The player: Dan Dalton, director of new-product development at Fujitsu

The play: Mr. Dalton, who helped develop Fujitsu’s high-definition video-streaming encoders before they were launched in Japan about three years ago, also helped bring the encoders to the U.S. during the past year. CBS, which first used Fujitsu’s IP-9500 encoders when it streamed broadcasts of President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address over the Internet in February, last week started using the encoders for streaming broadcasts of “The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric.” “They see the value of doing high-quality HD video,” says Mr. Dalton, who declined to disclose other media buyers of the product. The encoders are part of a Fujitsu unit whose most recent quarter’s sales rose about 8% from a year earlier while its operating income doubled.

The pitch: The encoders compress signals to cut bandwidth use of HD-video streams in half while allowing full HD broadcasts to be streamed over the Internet with minimal time delay, allowing reporters to communicate with Ms. Couric in real time, Mr. Dalton says. CBS will use the encoders when it covers the Democratic and Republican Conventions from Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul, respectively, within the next month. “We can basically emulate the transmission of an HD stream in what was a standard-definition DVD transponder,” says Mr. Dalton. “That’s significant in the satellite market.” The encoders will help allow consumers receive true HD broadcasts through their computers despite the typical U.S. high-speed Internet connection having less bandwidth than that of Japan or South Korea.

Backstory: Mr. Dalton, who’s based in Sunnyvale, Calif., near San Francisco, joined Fujitsu almost 12 years ago after working for IBM’s audiovisual legacy business for 16 years. He graduated from Northern Arizona University.