Video file servers from concept to reality

Video File Servers have grown out of a dream formulated by many people in the worlds of broadcast and other media who wanted to exchange the existing tape based paradigm for something that worked more like a computer file server. In vocalising this dream very few went as far as stating exactly what features or requirements they expected from such a system. The concept was simple: computers are getting faster all the time, hard disks are getting bigger and cheaper, surely we have reached the point where they can handle video? The first part of this paper aims to take you from this simple and attractive assumption and to try and outline the key differences between video and ordinary data files which make this task more challenging than it would appear to be at first sight. The second part of the paper will broadly classify some different server applications and look at some of the more detailed implementation issues