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When I first saw the prototype for the VITEC Media Gateway (MGW) Ace in February 2015, I was struck by two facts: The HEVCbased unit wasn't much bigger than the H.264-based real-time encoders that VITEC had shown me before- making it ideal for field use-and the Ace had all the markings of a product that could be useful in the burgeoning 4K video market.
I was only half right. The MGW Ace is indeed ideal for field use, but its primary focus is in the sub-4K midand low-bitrate range in which its primary target customers-military, security, and surveillance users-typically operate.
Now that the MGW Ace has been on the market for almost 6 months, after launching at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show in early April 2015, Streaming Media agreed to do a review of the shipping unit. It was in the running for several awards at the IBC show in Amsterdam at time of our review, which was done at VITEC's booth. Along with the encoder, we also took a look at a newer, complementary product: the hardware-based MGW D265 decoder. As its naming convention implies, it is a hardware-based H.265 decoder, which allows content acquired in HEVC to be played back without requiring a robust computer to decode the H.265 content.
This review, for those of you following the licensing issues surrounding H.265/HEVC, is set against a backdrop of uncertainty for widespread HEVC adoption. Having said that, the MGW Ace and D265 form an end-toend HEVC hardware encode/decode solution, which means that users of this closed system can choose to bypass both the licensing and higher computational requirements of a software-based H.265 decode.
In addition, the Ace-D265 combination offers some unique features, such as Zixi integration in the D265, that help address network intermit - tency issues. Our review will briefly cover those end-to-end features.
The MGW Ace, though, is not limited to delivering only to the D265, a key factor for those considering using the Ace with a traditional media server. So we will also touch on interoperability of the Ace with software-based decoders.
Under the Hood
MGW Ace is all about real-time delivery. As such, this FPGA-based encoding solution delivers H.265 in either 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 at resolutions up...