing I kept hearing in meetings with cable executives, managers and at SCTE chapters was the need for SCTE to provide resources and involvement opportunities for the IP engineers and computer scientists in our workforce who manage an increasingly larger portion of the overall network.
I’m therefore proud and excited to announce the new SCTE IP Challenge that we developed in partnership with Cisco as a response to this need. This new interactive event was created to drive awareness of the importance of foundational IP knowledge among the cable workforce, and it is designed to promote the benefits of IP expertise in the cable industry, as well as leverage thought leadership around IPv6 in particular. Read More »
The need for cities to balance social, economic, and environmental resources is becoming increasingly critical. Cities, however, now have an opportunity to use the network as the platform for visualizing and modeling urban infrastructure to provide innovative urban services and manage urban sustainability. Using the network as the fourth utility (in addition to electricity, water, and natural gas), cities can integrate multiple systems to deliver on-demand services over an Internet-enabled cloud infrastructure supported by open innovation.
Busan Metropolitan City is one example of a city poised for Smart City development. Busan is South Korea’s second-largest metropolis and home to the fifth-largest port in the world. It also boasts an established 10GB broadband infrastructure, Busan Information Highway.As the city continues to grow, it faces the same environmental, economic, and social issues as other metropolitan areas. Because of this, the Busan government is investing in expanding the existing broadband infrastructure to improve urban services and service quality. Read More »
If you have attended Cisco Live, you know that Cisco technology powers many different features of the show. Digital media signage, IP phones, VXI thin clients, hundreds of wireless APs, and of course the enterprise-grade Cisco network.
At Cisco Live 2011 in Las Vegas, we activated more Cisco technology, this time from the TelePresence family. Each Cisco Live event has up to 500 breakout sessions for attendees to learn and interact with Cisco experts. Recording those sessions for on-demand viewing has always been a priority for our team, and using Cisco technology is always a win for our attendees. During this event, we put our Cisco TelePresence products to the test, bringing together codecs, HD video, automation, and transcoding systems together to create a unique experience for our virtual audience.
For this pilot capture project, we focused on four session rooms. Each room was outfitted with a Cisco C-Series C40 or C90 codec, connected to the following: laptop VGA feed, presenter audio feed, and our Cisco network. Each codec comes with an HD camera, which was placed on a tripod and connected to the C40. The camera sits unmanned, and can be controlled remotely. Once the audio levels are set, the system in the room runs unmanned at this point.
In our control room, we ran a Cisco Video Communication server, which registered the units onto our network, as well as handled call routing. With over 40 sessions to record over three days, we looked to automate the system where possible, so we turned to the Cisco TelePresence Management Server. This device allowed us to program in all session metadata as well as start/stop times. This reduced the possibility of human error, and enabled the crew to focus on other duties. To facilitate the recording the sessions, we used the Cisco TelePresence Content Server. This device has two main functionalities- session recording and transcoding. It can record multiple sessions at once, and can transcode to just about any format.
A few moments before the session began, the TCS connected to the corresponding room, and began recording both the video and the VGA feed. At the end of the session, the TCS disconnects and begins to transcode the video capture. Once the video is transformed into an editable format, a technician will edit the file and then place it back into the transcode queue for the final pass. The slides are captured in real time, allowing perfect sync with the presenter discussion.
The output you see here is the final version.
This pilot session capture project demonstrated the versatility of TelePresence to go beyond just video conferencing, to a system that creates, transforms and shares content. Our team plans to increase the use of this system at future events across Cisco, enabling us to further bridge the gap between the physical and the virtual world. You can watch these sessions, as well as over 1000 others at www.CiscoLiveVirtual.com.
If you have questions or comments on these Cisco TelePresence systems, please respond in the comments.
Lot of people, lot of activities, lot of parties , lot of data, lot of announcements and lot of clouds ! - That’s Oracle OpenWorld 2011 here in San Francisco ! We have been pretty busy today , with a great flow of visitors on our booth (#721) and a series of well attended theater presentations and speaking sessions.
Today , Amy [ who predicted last week the "chance of clouds " ] and I (no I don’t sing ), met Intel General manager for Critical Servers , Pauline Nist, (@panist ) for a short interview on camera .
Yes again a blog about the great partnership with Intel ( Please Intel Sandhya Gorman interview in part I )!
I personally really like the lively comments of Pauline -- Check out!
So two suggestions for your Tuesday schedule at Oracle OpenWorld
No matter which hemisphere you’re in, the season is beginning to change and the new season reminds me of a few changes and constants. Here in the San Francisco Bay area, the weather will soon be getting colder, the trees on the local hills will turn their leaves a different color, and traffic congestion picks up as local workers return from their vacations. But these changes are not out of the ordinary and we’re used to dealing with them. A little preparation, knowledge, and flexibility–whether dressing appropriately, admiring the beautiful seasonal transitions, and shifting a commute schedule–keep us going and happy.
Likewise, major changes in the cloud and data center are upon us, but we’ve seen transitions like this before in IT. Proper training, strong partnering, and accepting that progress is inevitable will position you for success on the pathway to Cloud delivery.
An example of one of our customers moving to the Cloud is Entel. Based in Chile, Entel has worked to integrate the power of data center computing with the intelligence of the network in a Unified Service Delivery approach. Here is a short video our global team put together with Entel.
It’s exciting to see customers using Cisco UCS servers and Nexus data center switching to deliver cloud services flexibly, at scale, and with a pay-per-use model and meeting with good success. In its portfolio of services, Entel can offer virtualization as well as Cloud services to their customers based upon specific needs. By combining the network and compute, Entel has what could be considered the most advanced data center in Chile. Their ability to offer any service with high availability quickly to the market puts them in a spot of opportunity and if that sounds good to you, please leave a comment on this blog.
As you know, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) continues to strive to provide new and unique ways to both train and challenge the cable workforce and our members. Through our Chapters, we have been holding a very successful Olympic-style challenge for field-level employees that includes both hands-on skill assessments and knowledge-based contests, and this continues to be a big hit with our members and the industry. But one thing I kept hearing in meetings with cable executives, managers and at SCTE chapters was the need for SCTE to provide resources and involvement opportunities for the IP engineers and computer scientists in our workforce who manage an increasingly larger portion of the overall network.
