Commetrex’ MSP Media Gateway product line is designed to bring the open-communications system developer the industry’s first Any Media…Any Port…Anytime hardware resource. The MSP-H8 offers the developer the ultimate in affordability in integrated media while the MSP-1200C (in early development) brings the efficiencies of value-adding industry architectures to the carrier-equipment industry. The MSP-320 offers mid-range analog and high-capacity digital interfaces and media-processing resources.
An understanding of common industry practice contrasted with how Commetrex licenses media-processing resources for use on the MSP hardware is necessary to understand Commetrex’ hardware offering. The open-communications industry market-share leaders offer boards that are fixed in function and capacity. Their price includes the software necessary for the board to play/record or send/receive. But the MSP boards support any media, and come with none. So the developer can add his own or third-party technologies, or license them from Commetrex on a maximum concurrent-port basis.
For example, the MSP-320 might be used to support 72 voice ports, 14 fax ports, and 7 V.90 ports. Another developer might require 120 voice ports and no fax or data. And some developers might want to use the board as a hardware resource for a system with all-proprietary software. The value proposition to each is quite different; they should not all be asked to pay the same price.
All of Commetrex’ boards include a removable EEPROM that is used to store board-specific information such as serial number, date of manufacture, as well as a series of codes that can only be read by Commetrex software. These codes are license keys that are used to enable different number of media resources. We call it a concurrent-port control device or CPCD.
But more than the hardware and the media-processing technology are needed. Additional software, supplied by the board’s purchaser or Commetrex, is required to enable the board to do real work. Media technologies must have a software environment in which to run; Commetrex calls it OpenMedia™, Commetrex’ implementation of the MSP Consortium’s M.100 recommendation (http://www.msp.org). One OpenMedia license is required for each board that is to support M.100-conforming media technologies.
In addition to OpenMedia, the media technologies required by the application must be licensed (or provided by the user).
PowerCall: Required to place and accept calls. Includes DTMF, MF, R1, R2 signaling and call-progress analysis.
PowerVox: Allows voice record and play. Includes G.711 and G.726.
PowerFax®: Allows G3 fax send/receive.
These media technologies are licensed on a maximum-concurrent-port basis. So, even though a board may support 8 or 120 channels, a developer can only purchase the actual number needed. This is also a major benefit to the distributor since only the base-level board need be carried in inventory. Then, when a customer places an order, the distributor configures the board for the specific number of ports. Think of it as the ultimate in just-in-time inventory.
| Hardware |
Developer's Kits (SDK) |
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Commetrex offers a resource-rich, powerful DSP-hardware platform with broad market
coverage by way of its MSP Media Gateway DSP-Resource Boards. The MSP Media Gateway
DSP-Resource Boards provide the system designer value and range of options to meet unique
system-design requirements. Each board is available with a SDK that supports two
levels of board-level values: intended for the designer developing a proprietary
environment or for extending Commetrex’ open-architecture M.100 board-level
environment.
The MSP Consortium’s M.100 multi-stream
integrated-media software environment is also include with these boards. All are
available with the integration of hardware and media-processing technologies common in
the computer telephony market.
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Winner of several Computer Telephony Expo Best of
Show and Product of the Year Awards, Commetrex offers a broad market coverage in this area
from the MSP-H8 to the MSP-320. Commetrex’ Open Everywhere philosophy serves
the OEM well in three categories: by offering hardware-only components, strategic
integration capability with OpenMedia, and integration capabilities with OpenMedia plus
Open Telecommunications Framework.
The MSP-H8 is a
full-length PCI-based board with 8 high-performance analog trunk interfaces for host-based
signal processing. This board offers ultimate per-port affordability by taking
advantage of the high-MIPS ratings of PCs, eliminating the need for DSPs on the telephony
interface board. It includes up to 8 pluggable analog trunk interfaces with
high-resolution 14 bit linear codes and the low-distortion characteristics needed for
high-speed data modems.
Click here to
view MSP-H8 Product Bulletin
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The MSP-320
is like the MSP-H8, but offers a hardware platform designed for the
implementation of high-capacity integrated-media PC-based communications systems capable
of 512 PCM streams. This includes the resources needed to support all the
media-processing of the modern enterprise server: high-speed data and fax, Internet
telephony, voice processing for messaging, video processing, text-to-speech, and speech
recognition.
Click here to
view MSP-320 Product Bulletin
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Commetrex is now offering a daughterboard for its MSP-320 Media Gateway DSP board called
the Quad
E1/T1. The Quad E1/T1 eliminates the need for a separate network-interface board and
takes the MSP-320 to quad-span densities. Currently, the MSP-320 requires two
network-interface boards connected via H.100 to handle four E1 or T1 spans. Now, with the
MSP Quad E1/T1 daughterboard the MSP-320 easily handles four spans of media processing in
one PCI slot.
Click
here to view Quad T1/E1 Daughterboard Press Release
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The board-level developer’s kits include, in addition to the C-source for a
full-function Windows NT kernel-mode driver, all the board-specific software tools
necessary to develop a media-processing environment for the board.
For developers that prefer to take advantage of medi-processing technologies developed
by others, the M.100 Software Developer’s Kit offers a productive integrated-media
software environment. Therefore, a designer not only has access to all of Commetrex
media-processing technologies, but also to other vendors that provide M.100-compliant
media-processing products.
Kits are available for MSP-320, OpenMedia and OTF Kernel.
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The developer of a communications system requiring DSP-based proprietary media-processing
can either make or buy the hardware platform. The MSP-320 and its development tools
provide a strong argument for not building it all yourself. The MSP-320
Board-Level Developer’s Kit gives the designer all the MSP-320-specific software
tools needed to continue the platform development into the board-level software phase.
Click
here to view MSP-320 Board-Level Developer’s Kit Product Bulletin
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The MSP-320 M.100 Developer’s Kit
gives the designer all the MSP-320 M.100 environment software tools needed to develop
stream-processing DSP software. The Kit includes the same software tools used by
Commetrex’ development engineers to develop M.100 Media Stream Transforms (MSTs) and
MSP Applications.
Click here to view MSP-320 M.100
Developer’s Kit Product Bulletin
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There are three OpenMedia SDKs:
- MSP-320 OpenMedia – This SDK supports development of media-processing software on
the Commetrex Media Gateway MSP-320 DSP-resource board.
- Portable OpenMedia – This SDK provides the tools needed to implement OpenMedia on
your proprietary board-level environment.
- OpenMedia Host – The SDK that delivers OpenMedia functionality to Window NT hosts
without requiring an add-in processing board.
Click here to
view OpenMedia SDK Product Bulletin
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The Open
Telecommunications Framework (OTF) developer’s kit is the SDK required for
application-level development within Commetrex’ Open Telecommunication Framework.
OTF is the industry’s first S.100-conforming middleware product that conforms to
release 2 of the specification. It is the only hardware-, vendor-, and media-independent
open-communications middleware product.
Click here to
view Open Telecommunications Framework (OTF) Product Bulletin
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The SDK for the Open
Telecommunications Framework (OTF) Kernel is the developer’s kit that permits an
OEM to customize and extend OTF to support a proprietary objective such as a new media
resource, for example. OTF is a modular, distributed, client-server, open implementation
of the ECTF S.100 R2 recommendation. It is a hardware-independent telephony middleware
system kernel that provides the core S.100 system services plus Commetrex’ OTF
Addressing Framework in the Windows NT environment. As an open-architecture
S.100-conforming kernel, OTF can be extended by the OEM to support multi-vendor system
resources and client APIs.
Click here
to view OTF Kernel Product Bulletin
Click here
to view Fax_Portal
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