Happy Holidays!

Thanks to all of you, it’s been a tremendous year for RGB Networks. We have grown our customer base by nearly fifty percent and now boast deployments with over 130 video service providers around the globe. Our North American customers continue to be the core of our business, however we’ve shown strong growth in international markets as well.

With over 5,000 units in the field, our sales and support organizations remain very busy ensuring that our customers have the tools that they need to meet the challenges of the digital era and that they get the most out of their RGB products.

Despite the many grim economic predictions for 2009, I have deep confidence in our ability to continue executing on our goal of delivering the industry’s most advanced video processing solutions. We know that your competition is still fierce and that your subscribers are still demanding more HD, VOD and other bandwidth-intensive services. We’ll be here to help you deliver the promises of all-digital.

I would like to thank all of our customers and partners for your dedication and support. All of us at RGB look forward to our continued collaboration and success in 2009.

Best regards,

Jef Graham
CEO, RGB Networks

With the dramatic growth of HD on-demand and live TV time-shifting applications, network bandwidth is at a premium. Today’s go-to method for expanding video-on-demand (VOD) capacity—node splitting—is proving to be a significant financial and resource drain for operators, not to mention the disruption that it causes in the network. A very viable alternative to node splitting is VOD transrating. Real-time conversion of VOD streams from constant bit rate (CBR) to variable bit rate (VBR) and dynamic statistical multiplexing of these streams is the simplest method for adding capacity to existing VOD infrastructure. Focusing on the VOD portion of the network, real-time VOD processing leverages edge QAMs and set-top boxes that are already deployed, eliminating the need for costly node additions and truck rolls. Asset preparation workflow and back-office systems are also leveraged and remain the same when real-time video processing is utilized.

RGB’s Dynamic Bandwidth Manager (DBM) is the industry’s only real-time video processing solution for VOD bandwidth optimization. See sidebar for more information.

Q: What is your main focus right now as you lead RGB’s product development efforts?

A: My main focus since I joined RGB has been to take the quality of our products to the next level and to increase the velocity of new features. I think RGB is the most innovative company in the video market and we need to keep that edge.

Q: How do you keep the technology innovation going while still taking care of the day-to-day engineering responsibilities?

A: I’ve found that there are two fundamental principles that come into play in order to simultaneously achieve these divergent goals. The first is to build the organization around great people. As my former boss Dick Moley used to say: “If you have great people, nothing else matters. If you don’t have great people, nothing else matters.” While RGB had a tremendous team when I joined, I’ve worked to augment the team with new talent to round it out. The second is to instill in every engineer in the organization a deep sense of ownership and commitment.

Q: What do you find most interesting about the video processing business?

A: Today’s video processing business environment is very reminiscent of the data communications business in the late ’80s and early ’90s. At that time, everyone knew that data was coming and it would eclipse voice, there were new applications and new ways to solve enterprise communications problems coming on line almost daily, technology was advancing rapidly and new computer techniques were being applied to communications problems. In addition, there were many new competitors challenging the “Old World” voice/data companies. Out of that chaotic environment emerged whole new product categories and technology giants such as Cisco. The video processing market, while not as big as enterprise data, is undergoing a similar period of rapid change, competitive pressures and great innovation. It is an exciting time and I believe RGB can play a big role in defining the future of this market. It is also just plain fun.

Q: Your peers have dubbed you the “Father of Frame Relay” — can you tell us more about that?

A: Well as they say, “success has a hundred fathers” so I certainly believe I was one of them. I was at StrataCom at the time working as a Hardware Director and the company’s chief product architect. We had pioneered an early version of fast packet (a.k.a. ATM) switching technology and had successfully applied the technology to Enterprise voice and constant bit rate data, but were searching for a way to add value to the “new” packet data technologies that were starting to show up in Enterprise networks. Fortuitously we were approached by Telenet (later Sprint) who had pioneered X.25 packet switching and were looking for a way to participate in the emerging fast packet technologies. I proposed a somewhat obscure ISDN protocol called Frame Relay as the interface between our switch and theirs and went on to develop our half of the interface. Well one thing led to another and Motorola who was an investor in the StrataCom convinced another little company—Cisco Systems—to add the interface to their router. In parallel, another of our customers named Wiltel (later sold to MCI) was looking for a new data service they could offer to compete with AT&T. They launched the first frame relay service with StrataCom switches and Cisco routers in late 1991. The service was immediately successful and began cutting deeply into AT&T’s private line data business. As Bell Labs had no product that could compete with ours, AT&T built out a huge frame relay network based on StrataCom gear as well. By 1996 Frame Relay had become a fully-tariffed data service and by the end of that decade had grown to an annual $4B business. Heady stuff!

Q: You were the recipient of the 1996 Dvorak Award for Personal Achievement in Network Engineering, given for excellence in telecommunications—what does that mean to you?

A: There were so many tremendously talented engineers and visionaries who collaborated in the networking revolution that occurred during the 80s and 90s. I am just honored to have been one of the engineers who were recognized by my peers.