Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - UnboxingPixels (Commercialisation of PXIO – a novel software infrastructure for the seamless and wireless real-time transmission of pixels from manifold pixel sources and digital devices to displays)

Teaser

Today, multi-media content plays a tremendous role in our everyday life and even more at the workplace. Modern collaboration concepts demand interactive sharing of everyone’s work from a variety of heterogeneous devices. Companies use showrooms with multiple large screens to...

Summary

Today, multi-media content plays a tremendous role in our everyday life and even more at the workplace. Modern collaboration concepts demand interactive sharing of everyone’s work from a variety of heterogeneous devices. Companies use showrooms with multiple large screens to present their products to interested customers and at trade fairs, large screen installations attract the attention of visitors, meeting and huddle spaces are ubiquitous across all types of companies. In short: screens are everywhere. However, all these use cases involving shared displays still require dedicated hardware solutions with their very own limitations. Wireless screencast systems found in most meeting rooms, are limited to one source per screen. Showrooms and trade fair booth installations work best with preproduced and specifically tailored content. Moreover, expensive media servers and splitters are required to drive large screen walls, including tedious and inflexible configuration procedures. In contrast, Pxio’s display as a service (DaaS) software represents a true many-to-many infrastructure solution to tackle the problem of realtime pixel transport to shared screens generically. The system enables bandwidth-friendly, flexible point-to-point pixel transfer between manifold sources (PCs, laptops, mobile devices) and any number of individual or combined displays. In contrast to established solutions, no additional cabling, no expensive media server hardware, and no special set-up is required; Pxio software runs on commodity PC hardware and the standard IP network. Even complex scenarios like heterogeneous display walls are easily configured via Pxio’s intuitive user interface. The system does not need own transport channels, but uses existing company networks (LAN, WLAN) and allows to share visual content by simple drag & drop. Pixel transport as well as all other communication is strongly encrypted and, by that, suits the needs of all modern security demands even for enterprise users. Whether viewing multiple sources on one display or spanning content across multiple screens, the system only transmits the necessary pixels, saving bandwidth and ensuring scalability. The system supports additional data channels, enabling the control of displayed content via touch input.

For the system to feel responsive and work flawlessly, low latency is a key requirement. This is especially true when considering audio signals. Therefore, a major goal within this Phase 1 project was the implementation of a robust method to transmit audio with a latency below 50ms (for telecommunication and voice over IP, less than 50ms latency is typically considered lag free). Additional objectives of the feasibility study included a detailed international market analysis, the identification of most promising market segments, and the development of a commercialization strategy based on the results of the market analysis. Overall, the grand goal efficient commercialization of our product and quick scale-up of the company.

Work performed

The work plan for this phase 1 project included the development and integration of a low-latency audio transmission, as well as studying the international markets to gauge viable market segments and the ease of access to these markets. The development and integration of the audio transmission was successfully completed, achieving a typical latency of 20 ms (the goal was below 50ms). This elevates our product beyond TRL6. The market segmentation analysis provided us with three target areas for commercialization (fairs, showrooms, conference rooms) and a better understanding of the relevant distribution angles. Moreover, it allowed us to identify potential customers, as well as reveal the competition and the conditions of the “playing field”. It became evident that the diversity and complexity of the targeted market segments requires specifically tailored commercialization efforts, which lead to adjustments of our initial business plan and the creation of a detailed go-to-market strategy.

Overall, the outcome of the feasibility study is positive and encourages us to move forward. In the next step, we plan to apply for phase 2 funding in the EIC Accelerator pilot, to reach TRL9, start the creation of a sales and marketing team, and further develop our commercialization strategy.

Final results

With the implementation of the new low-latency audio transmission, our system is now ready for collaboration across multiple locations, as meeting members from off-site locations can seamlessly join in. Together with the already very low video transmission latency, our system surpasses the state of the art and is superior to competitor solutions. The same is true for our intuitive drag & drop configuration interface, allowing a quicker, more flexible setup than current screencast systems. Moreover, we offer a true many-to-many system with infinite scalability. Regarding commercialization, we expect that our revised licensing scheme allows quicker access to target market segments, thus boosting the growth of the company.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.pxio.de/.