Fast TV Server AG - G234 project

FAST TV-Server AG is the manufacturer of TV-Server, which combines television with computer technology and the Internet enabling “Personal TV”.

The goal of  the “G234” project was to research, analyse, evaluate new technologies for media compression, process, transmit and develop appropriate solutions. Within a market with faster and faster innovation cycles and a large number of existing and new technology standards and hardware devices, manufacturers of consumer electronic products are confronted with a continuous evolution of their products.

Facing giant competitors like Sony, huge investments in R&D and quality assurance are required to be a successful player in the long-term. The key challenge within this project was to create a quick, flexible but skilled taskforce for research and software development of new key technologies in the television, digital media and Internet sector. The technologies include software as well as hardware. 

The main challenge was to generate a competitive structure that was able to compensate huge R&D budgets with a really quick and high innovative technology team.

Technopark developed the project plan together with FAST in an initial workshop. As a result the key requirements concerning developer skills and number as well as the organisational structure and the time frame of the project were defined.

Technopark recruited the programming team in close co-operation with FAST and prepared the employment contracts. Furthermore Technopark provided offices and the IT and communication infrastructure.

FAST managed and controlled the whole project development process. FAST was fully responsible for the system design, project management and system testing. The project management operated in Germany. Critical issues were discussed and solved between the FAST programming team and the Technopark task force within regular development workshops. 

The main technical issues to investigate within such a innovative project were:

• Audio and video information compression by using means specified in standards MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4 and JPEG.
• Digital audio/video information real time processing and digital information.
• Recognition of fragments of video information in real time.
• Reception and access of additional digital information (such as EPG-Electronic program guide).

Within only 4 weeks the task force team was recruited, trained in Germany and ready to start. With a small investment (compared to their competitors) in the R&D task force astonishing progress in video/audio signal conversion was made.

The research and development resulted in well-tested, reliable and easy extendable software, designated for DVR device. The developed software modules are fully compatible with MPEG2 video, MPEG 1 Layer II and Layer III (audio) standard requirements.

Due to the excellent project results FAST plans to extend the R&D team in 2006 for further research in digital audio/video processing and the integration of Internet services.