The SEM-V8 is part of the SmartStream interactive digital cable system which consists of integrated stream processing elements necessary for deployment of advanced services like Video On Demand and digital ad insertion. It significantly lowers the barrier to entry to an on-demand environment, providing high-speed interfaces to servers and content aggregation systems; the SEM performs multiplex creation, encryption, 64/256QAM modulation, up-conversion and edge configuration for on demand applications. The SEM-V8 provides for up to 8 multiplexes of processing functionality in a single RU package using 4 up-converters with 2 multiplexes each.
To accommodate various deployment strategies and network architectures, the elements of the SmartStream system have been designed to: simplify and optimize the management of headend system resources; affordably address exploding stream count; provide a secure content delivery environment; and provide a scalable architecture to allow the system to grow with subscriber additions.
The SmartStream system has been designed specifically to address the next wave of revenue producing services being readied by the cable industry. The enhanced viewing experience that these new services bring to consumers requires sophisticated and powerful headend-resident systems to efficiently process thousands of content streams and manage the cable plant bandwidth.