Video companies combine federal marketing

Two video distribution companies have rolled their product partnership into the federal sector, jointly marketing to agencies a packaged video streaming system.

VBrick Systems Inc., a Wallingford, Conn., company that sells video distribution hardware and software, and Extreme Networks, a Santa Clara, Calif., company that builds video network switches, are now tapping into the federal government, especially as they see demand for video networking applications begin to rise with the prospect of war.

"You'll see a big difference in how video is being used," said Jay Schwartzberg, vice president for sales and business development for VBrick, which, along with Extreme, gave its first combined product demos to dozens of government users March 18.

Schwartzberg said he expects added need for high-quality video feeds, whether for surveillance, officer broadcasts to remote bunkers, training or telemedicine. Video transmissions, he said, could also flow to destinations ranging from handhelds to tanks.

VBrick also said it will release the latest version of its video appliance, MPEG-4, next month. The video encoder and decoder system can send live or stored video to thousands of remote TV, PC or PDA screens over Extreme's networks.