Storing content in the nascent digital TV age is becoming paramount for broadcasters. Sun, wanting to get in on the ground floor of this rapidly growing need for the storage of digitized film and video, has announced it will provide software that, in essence, provides a common ground for third parties to help broadcasters manage MPEG-2 content. Currently, many broadcasters use proprietary software and hardware products packaged together by a single vendor to play back and store MPEG-2 based content from archives. Sun wants to crack this market by offering the StorEdge Media Central software, a sort of middle layer of software that glues together a standard Sun server with third-party software components written in Java. Sun is currently partnering with companies such as Bulldog, which has written software for content management, Tektronix, which makes MPEG-2 broadcast equipment, and others in an effort to sway broadcasters away from their traditional equipment suppliers.
Effective storage can reap big sums.
Sun isn't the only company hoping to increase its stature in the broadcaster's eye. Last week, IBM and Sony announced a co-marketing deal to provide digital content management systems to the likes of CNN , the first announced customer. In fact, IBM could conceivably partner with Sun to combine their offerings, Sun executives said, but no deals have been announced yet. The StorEdge software is expected to be delivered in the third quarter of 1999, Sun executives said. Meanwhile, Skystream announced that Harris Corporation , a leading provider of broadcast networking equipment, will resell Skystream's datacasting products.