Kern County Government Television Used the Streambox ACT-L3™ Video Transport to Stream the Live Broadcast of the SpaceShip One Launch, The First Privately Funded Manned Spaceflight.

June 21, 2004 Seattle, WA – Streambox Inc, The leader in video compression and video over IP solutions for TV Broadcasters and cable operators, announced that the Streambox ACT-L3™ was selected to stream a live broadcast of the first privately funded manned spaceflight which took place today in the Mojave Desert, California. Investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen and aviation legend Burt Rutan teamed to create SpaceShip One, which launched the first non-governmental flight to leave the earth’s atmosphere paving the way for routine commercial trips into space.

“The Streambox ACT-L3™ Video Transport will allow us to stream broadcast quality full resolution, full motion video over an IP network in real time from the launch site at the Mojave Airport to our studio in Bakersfield, California.” Said Rick Davis, General Manager of Kern County Government Television “We are pleased with the quality and the reliability of the Streambox SBT3-5000 solution that will replace the aging and un-reliable MPEG1 system we currently use. This historic broadcast will be multicast over terrestrial transmitters and to cable systems  ”

“We are excited to partner with Kern Government TV in streaming the video of this historic occasion.  Our advanced ACT-L3™ Encoder and Decoder is the perfect choice for this live ENG setup.” said Bob Hildeman, Chairman and CEO of Streambox, “Viewers will be able to see every detail of the launch thanks to our advanced video compression and broadcast over IP solution.”

The Streambox ACT-L3™ Video Transport System streamed a full D1 resolution signal in real time via a 6Mbps IP network link from the launch site at the Mojave Airport to the Kern Government TV station as well as to the local NBC affiliate KGET.  Real time end to end latency for encoding, transport, and delivery over IP was under 500 milliseconds. 

The Streambox ACT-L3™ uses the Microsoft® Windows XP™ Embedded Operating System and is fully software upgradeable with a solid-state hard disk, ensuring an ease of maintenance, upgrade, reliability and fault tolerance. The ACT-L3™ codec relies on Intel® Pentium™ 4 processors with Hyperthreading™ technology to encode real-time interlaced video at 30fps with automatic closed-captioning support.  Built in Advanced Quality of Service (QoS) systems include remote management, Forward Error Correction (FEC) and error cancellation, burst error protection, bandwidth shaping, and automated self-healing signal reconnect and restart.    The Streambox ACT-L3™ Codec is used in numerous real-time applications where interlaced broadcast and DVD quality video is required at low bitrates and low end-to-end video latency is mandatory. ACT-L3™ applications include TV broadcasting, satellite, Tele-medicine, wireless, film and video production and as well as desktop PC and Macintosh® systems. For additional information on the Streambox ACT-L3™ please visit http://www.streambox.com/products/products.html

For more information on the historic SpaceShip One, please visit http://www.scaled.com

 About Streambox
Streambox provides a single platform for all live and file-based video acquisition over IP. The company develops industry-leading solutions for encoding, video management, and play-out for broadcast and broadband based on the innovative ACT-L3™ codec. Our software-based solutions provide unrivaled performance, reliability, and video quality over low data rate wired and wireless IP networks. Streambox solutions enable broadcasters, government agencies, and enterprises and other users to enhance content ownership, simplify operations, and increase operational efficiencies. More information is available at www.streambox.com.

Press Contact

Bob Hildeman
Streambox Inc.
206-956-0544 x111

All third party trademarks are property of their respective owners and are used for reference purposes only.

Return to top of page