SkyStream Nabs Intel Investment

Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, CA) has invested an undisclosed sum in broadband networking product developer SkyStream Corp. (Mountain View, CA). The two companies have been collaborating on a series of digital broadcasting trials to transmit Internet data and television content over satellite and Digital TV (DTV) networks using SkyStream's Integrator family of products with Intel Architecture computing platforms.

SkyStream has developed a series of products to address the needs of the converging Internet and broadcast TV markets. The company's broadcast networking products enable cable, satellite, digital TV companies, and Internet service providers to provide viewers with mass market and special-event data broadcast programs and services. Using SkyStream's Integrator product line, media service providers, content developers, and video broadcasters can combine MPEG-based digital video content with IP-based data content into a single transmission stream.

In November 1998, Intel used SkyStream's products in the nation's first live demonstration of enhanced digital TV broadcasting. During the airing of a documentary on architect Frank Lloyd Wright by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Intel used SkyStream's DBN-25 Integrator to broadcast enhanced content over a digital TV transmission. The video and additional educational content was viewed in select locations using PCs capable of receiving and displaying the enhanced DTV signal.