Cisco videoscape white paper c11-639820

Cisco and Service Providers: Reinventing the Television Experience.

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The Cisco Videoscape Solution

What You Will Learn

Cisco is working with service providers to reinvent the television experience, bringing entertainment, social media

and communications together with mobility to transform how users engage with video and how providers prosper.

This document provides an overview of the Cisco Videoscape solution. It describes:

● The market trends that are moving the industry toward a new generation of media and entertainment

● How Cisco Videoscape can help you deliver and capitalize on new media experiences

● The essential building blocks of the Cisco Videoscape solution, including the video headend and back-office

cloud, the video-optimized transport network and content delivery network (CDN), and client solutions that

extend new cloud-based entertainment and applications to the consumer

Introduction

Consumers have more media and communications choices than ever before, and more ways to access them. What

they lack is an intuitive, unified experience that encompasses all of the content, applications, and devices they use,

wherever they want to use them.

Now, service providers can bring order to this media chaos with Cisco® Videoscape, the comprehensive solution for

delivering the next generation of media entertainment. Cisco Videoscape brings together virtually infinite content and

applications from pay TV, online, and on-demand sources into a unified, personalized experience that you can

extend anywhere, across managed or unmanaged networks and devices. And, it takes advantage of Cisco

intelligence throughout the cloud, network, and clients to deliver the premium quality of experience your customers

expect.

Cisco Videoscape draws upon a proven medianet architecture to deliver this new generation of TV and media

experiences. It integrates digital content on and off the network from a vast library of linear and on-demand sources,

as well as third-party content and applications, and lets consumers easily search, purchase, and play any content of

their choice. Consumers can also communicate, share and manage both their premium content and services and

their personal content within the same immersive, multi-screen experience. Cisco Videoscape delivers this

experience through an open platform that supports common industry standards, and does not lock you or your

customers into specific devices or platforms.

By delivering a new world of cloud-based media across multiple screens, Cisco Videoscape helps to position the

service provider network as the nexus between consumers, content providers, and web and entertainment

applications. As a result, you can:

● Strengthen the value you provide to both consumers and content providers

● Deliver more intuitive, visual, social, and mobile media experiences

● Extend the service provider cloud to multiple IP endpoints, inside and outside the home

● Monetize online content more effectively

● Develop new markets and business partnerships

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The Challenge: Navigating an Evolving Media Landscape

Today’s media marketplace has entered the age of “more” - more video-capable devices, more video services, and

more video traffic than ever before. The Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) predicts more than 12 billion connected

IP endpoints worldwide by 2014, with web content and services expanding across TV sets, tablets, game consoles,

and other consumer electronics devices. (For information about the VNI forecast, visit

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-

481360_ns827_Networking_Solutions_White_Paper.html.) More consumer electronics manufacturers are

positioning Internet-connected TVs and other devices as gateways to Internet content, and making significant

investments in creating online video and application ecosystems.

At the same time, new over-the-top (OTT) online video services such as Netflix and Hulu are competing for the

consumer’s time and discretionary spending, creating a global online video community that now includes more than

1 billion users. Broadcasters and media companies are seeking to capitalize on this trend, embracing new

distribution platforms and interactive content. Many are exploring Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) models,

such as the CNBC Realtime App, which integrates customized real-time stock quotations and alerts with CNBC

financial news shows.

These new devices and services are accelerating growth in Internet video traffic. (For more information, visit

http://www.sandvine.com/news/global_broadband_trends.asp.) At peak times, Netflix already accounts for 20

percent of downstream Internet traffic in the United States. By 2014, the Cisco VNI forecast projects that online video

will make up 91 percent of consumer IP traffic, generating traffic equivalent to 6 billion DVDs per month.

These three trends - more devices, more online video services, and more Internet video traffic - are changing the

media delivery landscape as we know it. But these trends are also creating a growing sense of frustration among

consumers, content providers, and service providers.

● Consumer media experiences are increasingly fragmented. All the entertainment in the world seems to

be available, but accessing it means navigating a complex web of devices, networks, billing models, and

viewing experiences. Consumers want to know why they cannot get all the content they want across all their

devices. Why must they constantly toggle between different menus and interfaces for all the ways they watch

video?

● As content becomes more accessible, broadcasters and content providers must find ways to preserve

the value of their content. The consumer appetite for more video over more platforms is insatiable, and

broadcasters and media companies see tremendous opportunities. But current online video offerings diminish

the value of content, offering no carriage fees comparable to those of traditional service providers, and lower

advertising loads.

● The relevance of the service provider is increasingly questioned. For service providers, new competition

means increased churn and increased costs to acquire and retain subscribers. Basic pay-TV services are no

longer enough: multi-screen offerings have become a core requirement. But can basic two-screen services

compete with OTT providers in a world where consumers already watch 14.4 hours of online video on

average each month? (For more information about this comScore estimate, visit

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/10/comScore_Releases_September_2010_U

.S._Online_Video_Rankings.) How can service providers fund major service upgrades, or even keep pace

with the massive growth in IP video traffic, when they have no way to generate revenue from online video in

the current media delivery value chain? More fundamentally, how can service providers demonstrate their

true value to consumers, broadcasters, and online video partners?

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-481360_ns827_Networking_Solutions_White_Paper.html

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-481360_ns827_Networking_Solutions_White_Paper.html

http://www.sandvine.com/news/global_broadband_trends.asp

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/10/comScore_Releases_September_2010_U.S._Online_Video_Rankings

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/10/comScore_Releases_September_2010_U.S._Online_Video_Rankings

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The Solution: Reinvent the TV Experience

These trends present significant challenges, but they also offer a tremendous opportunity. All point toward a new era

of media, where consumer entertainment breaks free from the limitations of closed networks and devices and

becomes more visual, more social, and more mobile. Soon, consumers may be able to access all content,

applications, and communications - on any device, over any network - as part of a consistent, unified experience.

Far from being minor participants in this new media model, service providers are ideally positioned to make the

paradigm a reality. As high-definition quality and mobility become more important, the service provider network

provides a nexus between consumers, content providers, and web applications that no other competitors in this

environment can offer. Different OTT services can offer access to some broadcasters’ premium content, but not

others. Connected device content ecosystems are still linked to specific device platforms, with little or no portability

between screens. And ultimately, consumer electronics device manufacturers may provide access to online content,

but they are not able to control the delivery of that content or assure a consistent consumer experience.

Only the service provider - and the service provider network - can deliver the full range of cloud-based media and

applications across multiple consumer screens. Cisco can provide a comprehensive solution to help service

providers exploit the power of their networks to deliver new media and TV experiences, and create a more profitable

media ecosystem.

The Cisco Videoscape Solution

Cisco Videoscape is both an experience and a solution purpose-built for delivering the next generation of TV

experience, simplifying it for consumers, and transforming the opportunity for service providers. Cisco Videoscape

joins virtually infinite content, applications, and communications from any source, including linear TV, online video,

video-on-demand (VoD), and the user’s digital video recorder (DVR), into an immersive, unified experience. Cisco

Videoscape lets you extend this experience across any managed or unmanaged network, to any managed or

unmanaged device. And, it draws on Cisco intelligence in the cloud, network, and clients to provide a premium

quality of experience that best-effort online video services cannot match.

With Cisco Videoscape, you can deliver a consumer experience that is:

● More intuitive, with a consistent interface across multiple devices and universal guide and search

capabilities across all content sources

● More visual, with seemingly infinite content and applications available from a range of sources, made easy to

navigate on the TV screen or the customer’s screen of choice

● More social, by integrating social networking and telepresence capabilities that let consumers show, share,

and engage with video

● More mobile, with the ability to extend this unified experience over the service provider footprint or over

unmanaged networks, to almost any managed or unmanaged device

For consumers, Cisco Videoscape positions the service provider as the gateway to a vast library of linear, on-

demand, and third-party content. Consumers can communicate, share, and manage both premium content and

services and personal content on multiple screens, and access an immense ecosystem of online content and

applications. Your customers can buy content once and access it however they choose, without having to worry

about which devices work with which content. They can see what their friends are watching and get

recommendations from the people who know them best. And, they can take their own, personalized TV experience

with them, wherever they go, on whichever screen they choose.

At the same time, Cisco Videoscape helps service providers unlock new revenue opportunities, monetize online

video, and reinforce the value of their networks in the content delivery ecosystem. With Cisco Videoscape, you can:

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● Assure a consistent quality of experience for consumers, no matter how or where they view content

● Bring web applications and online video to a broader audience by easily delivering them to the TV set

● Deliver new levels of interactivity with content using web and social attributes

● Extend services beyond any single device or platform (for example, Apple or Android ecosystem), with an

open, standards-based software and hardware platform

● Preserve and extend the value of content by supporting existing carriage fees and advertising-based

revenues, in addition to new online video subscription and advertising models

● Provide more value to media companies by offloading the burden of formatting content for a seemingly

endless array of devices and screens

● Provide more value to consumers by extending the service provider cloud into the home network and

enabling content sharing across managed and unmanaged devices

● Reach new markets by offering premium video services (and even linear TV channels) to new customers

within and beyond the service provider footprint

● Exploit business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) services by opening the service provider ecosystem

to deliver third-party web-enabled applications, including social media, lifestyle management applications,

content marketplaces, home telepresence, games, and advanced advertising

Cisco: Your Partner in Reinventing the Consumer Media Experience

Cisco can provide the complete solution to deliver these capabilities and benefits (Figure 1). The Cisco Videoscape

solution includes:

● The Cloud, encompassing solutions for the service provider’s video back-office and data center

● The Network, including an end-to-end medianet optimized for video, and the Cisco Content Delivery System

(CDS)

● Clients, including next-generation media gateways, set-top boxes (STBs), and software clients

● Services to help you develop and deliver new service capabilities more quickly and with less risk

Figure 1. Cisco Videoscape Solution

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The combination of cloud, network, and clients, working together as one, sets Cisco apart in the marketplace. Other

providers can address parts of the back office or offer solutions for the consumer home. Cisco has the technology

and expertise to take a unified approach to evolving media experiences, and to bring the full power of the cloud to

the customer TV (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Cisco Videoscape High-Level Architecture

Cisco Videoscape provides the following.

● A truly unified experience: Other entrants in the online video market can offer only a fragmented

experience, delivered over discrete devices. Cisco Videoscape converges linear, pay-TV, and online sources

into a personalized TV experience with universal search and navigation, and lets you extend that experience

across multiple screens.

● No endpoint limitations: Device manufacturers can offer a cloud-based video experience, but only on their

particular devices and software platforms. Consumers, however, do not operate that way: They may have an

IP-enabled TV set, an Android mobile phone, an Apple tablet, and a PC - all of which they use to consume

entertainment, both inside and outside the home. Cisco Videoscape lets you create an experience that

extends across the consumer’s entire lifestyle, and even extend network-based DVR functions across

multiple screens.

● Consistent, high quality of experience through an end-to-end IP video architecture: Cisco network,

back-office, and client solutions integrate entertainment applications and communications into a unified

cloud-based experience. These solutions allow you to build a medianet - a video-optimized, end-to-end

network infrastructure - that eliminates current silos in voice, video, mobility, and data networks, and lets you

deliver consistent quality across multiple screens.

● A clear migration path that protects your investments: Cisco recognizes that your evolution to the full

Cisco Videoscape solution will not happen immediately. You have extensive video network, back-office, and

client investments in place, and cannot simply overhaul the entire infrastructure in a single upgrade. That is

why Cisco Videoscape is designed with the flexibility to be deployed over time and in discrete stages,

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according to your specific plans and infrastructure investments. Each element of the implementation provides

immediate new revenue-generating service capabilities, while serving as the foundation for more advanced

cloud capabilities in the future. No matter where you are starting from or which capabilities you want to bring

to market first, Cisco offers a clear roadmap to get you to your destination.

● Ability to protect and strengthen the service provider brand: Other online video solutions dilute the

service provider brand and diminish the perceived role of the service provider in delivering an immersive

experience. Cisco Videoscape lets you deliver service-provider-branded user interfaces and experiences

across all types of screens.

● Proven industry leadership: Cisco is an award-winning leader in video system, transport, and consumer

client technologies, serving more than 200 million customers worldwide, including the world’s largest service

providers and broadcasters.

The following sections explore the Cisco Videoscape portfolio in more detail.

The Cloud

The cloud element of the Cisco Videoscape solution encompasses the service provider’s video back-office. Cloud

components include the Cisco Videoscape Media Suite, the Cisco Videoscape Migration Portfolio, and Cisco

Conductor for Videoscape. Cloud solutions can be instantiated within a data center architecture composed of Cisco

Nexus® Family switches and the Cisco Unified Computing System™.

Cisco Videoscape Media Suite

The Cisco Videoscape Media Suite is the intelligent cloud engine at the core of the Cisco Videoscape solution,

providing full lifecycle content management to deliver immersive media and communications experiences. With this

carrier-grade software platform, you can efficiently manage, publish, and monetize many types of content, and

deliver that content across almost any screen: TV, PC, tablet, or mobile device.

The Cisco Videoscape Media Suite accelerates your transition to next-generation cloud-based services with a

solution that has the following characteristics.

● Highly flexible: The Cisco Videoscape Media Suite supports multiple media types (including video, audio,

applications, and images) and multiple delivery models (including download, streaming, Macromedia Flash,

and Microsoft Silverlight). You can also implement multiple content business models, including

advertisement-supported, purchase, rental, and subscription models.

● Fast to deploy and implement: The Cisco Videoscape JumpStart tool kit includes reference user interfaces

for PCs, Macs, tablets, and mobile phones, and workflow template libraries for multiple bundle types, devices,

and business processes.

● Pre-integrated: The Cisco Videoscape Media Suite metadata aggregation engine supports metadata from a

variety of sources, and the included bundle designer simplifies bundle creation. The solution works with

leading advertising engines, and billing and transaction services are structured to integrate with your existing

operations support system (OSS) and business support system (BSS) infrastructure.

The Cisco Videoscape Media Suite also helps you differentiate the experience you provide from that delivered by

peers and OTT online video providers, by supporting the following:

● Entitlement across multiple screens and content sources (for example, customers can buy content on

their TVs and entitle that content for play on PCs and a mobile devices)

● A customizable user interface experience designed specifically for large-screen TVs and interaction

without a keyboard

● Total media integration including linear, on-demand, OTT, and DVR content, and universal search,

recommend, and sharing tools

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● Enhanced VoD capabilities with virtual DVD experiences including menus, chapters, extras, and subtitles

The Cisco Videoscape Media Suite also provides peace of mind as a proven solution. The media suite technology is

already used by four of the five largest North American wireline service providers and two of the five largest North

American studios.

Cisco Videoscape Media Suite Components

Cisco Videoscape Media Suite is a modular solution, giving you outstanding flexibility to deploy customized cloud-

based services adapted specifically to your current investments and your customers’ needs. You can quickly start

offering immersive cloud services and applications by deploying the entire product suite, or integrate individual best-

in-class components with your existing environment.

The Cisco Videoscape Media Suite includes the following.

● Cisco Videoscape Media Suite Content Management System (CMS): The CMS handles all steps in the

asset workflow, including metadata management, transcoding, encryption, and distribution to the network.

The CMS can ingest and manage custom metadata in multiple languages, and transform metadata from a

variety of formats into a common, normalized data set. This solution protects content with support for a

variety of industry-standard digital rights management (DRM) and encryption methods. The Cisco Videoscape

Media Suite CMS also provides a sophisticated media packaging and bundling system, allowing you to

model, distribute, and monetize complex packages (such as virtual DVD, TV season, music album, and

ringtone) as easily as single assets.

● Cisco Videoscape Media Suite Entitlement: The entitlement element provides a comprehensive framework

for protecting, distributing, and monetizing content across multiple screens. It supports customized product

rules and DRM use terms for subscription, rental, enterprise social technology, ad-supported, and entitlement

models. You can authorize content access through conditional access or DRM license, and manage

customer accounts, devices, domains, and entitlements in a universal “rights locker.”

● Cisco Videoscape Media Suite Publisher: The publisher aggregates catalogs from a variety of sources (for

example, the Cisco Videoscape CMS, Hulu, and CBS) and combines them into a single catalog with

harmonized categories for search and recommendation. You can configure rules to automatically populate

categories, set up and configure downstream advertisement servers and players, publish playlists for service

provider-created channels and advertising content, and insert targeted advertising. You can also collect and

publish user ratings for content and publish catalogs to multiple devices. The publisher also provides

metering and reporting on content usage and advertising metrics.

● Cisco Videoscape Media Suite Streaming Player: The in-browser player supports Flash and Silverlight,

with full trick-play (including pause and rewind) and playlist controls, support for multiple resolutions, and

integrated social networking and sharing options to allow for and viral distribution. The players supports

advertisement insertion, metering, and DRM, and embeddable widgets for catalog and channel browsing. A

full software development kit (SDK) lets you customize players to provide a consistent, service-provider-

branded experience across all devices.

For more information about the Cisco Videoscape Media Suite, visit

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps11497/index.html.

Cisco Videoscape Migration Portfolio

Cisco recognizes that the transition to a full Cisco Videoscape architecture will not happen in a single migration.

Even as you develop more sophisticated capabilities in cloud-based and consumer home services, you will likely

maintain your installed base of existing STBs for several years.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps11497/index.html

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As a major component of the Cisco Videoscape evolution strategy, the Cisco Videoscape Migration Portfolio

provides cloud-based solutions to integrate live TV, VoD content, and online video into a unified and immersive

experience, and deliver that experience even over older access networks and STBs.

With the Cisco Videoscape Migration Portfolio, you can:

● Increase customer loyalty by delivering a more compelling navigation, search, and content experience than

existing pay TV offerings can provide

● Build a foundation for next-generation experiences by integrating online video content and social media

applications from a broad range of sources into the pay-TV experience

● Develop your network intelligently, making value-wise investments and providing new revenue-generating

services at each step in the transition

Delivering new cloud-based TV services does not require a major one-time upgrade to your network. With the Cisco

Videoscape Migration Portfolio, you can develop your architecture incrementally, delivering more content and

interactivity to customers with older STBs, and evolving your network to a full Cisco Videoscape cloud-based solution

over time.

Cisco Conductor for Videoscape

A next-generation media architecture has many parts, but to deliver the full power of the cloud across multiple

screens and networks, all elements of the system must function together as one. Cisco Conductor orchestrates the

various services, devices, and subscriber management functions across clients, clouds and networks, including both

those that are managed by the provider and those that are not. It provides a standards-based communications

pathway to support presence, real-time application information, resources, and social networking, and support

classic command-and-control functions (Figure 3). In essence, the Cisco conductor addresses four fundamental

questions:

● Who is the user and do they have permission to access the content?

● What are the requirements of the network and devices?

● Where is the experience to be delivered?

● How best to orchestrate the delivery of the experience across all different technology elements and

variables?

With Cisco Conductor for Videoscape linking all elements of the Cisco Videoscape solution, you can:

● Significantly scale services, extending cloud-based experiences to almost any device, across managed or

unmanaged networks

● Manage Cisco Videoscape devices across the entire lifecycle, including activation, configuration,

diagnostics, and firmware and software updates

● Deliver a new generation of cloud-based applications that integrate capabilities such as presence, social

networking, session-shifting across devices, detailed customer usage tracking, and advanced advertising.

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Figure 3. Cisco Conductor for Videoscape

Unifying Cloud and Client Architectures

Based on an Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) real-time messaging bus, Cisco Conductor for

Videoscape provides a common communications platform and control services running on that platform.

The Cisco Conductor for Videoscape communications platform provides an infrastructure of reusable functions that

make it easy to create services for the cloud, including:

● Service discovery

● Persistent data storage

● Administrative user interface and links to operational support, billing, and subscriber management systems

● Social networking infrastructure

● Scalable mechanism to extend cloud-based services to a wide range of managed or unmanaged clients,

using common web protocols such as HTTP and XMPP) to access services

Conductor control services include:

● Client and network management

● Emergency Alert services

● Service orchestration

● Access, session, policy, and resource management

With Cisco Conductor for Videoscape combining all Cisco Videoscape components, applications, and services into a

single system, you can deliver immersive cloud-based experiences anywhere, anytime.

For more information about Cisco Conductor for Videoscape, visit

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns1109/networking_solutions_solution.html.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns1109/networking_solutions_solution.html

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Cisco Data Center Solutions

An essential foundation of the Cisco Videoscape solution is an evolution toward cloud-based services, in which the

definition, rendering, and composition of the user’s experience happens in the service provider cloud, rather than on

a STB. By transitioning to this cloud-based model, you can provide a more diverse media experience to your

customers, extend that service-provider-branded experience to more screens, and deliver media services more

efficiently and with greater scalability. To realize all of these advantages, however, the video back office must begin

to take on many of the characteristics of a data center infrastructure.

Cisco provides industry-leading data center solutions in which Cisco Videoscape cloud elements are instantiated.

Based on the Cisco Unified Service Delivery (USD) model, these solutions integrate server, storage, network, and

virtualization resources into a single, unified Ethernet environment. As a result, you can deliver a more diverse range

of media services and accelerate the deployment of those services, through a platform that reduces your capital and

operational costs.

Cisco data center solutions that support Cisco Videoscape include the following:

● Cisco Unified Computing System: The Cisco Unified Computing System provides a common platform for

the growing software-based functionality that is becoming critical to media delivery. Whether it’s the

unglamorous but critical tasks of applying detailed policy control and digital rights management, or the

implementation of a new interactive widget for your user experience, the Cisco Unified Computing System

offers an outstanding combination of computing power, manageability, and innovation, especially for

virtualization. It provides an ideal compute platform to host a wide range of software-based media delivery

functions, today and in the future.

● Cisco Nexus Family of data center switches: The Cisco Nexus Family offers the highest throughput

available today to accommodate the accelerating growth of content and insatiable subscriber demand for an

ever-higher quality of experience. These switches are engineered from the beginning with carrier-class

availability and reliability features that set them apart from other products in their class.

For more details about Cisco USD and other Cisco data center solutions, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/usd.

Clients

Today, consumers want to be active participants in shaping how their entertainment, lifestyle applications, and

communication experiences are created, managed, and delivered. But despite ubiquitous broadband access,

growing social networking and communication options, and ever-expanding content choices, consumers are

becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of connectivity across their devices. As technologies and media

experiences become more sophisticated, customer demand for a more simplified, unified experience can only grow.

Cisco has the vision, strategy, and solutions available today to empower you to create differentiated consumer

experiences and sustainable long-term competitive advantage, as well as to expand into new business models. And

you can take advantage of these capabilities using your existing infrastructure. We call it “the Connected Life,” which

brings the human network together by unifying consumer experiences within and beyond the home.

The Cisco Videoscape Client Architecture

The Cisco Videoscape solution builds on Cisco’s history of leadership and innovation in the home device market,

including Cisco cable and IP STBs, gateways, and consumer electronics devices such as Cisco Linksys® networking

products, Cisco Flip™ video cameras, and Cisco ūmi™ consumer telepresence products. Expanding upon this

tradition, Cisco provides a comprehensive client architecture to help you bring the Cisco Videoscape cloud into the

consumer experience, at home or on the move, anytime, on any IP device.

http://www.cisco.com/go/usd

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Cisco Videoscape clients provide:

● An open, IP-based solution that supports delivery of cloud-based and premium video services across

almost any consumer device or screen

● A common technology plane that gives you outstanding flexibility and interoperability

● Integration with Cisco Conductor for Videoscape, providing a real-time communication pathway between

clients, the network, and the cloud

Cisco Videoscape clients include:

● Media gateways to create new service possibilities for consumers, inside and outside the home

● Set-top boxes that unify the video experience, integrating linear, VoD, and online sources

● Soft clients that bring the power of the Cisco Videoscape cloud to a broad range of consumer electronics

and unmanaged devices

While Cisco Videoscape clients provide the most expansive capabilities and integration, the Cisco Videoscape

solution can also support integration of third-party hardware and software clients.

Cisco Videoscape Media Gateways

Cisco Videoscape Media Gateways continue Cisco’s tradition of innovation in the consumer home. The gateways

integrate voice, linear and online video, high-speed data (HSD), mobility, and routing capabilities, providing a

centralized hub to deliver entertainment, applications, and communications in the consumer’s home network. Cisco

Videoscape Media Gateways also support new cloud-based services such as video streaming across multiple

applications and lifestyle management applications. Two gateways are currently available: the Cisco TES 301 IP

Managed Services Gateway and the Cisco DRG 7000 Series Videoscape Media Gateway.

Cisco DRG 7000 Series Videoscape Media Gateway

The Cisco DRG 7000 Series is designed to be the consumer’s central hub for multi-screen media and applications,

and the managed services operator’s (MSO’s) gateway into the home network. The platform is optimized for the

distribution of IP video and content assets across managed devices, including TV, PC, and mobile devices. The

platform is designed specifically for the needs of cable service providers as they migrate to IP video networks.

To provide a comprehensive home solution, the Cisco DRG 7000 Series combines a DOCSIS® 3.0 cable modem, a

2-line embedded multimedia and voice adapter with battery backup, multiple wired and wireless LAN interfaces,

internal and external hard disk options, and dual universal series bus (USB) host support.

Ultimately, the gateway lets you do the following.

● Provide access to more content on more devices: The Cisco DRG 7000 supports the Multimedia over

Coax Alliance (MoCA) and Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) home networking standards, allowing

delivery of content to a broad range of customer premises equipment (CPE) and consumer electronics

devices in the home. Customers can even use the gateways to store and back up personal content from

devices throughout the home.

● Deliver a more immersive multi-screen experience: The gateway provides native support for high-

definition whole-home DVR distribution, whether DVR functionality is provided by a home device or by cloud-

based services. Customers can pause and resume content playback across multiple devices.

● Take advantage of a solution built for cable operators: Channel-bonded DOCSIS 3.0 and 1-GHz tuning

features give you tremendous speed and bandwidth optimization.

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● Improve network efficiency through CDN intelligence: The Cisco DRG 7000 Series extends CDN caching

into the home, letting you pre-position popular content, applications, and targeted advertising. The platform

also supports multicast-to-unicast conversion of simultaneous MPEG-4 IP video streams. Together, these

features improve network efficiency and optimize WAN bandwidth utilization.

● Use a common software platform to deliver advanced services: The gateway provides an application

server in the home, allowing you to offer new IP-based revenue-generating services. The platform’s open

application development environment simplifies the development and deployment of new applications.

● Simplify home network management: By extending service provider cloud intelligence into the home

network, you can make it easier for customers to add devices to the network and solve problems without

calling technical support. You can also give customer service representatives visibility into the entire home

network, allowing them to more easily troubleshoot and resolve issues.

TES 301 IP Managed Services Gateway

This application-centered gateway can be used by cable, telco, or wireless service providers to deliver new

advanced IP services over existing HSD deployments and generate more value from your current investments. The

gateway is optimized to deliver managed services and third-party lifestyle management applications that go beyond

entertainment, such as home security, video monitoring, and energy management, all hosted by Cisco Videoscape

cloud, and delivered to the customer’s screen of choice. The TES 301 also supports Digital Entertainment Content

Ecosystem (DECE), or UltraViolet, capabilities to link customers to a new open ecosystem of cloud-based content

and purchasing options.

With the TES 301 Managed Services Gateway, you can deliver:

● Personal content sharing across screens and devices: The TES 301 provides sophisticated home

networking options, using standards such as those developed by DLNA and Home Phoneline Networking

Alliance (HPNA). Interfacing with the Cisco Videoscape cloud, the TES 301 supports remote services

management, providing both consumers and your customer service representatives with advanced service

management capabilities.

● Voice services through SIP software for Voice-over-IP (VoIP): Standard capabilities include landline and

foreign exchange ports for full analog telephone adapter capabilities. Options include subscriber identity

module (SIM) security for 3-GB and 4-GB mobile networks, and the ability to connect handheld cordless

phones with a USB dongle.

● DECE content ecosystem option: With the ability to integrate DECE capabilities into the gateway, you can

provide search, fulfillment, delivery, and digital rights licensing for third-party content providers and retailers,

across multiple consumer devices.

● Home security, video monitoring, and automation: You can allow customers to access third-party

applications such as healthcare management, pet monitoring, security breach warnings, and video

surveillance, from the gateway or remotely through the Cisco Videoscape cloud.

● Smart grid and energy management applications: Pike Research estimates that by 2015, 28 million

homes will contain energy management displays. You can let your customers access third-party power

management applications from their local utility or a third-party partner, both at home and on the go, to

monitor and control their energy usage.

The Cisco TES 301 supports home security and energy management applications through Z-wave and ZigBee

wireless signaling, the industry-leading protocols established for these capabilities. Both applications support

comprehensive parental controls (such as time of day and website access) and multiple modes for consumers to use

these services, including online and mobile notifications, and event alerts that can be sent as text messages, emails,

pictures, or videos.

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For more details about Cisco Videoscape Media Gateways, visit


Cisco Videoscape Set-Top Boxes

Cisco Videoscape Set-Top Boxes help you redefine the TV experience. These STBs integrate premium

programming, linear and on-demand TV, DVR recordings, and online entertainment - combining vast content

choices with high-definition quality. The STBs also bring the Cisco Videoscape cloud into the family room, delivering

Internet and web applications as part of a “lean back” TV experience.

Cisco Videoscape STBs help you bring the power of cloud-based services to your customers and deliver the

following.

● A unified video experience: Linear, pay TV, broadcast, and premium content are offered with online

entertainment on a single device, powered by the Cisco Videoscape cloud. You can deliver more than just the

Internet on TV, and provide your customers with: ◦ Virtually infinite content choices, in high-definition quality ◦ Time-shifted video capabilities ◦ Integrated web content as part of a “lean-back” experience designed for TV viewing ◦ Easily accessible content with no keyboard required ◦ Optional full web browser capabilities

● Interaction with multiple devices: Cisco Videoscape STBs can share secure, authenticated video content

with other CPE and consumer electronics devices, with distribution managed by the service provider. You can

simplify the interactive entertainment experience for your customers and let them engage with media

experiences anytime and anywhere, on any screen, through a single provider.

● More personalized, immersive video experiences: Give your consumers universal search and

recommendation capabilities across all content sources, parental controls across all devices, local and cloud-

based DVR storage, service provider-branded content stores, and other capabilities.

At the same time, Cisco Videoscape STBs help you to:

● Launch new cloud-based services such as universal search, remote scheduling, and home security and

monitoring to differentiate your offering in the marketplace

● Support new services and business partnerships with an open ecosystem that offers cloud-hosted

content and applications, an open, standards-based application framework, and support for multiple DRM

technologies

● Enhance personalization and services over multiple screens with Cisco Conductor for Videoscape

capabilities, including user profiles, device management, and presence

For more information about Cisco Videoscape STBs, visit http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps11500/index.html.

Cisco Videoscape Soft Clients

Cisco Videoscape Soft Clients reside on a variety of different devices, from televisions to tablets, and provide a

common interface between managed and unmanaged devices, and the service provider cloud. These software

clients can be embedded in Cisco CPE devices such as Cisco Videoscape Media Gateways and STBs, as well as

IP-enabled consumer electronics devices, smartphones, gaming consoles, and more.

The Cisco Videoscape Soft Client for Unmanaged Applications is available now for PC and Mac through Cisco

Videoscape Media Suite assets. This soft client will be available for Android, iPhone, and iPad applications in the

future.



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With Cisco Videoscape Soft Clients, you can:

● Provide a customized streaming and download experience today on unmanaged devices

● Extend the full menu of cloud-based content to any managed CPE device, including live and on-demand

TV, premium high-definition video, online sources, and full trick-play and DVR capabilities

● Enable multiple content monetization models (for example, download to own, rental, and advertisement-

supported)

● Give consumers an offline experience with download options

● Deliver an immersive experience with in-browser players in Flash or Silverlight that include: ◦ Full trick-play controls, playlist carousel, and multiple resolutions ◦ Social media tools with the ability to email content or links to a friend, post to social networks, or embed

code in a blog ◦ Advertisement insertion and metering ◦ DRM support

● Integrate unmanaged devices into the cloud and the intelligent network, with support for device-specific

content delivery

● Create catalog and channel browser widgets to provide intuitive navigation

● Customize the entire experience with a full software development kit

● Enhance home networking and connectivity by giving customers the ability to manage multiple devices

and services through the service provider cloud

For more details about Cisco Videoscape Soft Clients, visit


Cisco IP Next-Generation Network Solutions

Tomorrow’s media experiences may be powered by the cloud, but delivering those experiences to consumers,

efficiently and with high quality, requires an intelligent network infrastructure. Achieving consistently high quality,

however, is not a simple task. Video applications have stringent performance and resiliency requirements. Even a

single lost video packet may result in a visible impairment to the end user, especially in modern video services that

use compressed video applications and compression algorithms based on frame prediction, such as MPEG.

To successfully deliver high-quality cloud-based media services, the network infrastructure must be a lossless video

architecture: a highly resilient IP transport network that meets rigorous service-level agreement (SLA) requirements

for video. This requires:

● Building the network with ample throughput and capacity

● Minimizing delay, jitter, and network congestion with video-optimized quality-of-service (QoS) and traffic

engineering tools

● Eliminating packet loss with high-availability techniques

● Providing end-to-end service monitoring and management tools to verify that SLA requirements are being

met and to help you quickly identify and correct problems

Cisco can help you meet all of these requirements with Cisco IP Next-Generation Network (NGN) Solutions. These

solutions combine embedded video intelligence with exceptional scale, performance, lossless transport, and nonstop

availability to provide immersive media experiences. The solutions let you create a medianet - an infrastructure that

is network-aware, media-aware, and device-aware, and optimized for video applications and communications. As a

result, you can:


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● Assure a consistent subscriber experience over multiple endpoints

● Simplify operation with hitless switchover and inline video monitoring

● Reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) through efficient service multiplexing (video, voice, data, and

mobility)

Cisco IP NGN Video Optimized Transport Solution

The Cisco IP NGN Video Optimized Transport Solution provides an intelligent, highly reliable transport network for

cloud-based media and applications. Built on a proven medianet architecture, this solution provides embedded

media intelligence to let you extend any type of content, over any network, to any consumer device.

The Cisco Video Optimized Transport solution draws on the industry-leading scale, resiliency, and embedded video

intelligence of the Cisco service provider IP routing and video back-office infrastructure portfolio. These advanced

solutions provide:

● Industry-leading scalability and performance to support more high-definition content, more applications,

and more immersive consumer experiences

● Nonstop availability with the Cisco IOS®-XR carrier-class operating system in core and aggregation

platforms, supporting lossless reconvergence and hitless in-service upgrades

● Lossless video transport for a high quality of experience

● Service flexibility with the ability to converge all video, data, voice, and mobile services in a single

infrastructure

● Video-grade resiliency to assure consistently excellent quality

● Simplified operation with comprehensive management and inline video monitoring tools that eliminate the

need for standalone probes

● Lower TCO through an end-to-end IP transport architecture that efficiently converges all services

The Cisco Video Optimized Transport portfolio includes the following.

● Cisco Carrier Routing System (CRS) Series Routers: These routers deliver industry-leading performance,

advanced service intelligence, and carrier-class availability. As the core network foundation of Cisco

Videoscape media delivery, the Cisco CRS-1 router provides outstanding resiliency and lossless video

transport.

● Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers: Cisco ASR 9000 Series routers are engineered to

provide a Carrier Ethernet foundation for video service delivery and to address the massive surges in video

traffic through IP networks.

● Cisco 7600 Series Routers: The Cisco 7600 Series is the industry’s first carrier-class edge router to offer

integrated, high-density Ethernet switching, carrier-class IP/MPLS routing, and 10-Gbps interfaces, helping

you deliver both consumer and business services over a single converged Carrier Ethernet network.

● Cisco DCM: Cisco DCM solutions provide a full range of advanced video processing, transcoding, and

gateway functions to support the Cisco Videoscape solution, as well as hitless switchover.

● Cisco Video Assurance Management Solution (VAMS): Cisco VAMS is a standards-based solution that

provides real-time monitoring, troubleshooting, and management of video services. The Cisco VAMS modular

and integrated architecture helps to promote flexibility and growth to accommodate a broad range of current

and future needs. Cisco VAMS combines management and monitoring tools for every layer of the transport

network into a single powerful user interface to help you quickly isolate and address issues. For example, one

of the defining features of Cisco VAMS is that it provides a direct correlation between the video and IP

network identifiers for each program or channel. This allows operators from different disciplines to understand

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the event and initiate appropriate corrective action. Cisco VAMS is distinctive in its capacity to correlate

network details for each channel in a single alarming system.

● Cisco Inline Video Monitoring: Integrated with Cisco VAMS, Cisco Inline Video Monitoring gives you full

visibility into video quality across the entire transport network, including cumulative and historic video metrics

on a per-port basis. This solution reduces the total cost of ownership of your network by eliminating the need

to deploy and manage a system of standalone video quality probes.

To learn more about the Cisco IP NGN Video Optimized Transport Solution, visit

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns1110/networking_solutions_solution.html.

Cisco Advanced Video Services Module: Video Intelligence at the Aggregation Edge

To help you deliver Cisco Videoscape experiences more easily and cost-effectively, Cisco has embedded Cisco

CDS intelligent TV and Internet content delivery capabilities in the Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services

Router with the Cisco Advanced Video Services Module (AVSM). The Cisco AVSM extends content and media

services to the aggregation edge, providing:

● Gigabytes of media-streaming capacity

● Terabytes of content-caching capacity

● Advertisement insertion

● Fast channel-change services

● Bit error correction to assure high quality over error-prone last-mile networks

● Transparent integration into a content delivery network powered by the Cisco CDS

The Cisco AVSM eliminates the need for standalone content delivery elements at the network edge, providing

intelligent streaming and caching capabilities that support the delivery of content and advanced services closer to

the user. By delivering these Cisco CDS capabilities as a blade for the Cisco ASR 9000 Series Routers, the Cisco

AVSM benefits from all the high-availability characteristics of the routers, and simplifies your network infrastructure.

Cisco Converged Cable Access Network

Even as managed services operators move to IP in some parts of their networks, many still rely on previous-

generation cable access infrastructures designed to deliver services only to the TV. These older networks carry high

operating costs and make it difficult to integrate cloud-based content and applications into the TV experience.

The Cisco Converged Cable Access Networkprovides a DOCSIS 3.0 access platform to help you migrate to an end-

to-end IP infrastructure. The solution lowers costs, increases scalability, and lets you bring new cloud-based content

and applications to the TV experience.

The Cisco Converged Cable Access Network provides:

● Industry-leading DOCSIS 3.0 scalability with new 3G60 line cards that deliver 10 times the capacity and 20

times the speed of DOCSIS 2.0 solutions, at a fraction of the cost per channel

● Reduced TCO with the ability to converge all services - digital video, IP video, voice, and broadband data -

onto a single shared infrastructure

● Increased service velocity with the ability to develop and rapidly deploy new services with web-based

toolkits and capabilities

● Easy migration path to upgrade your deployed cable assets to an all-IP infrastructure

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns1110/networking_solutions_solution.html

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Cisco 3G60 Line Cards: Unleash the Power of DOCSIS 3.0

Cisco cable modem termination system (CMTS) solutions provide industry-leading universal broadband routers and

line cards to help you take full advantage of the scale, flexibility, and cost-efficiencies of DOCSIS 3.0. Now, Cisco

offers a new cable access solution designed specifically to help you deliver immersive cloud-based experiences to

your subscribers.

The 3G60 line card for the Cisco uBR10012 Universal Broadband Router provides:

● Industry-leading DOCSIS 3.0 scalability, with support for 576 downstream and 480 upstream channels per

chassis - 10 times the channel capacity of DOCSIS 2.0 solutions

● Faster speeds, providing up to 1 Gbps downstream with 24-channel bonding - 20 times the speed of

DOCSIS 2.0 solutions

● Lower cost per channel due to a higher channel capacity, delivering services at 1/10 the cost of DOCSIS

2.0 solutions

● High availability with redundancy options for both line cards and RF edge gateways

To learn more about Cisco solutions for cable operators, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/cable and

http://www.cisco.com/go/3G60.

Cisco Content Delivery System

Central to the Cisco Videoscape cloud vision is the ability to deliver immersive experiences and any type of IP

content to any device. But how can you make this vision a reality?

To maintain a high quality of experience, scale services, and keep costs under control, you need to be able to cache

multiple types of content close to subscribers and intelligently stream that content to a variety of connected devices.

Today, most service providers either outsource these functions to third-party CDN providers or use in-house

proprietary streaming systems. Neither option is ideal, however, for implementing the Cisco Videoscape vision of

universal content and access.

Proprietary systems limit flexibility and content options, and can be difficult and expensive to scale. Outsourced CDN

services carry recurring monthly costs and prevent you from realizing the full value of your network infrastructure.

Why should service providers outsource CDN capabilities when they already own the most advanced IP networks in

the world? Why not use your network as a strategic asset?

A Next-Generation Media Delivery Platform

The Cisco Content Delivery System provides an intelligent, video-optimized CDN platform to provide personalized

media delivery. Cisco CDS incorporates TV streaming for high-quality content delivery to digital TVs and STBs, as

well as Internet streaming to deliver content and applications to any connected IP device. Designed for the next

generation of cloud-based video experiences, Cisco CDS can ingest, store, and deliver live and on-demand content

and applications flexibly, cost-effectively, and with optimal scalability.

With Cisco CDS, you can integrate live video and media files from your own hosting centers or from content provider

servers. Cisco CDS dynamically duplicates the video streams and distributes them at the closest point to the

consumer. You can also cache content within your network close to end users, reducing video traffic on the core

network and improving the overall subscriber quality of experience.

http://www.cisco.com/go/cable

http://www.cisco.com/go/3G60

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As a primary component of the Cisco Videoscape solution, the Cisco CDS provides:

● Improved bandwidth efficiency and lower costs with dynamic routing technologies such as proximity,

dynamically determining the closest source of any requested content and the lowest-cost route to deliver it

● Total flexibility with an open, flexible architecture that supports almost all common TV and web video

formats, such as MPEG, standard definition, high definition, HTTP, Microsoft Windows, Adobe Flash, Apple

QuickTime, and Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)

● Advanced streaming through a variety of popular streaming technologies, including all variants of Adobe

Flash and Microsoft Windows Media streaming

● Expanded reach with adaptive bit-rate streaming technologies that help you deliver a consistent quality of

experience even when customers are accessing content over the unmanaged Internet

● Scalability with embedded intelligence that automatically identifies and caches the most popular content

close to subscribers, and lets you scale content storage and streaming resources separately as local needs

change

Cisco CDS also supports new revenue opportunities and strengthens the value you can provide to content providers

and online video partners. With an in-house CDN and advanced traffic management tools, you can maintain full

control of content delivery from ingestion to consumption, and assure a high quality of experience. In addition, with

an open architecture and broad web protocol support, Cisco CDS provides a versatile platform for supporting new

partnerships with almost any content or application provider.

To find out more about Cisco CDS, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/cds.

Cisco Services for Videoscape

Central to delivering the Cisco Videoscape vision is taking a phased, system-level approach to implementation, with

the back-office cloud, the network, and clients evolving together as one. To achieve this, you need to be able to plan,

design, implement, and operate all aspects of the solution as a single, harmonious system. Most important, you

need to be confident that you can bring new capabilities to market at the proper time to stay ahead of competition

and do so with as little risk as possible.

Your migration to a next-generation video solution will require careful planning, taking into account the architectural,

technical, and operational implications of the deployment. As your partner, Cisco Services brings the expertise to

help you successfully adopt new architectures, deliver the entire solution, and help ensure a smooth transition as

you proceed.

Cisco Services offerings cover all aspects of the Cisco Videoscape portfolio - cloud, network, and clients - to deliver

a comprehensive solution (Figure 4). Using a lifecycle methodology, Cisco Services can help with:

● Migration of your existing network infrastructure to support IP video

● Integration of the end-to-end video solution, and integration with your operational environment

● Customization of the Cisco Videoscape solution to address your unique requirements

The complete suite of professional services also includes postdeployment support to help you operationalize and

assure the end-user experience.

http://www.cisco.com/go/cds

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Figure 4. Cisco Services for Videoscape Portfolio

The Cisco Services organization has a proven track record of successful deployments. Cisco brings together people

with deep IP and video expertise, best practices, advanced tools and platforms, along with industry-leading Cisco

technologies to deliver a complete solution. With a flexible engagement model customized to address your unique

requirements, and assurance backed by SLAs, Cisco Services can help mitigate any risk and accelerate your time to

market.

Cisco and Service Providers: Reinventing TV. Together

The future of TV and media entertainment is here, powered by the cloud. With the Cisco Videoscape solution, you

can reinvent the TV experience for your customers and position your network as the main enabler of tomorrow’s

immersive, ubiquitous media experiences.

Cisco is ready to be your partner in this journey. Only Cisco can provide:

● A comprehensive IP video architecture that encompasses the back-office cloud, the media-optimized

network, and client solutions, all working together to deliver unified, immersive experiences

● A premium quality of experience that surpasses “best-effort” media delivery by drawing on embedded

intelligence that extends across the cloud, network, and clients

● Investment protection through a clear migration path that lets you develop and monetize new services now,

while providing the foundation for more advanced future capabilities

● End-to-end lifecycle services that take you through the preparation, planning, design, implementation,

operation, and optimization stages of your cloud-based IP video architecture

● Proven industry leadership providing innovative video back-office, CDN, IPTV, CPE, and data center

implementations for many of the largest, most successful service providers

For More Information

To learn more about the Cisco Videoscape solution, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/videoscape.

http://www.cisco.com/go/videoscape

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