Rivermax – Streaming Everything

May 11, 2020 Erez Scop
Rivermax

Mellanox Rivermax® Release 1.5, its newest release of the IP-Based Video and Data Streaming Library, includes key features and capabilities enabling performance boosts and quicker integrations.

As many of us have adopted a work from home routine due to COVID-19, this new norm is having a profound impact on our professional and personal lives, not only for those with small children at home, but also for those working from home for the first time. But as the “show” must go on, it’s no surprise that this sudden boost in remote working is driving the need for more dynamic IT environments that can pull in resources on demand.

 

Over the past few years at Mellanox, we’ve put focus on the Media & Entertainment (M&E) market, supporting the global industry as it evolves from proprietary SDI to cost-effective Ethernet/IP infrastructure solutions. Mellanox technologies are enabling M&E to take the next transformational step toward cloud computing, while meeting compliance with the most stringent SMPTE ST-2110-21 specification requirements.

 

On our journey to modernize M&E network interconnect, we have introduced Mellanox Rivermax, an optimized, standard-compliant software library API for streaming data. Rivermax software runs on Mellanox ConnectX®-5 or higher network adapters, enabling the use of common off-the-shelf (COTS) servers for streaming SD, HD and up to Ultra HD video flows. The Rivermax-ConnectX®-5 adapter card combination also enables compliance with M&E specifications, such as the SMPTE 2110-21, reduces CPU utilization for video data streaming, and removes bottlenecks for the highest throughput – reaching 82 Gbps of streamed video with a single CPU core.

 

As our partners have rolled out new Rivermax based full-IP solutions rigorously tested in their labs, we’re excited to share the fruits of these collaborative investments in Rivermax 1.5, the latest release of our streaming library, with our customers and the market at large.

 

Rivermax® Release 1.5 includes key features and capabilities enabling performance boosts and quicker integrations. One of these new features, allows Rivermax-accelerated applications to stream not only video/audio/ancillary, but other data stream formats as well, including compressed video, healthcare imaging (DICOM-RTV), cloud gaming, autonomous car sensor streaming (Video/LiDAR/RADAR), and more; enabling Rivermax accelerations and CPU savings in many new markets and applications.

 

Another good piece of news is that Rivermax 1.5 has recently passed the JT-NM Tested Program (March 16 – 20, 2020), allowing for the integration and interoperability with multiple other market vendors.

Rivermax 1.5 Release Contents:

• Virtualized Rivermax over vmware ESXi and Linux OpenStack. Currently in beta level support.
• Rivermax API updates:
  • Replaced TX pause API with a flag to commit API
  • Changed structure of in buffer attributes
  • Changed function signature of in query buffer API
• Added 802.1Q VLAN tagging support
• Added SDK code examples:
  • Media sender:
    • real video content, interlace, 59.94, 29.97
  • Media receiver:
    • GPU-CUDA support for Color Space Conversion (from YCBCR to RGB)—Display/playback a video stream on screen or through X11 SSH
    • Interlace video formats
    • 2022-7 Rx SW sample code – to get you started quickly on software implementation of 2022-7. Note that 2022-7 will be offloaded to ConnectX-6 Dx hardware with future releases of Rivermax.
• Generic API (beta version) – For streaming any type of data:Get all the goodies of Rivermax like traffic shaping (accurate packet pacing), high bandwidth for any type of UDP based data stream with low CPU utilization and supporting both Linux and Windows.

• Introduce Rivermax for Mellanox ConnectX-6 Dx in Beta level support over Linux OS (with feature parity to ConnectX-5)
• NVIDIA-Jetson platform software image (as presented @ IBC2019)
  • Based on Rivermax 1.5 release
  • Demos running Rivermax on NIVIDA-Jetson platform
  • Includes Sender and Receiver examples
  • GPU is integrated with the Media_receiver for both CSC and on-screen rendering
  • AnalyzeX (SMPTE ST2110-20 verification software) while running Video Viewer

 

Wish to discuss Rivermax with us? reach out to me or your local account/support team.

 

Here’s to seeing you at the next M&E show!