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march/april 2013
Tapping into big data
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12 Analyst cornerScreen Digest’s Guy Bisson on the lessons that can be learned in the evolution from HD and 3D to ultra HD
14 Smart TVWill we see a shift to a common smart TV platform environment?
18 nPVRWith deployments taking place around Europe, are the stars finally aligning for network PVR?
22 COVER STORY — Data & analyticsWe explore the many ways in which broadcasters and
operators can exploit the multiple commercial opportunities that data opens up
26 Interview: Discovery NetworksCaleb Weinstein, SVP and GM of distribution for Discovery Networks EMEA, talks to CSI about the dif-ficulties of promoting content in a VoD environment, binge viewing and the need for a ‘social scheduler’
27 MPEG-DASHA look at how open DRM schemes can enhance cross-platform revenue streams for operators
31 Conference reviewThe FTTH Council Europe came to London for the first time this year to celebrate its 10th anniversary
34 OTT in AsiaAn overview of the online video market in South-East Asia and its evolution in the next few years
42 ViewpointOnline piracy can only be fought by making legal offerings more appealing
EditorGoran Nastic
Commercial managerTiro Bestonso
Design and productionMatt Mills (Manager)Jason TuckerMatleena Lilja-PellingKeem Chung
Regular contributorsAdrian Pennington, Philip Hunter, David Adams, Stephen Cousins, Joe O’Halloran
CirculationJoel Whitefoot (Manager) AccountsMarilou Tait, Lynta Kamaray
Editorialtel +44(0)20 7562 2401fax +44(0)20 7374 [email protected]
Advertisingtel +44(0)20 7562 2427fax +44(0)20 7374 [email protected]
Subscriptionstel +44 (0)20 7562 2420fax +44 (0)20 7374 [email protected] www.csimagazine.com
Subscription ratesPer year: Europe £88; UK £68; Rest of World £98. Cheques payable to Perspective Publishing Limited and addressed to the Circulation Department Printed by Buxton Press
Managing DirectorJohn WoodsPublishing DirectorMark EvansISSN 1467-5935
Perspective Publishing3 London Wall BuildingsLondonEC2M 5PDwww.perspectivepublishing.com
Editor’s report:There are at least 70 operators globally providing multi-screen services, and the number is growing steadily. Although the deployment costs are substantial (involving DRM, rights, CDNs and transcoding to name but a few) the lure and competitive necessity are proving harder for service providers to resist. Content owners and creators face their own set of issues when it comes to consuming video on different devices. Many of these relate to how
programming, what type of content and viewing experience people want, and also how it is discovered - and measured - in an on-demand, multi-device environment. Discovery Networks discusses these challenges exclusively with CSI on p26. Elsewhere, we cover hot topics such as smart TV fragmentation on p14, cloud-based PVR on p18 and unlocking the potential value of data and analytics on p22. Goran Nastice, editor
Contents
www.csimagazine.com
For advertising opportunities please contact Tiro Bestonso:Tel: 020 7562 2427 or email: [email protected]
• Your window to the world of digital TV and media • Targeting top-level industry decision-makers • Independent news, insight and analysis
• International coverage • Market trends
Your window to the world of digital TV and media Targeting top-level
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thecover.indd 2 15/02/2013 15:32:02
Your window to the world of digital TV and media
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november/december 2012
Smart TV apps special
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cover.indd 1 11/13/2012 10:43:53 AM
Your window to the world of cable, satellite, IPTV, mobile TV
and home networking technologies
CSI magazine is now available as a digital-edition across all tablet and smart-phone devices
csi_magazine_advert2012_204x271.indd 1 04/03/2013 15:13:49
news in brief
Telenet adds VoD to Yelo
Belgian cable operator Telenet is
enhancing its multiscreen service
with the launch of Yelo TV,
giving customers access to live
and reordered programmes. Yelo
TV will be available from early
March on tablet, smartphone and
computer, and the TV set from
April, all with the same UI
experience, including remote
record functionality. Customers
will also be able to view music,
photos and movies from their
devices. Telenet launched the
Yelo app in 2010, which offered
live TV but has now extended this
to on-demand programmes
following consumer demand, with
new features to follow in due
course. Yelo TV comes with no
extra charge, the company said.
Telco BT Group has confirmed it has
agreed to buy ESPN’s UK and Ireland
TV channels operations, after the
sports broadcaster was seeking exit
from these markets.
These primarily comprise the
ESPN and ESPN America channels
and their live sports rights portfolio,
including the FA Cup, Clydesdale
Bank Scottish Premier League,
UEFA Europa League, and the
German Bundesliga.
The deal will enable BT Sport
customers to see live coverage of the
FA Cup for the 2013/14 season, the
Clydesdale Bank Scottish Premier
League until the end of the 2016/17
season and the UEFA Europa
League and Bundesliga through to
the end of the 2014/15 season. These
join the broadcast rights that BT
Sport has previously announced,
including 38 live Barclays Premier
League matches as it cotniues to
aggressively flex its financial muscles
as it looks to compete with Sky’s
dominance in this market.
The transaction is expected to
complete in late July after which BT
will continue to operate at least one
ESPN-branded channel, which is
expected to form part of the BT
Sport TV package that will be
launched by BT this summer.
Additionally, the deal will allow
BT to continue to show a host of
US sports currently shown on
ESPN America, including NCAA
College Basketball, NCAA College
Football and NASCAR.
ESPN will continue to own and
operate its existing digital media
businesses which include
multisport news and information
portals and broadband streaming
service ESPN Player. The company
was reported to be exiting the UK
market due to high content costs
and mixed uptake. ESPN is also
proposing the wind down of ESPN
Classic throughout the EMEA
region and the non-UK ESPN
America TV businesses.
BT acquires ESPN business
News
news in brief
Harmonic sells cable
business to Aurora
Aurora Networks has acquired
the assets of Harmonic’s optical
transmission equipment business,
which includes cable access, for
$46 million (EUR35 million) as
the latter moves away from this
space. Aurora said the acquisition
will increase its market share lead
in the optical transport market by
significantly increasing its
installed base for next-generation
service-providing products and
creating long-term strategic
growth opportunities. Equally
important, it will also give the
company entry into a number of
markets outside the US it might
have struggled to penetrate for a
number of reasons.
UPC looks to business
market
Swiss cable operator upc
cablecom is offerings its business
customers faster internet speeds
with the Business Internet Fiber
Power product.The performance
of the previous top end product is
going from 100 Mbps to 150
Mbps downstream and from 7
Mbps to 10 Mbps upstream at
the same price of CHF 148 per
month. All other packages are
seeing speeds increases as well as
the company is looking to
position itself as the product
leader in the asymmetric internet
market for SMEs, notably against
Swisscom’s VDSL network.
Cronk returns to GV
Mike Cronk has joined Grass
Valley as senior VP of marketing,
with overall responsibility for
product roadmap and strategy.
Cronk is returning to Grass
Valley having spent nearly 20
years with the company between
1989 and 2008. Current CMO
Graham Sharp will leave at the
end of March.
06 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
News
CSI 2013 Awards launchedWe are delighted to launch our
annual awards, now in their 11th
year. Following last year’s extremely
well received ten-year celebration,
we are hoping the momentum
continues in 2013.
This year, we are introducing
two brand new categories. The first
comes in the form of ultra HDTV
(UHDTV), one of the hottest
industry topics that promises to
be around for years to come, and
we look forward to seeing some
exciting early services and products
entered here.
Also new this year is a new
TV accessibility category, which
aims to recognise developments
in subtitling, audio description,
text-to-speech and all other services
and technologies that help improve
the user experience for those
with disabilities.
Established in 2003 the awards
are among the most prestigious and
competitive technology awards in the
industry, designed to recognise and
reward innovation and excellence in
the cable, satellite, broadcast, IPTV,
telco, internet/online/OTT video,
mobile TV and associated sectors.
The awards are open to any
company or organisation supplying
relevant products, software or
services and embrace the entire
ecosystem, from production and
playout through to transmission
and in-home distribution and end-
user devices.
It is expected that the winners will
as usual be announced in Amsterdam
in September, with exact time and
location to be confirmed closer to
the time.
More details on this and all other
aspect of the awards can be viewed at
www.csimagazine.com/awards
Satellite vs cable in GermanySatellite continued to increase its
household reach in Germany last
year, with 18.07 million households
receiving their TV directly via DTH
at the end of 2012.
Based on figures from the
latest SES Astra TV Monitor, this
increase of 524,000 households
from 2011 (a growth of 3%) came
despite the switch-off of the
analogue satellite signals last April.
The company attributes the
performance to consumer demand
for the large programme on offer
via satellite TV, especially in HD.
44% all satellite households
watched HD at the end of the year,
nearly two million more than
before. Cable grew its HD reach by
1.27 million to 4.53 million
households, 27 percent of all cable
households. In total, the number
of HD households in Germany
increased to 13.1 million (from 10.0
million in 2011). The number of HD
channels on satellite was 63 at the
end of 2012, an increase of more
than 20 from the previous year.
Satellite serves 47% of all TV
households in 2012, compared to
44% for cable, which lost 570,000
households to finish on 16.7 million.
In digital TV, satellite reached a
record level of 59% of all digital
TV households versus cable’s 30%,
SES said.
Digital terrestrial (DTT) grew by
222,000 homes to 2.05 million, while
IPTV remain almost unchanged at
1.26 million, an increase of 10,000.
• TV shopping channels in
Germany, the UK, Italy and France
generate an annual turnover of
almost EUR4 billion, according to
Goldmedia. The study, on behalf of
the European Retailing Association
(ERA), found that Germany leads
ahead of the UK, with revenues of
around EUR1.7 billion in 2011. Of
the total 68 providers operating in
these markets, 31 were in the UK.
Italy has the highest growth
potential, Goldmedia said. The share
generated from TV will fall by 2017,
it added, as the internet and smart
TV and mobile apps begin to gain
in importance.
news in brief
New EPG for Sky D
German payTV operator Sky
Deutschland has unveiled a new
interactive programme guide for
its Sky Go service. The new EPG
blends linear and on demand
content and is available across
over the top web and iOS devices.
New functions include a Mobile
Record feature that enables users
to record shows remotely and
save them on their Sky+ set-top
boxes.
More Eutelsat transponders
for MultiChoice
MultiChoice Africa has signed a
multi-year contract extension with
Eutelsat to boost the offer of its
DStv pay-TV service that covers
large parts of the continent.
MultiChoice Africa is activating
one additional transponder on
the Eutelast 36A satellite from
March, with a second to be
activated from May, which will
take to 22 the total number of
transponders leased by
MultiChoice at Eutelsat’s 36°
East video neighbourhood.
Ericsson intros LTE
Broadcast solution
Ericsson is launching an end-to-
end solution that caters for the
growing need for video over
mobile LTE networks and already
has a couple of operator partners
on board. Verizon plans to use
the broadcast technology for
sports content, concerts and even
distance learning and college
classes. Telstra will also partner
with Ericsson on a live network
trial of the technology in the
second half of 2013. Ericsson’s
LTE Broadcast platform
incorporates three emerging
standards: HEVC video
compression, MPEG DASH
adaptive streaming and 3GPP-
based eMBMS.
08 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
News
A peak in UK time-shifted TV viewingThe trend towards multi-screen
viewing is causing overall viewing to
remain robust, with the average UK
viewer watching four hours and four
minutes of TV a day in 2012,
according to Thinkbox. Devices
other than the TV set, however, only
accounted for three minutes of daily
viewing and the advertising body
believes that on-demand viewing will
plateau at around 15%.
Citing figures from the
Broadcasters’ Audience Research
Board (BARB), this is the third
consecutive year that linear TV
viewing on a TV set has remained
above an average of four hours
a day.
Figures supplied by UK
broadcasters to Thinkbox,
meanwhile, suggest that viewers in
the UK watched an average of just
three minutes a day of TV, mostly
on-demand but some live streams,
on non-TV set devices via services
such as ITV Player, Sky Go, 4OD
and BBC iPlayer. This represents
an additional 1.2% of TV viewing
and is the first time the average
amount of TV watched via devices
such as tablets, smartphones and
laptops has been quantified. It
amounts to an average of three
30-minute TV episodes a month per
viewer (so 90 minutes).
Viewers are watching 27 minutes
more linear TV a day than ten years
ago although this growth is also
stabilising. Almost 90% of TV in
2012 was watched live, as it was
broadcast, versus 90.3% in 2011.
More than half (51%) of UK
households now own a DVR and in
these 84.4% of linear TV was
watched live compared to 84.7% in
2011. The level of time-shifting has
been very stable since the first DTRs
were released ten years ago, said
Thinkbox. Furthermore, 81% of all
time-shifted viewing is watched
within seven days of recording while
47% of time-shifted viewing is seen
within 24 hours of it being recorded.
BARB’s figures also suggest that
the growth in the amount of TV that
is recorded and played back is
slowing down. In 2010, 7.6% was
time-shifted; in 2011 9.4% was time-
shifted; and in 2012 10.1% was time-
shifted. Once all households have the
ability to digitally record TV
programmes, Thinkbox expects the
average level of recorded and
playback TV viewing to settle at
around 15% of total linear viewing,
although VoD will increase as a
proportion of the time-shifted total.
With the spread of internet-
connected TV sets, Thinkbox expects
that some on-demand viewing, which
currently takes place off the TV set,
will move to the TV set, as that is the
screen people prefer to watch TV on.
The average viewer watched 47
ads a day during 2012, the marketing
body added. Collectively the UK
watched an average of 2.7 billion ads
a day.
“Linear TV is the bedrock of how
we watch TV and that is not going to
change,” said Lindsey Clay,
Thinkbox’s managing director.
{HUMAX BOX PIC HERE +
room for caption please}
120,000 Horizon subscribers for UPCLiberty Global has seen robust
uptake of its recently launched
Horizon platform, which the cable
company hopes will help it keep and
attract new TV customers.
The Horizon TV advanced
home gateway has sold over
100,000 subscriptions since it
launched in the Dutch market five
months and has over 200,000
unique users enjoying online and
multi-screen services. The set-top
box is the only product now on
offer by the cable operator in the
Netherlands and has reached an
estimated penetration of around
6% of its TV customer base.
As a comparison, Virgin Media’s
TiVo service, albeit further down the
line in terms of availability, had a
total of 1.14m customers at the end
of last year, which represents 30% of
its TV customer base.
Liberty, which operates under the
UPC brand across Europe, lost
169,000 video subscribers in 2012,
although this was a narrower loss
than in 2011 result. In Q4, only
12,000 had left the company and
Europe’s largest cablenet is confident
Horizon will reverse this trend.
Liberty finished the year with a
digital video base of 5.2 million
RGUs, for a digital penetration of
61%, as compared to 54% at year-end
2011. Again, it hopes that the
Horizon TV product will help
convert the remaining three million
subscribers to digital.
Horizon TV was introduced in
Switzerland in January since when
20,000 boxes have been sold, UPC
said. Ireland will follow later this
year, as will likely Germany.
UPC added 403,000 broadband
internet subscribers and 477,000
telephony subscribers in 2012, a year-
over-year decline of 4% for internet,
but an increase of 16% for telephony.
Full year revenues increased by 7% to
to €4.27 billion.
Boxes such as this one have helped bring catch-up TV and VoD to the main TV screen
Driving Technology ForwardThe New Technology Agenda provides a comprehensive discussion and networking
opportunity to global technology professionals. Focused on bringing together industry
leaders to look at key technology trends and the market impact of these technologies over
the next five to ten years, this one day conference interrogates the business strategies that
will test the technologies of the future.
Register now
Standard fee: £445+VAT
t +44 207 424 2888
w www.screendigest.com/events/sites/ technologyevent/registration
IHS Electronics & Media Events
The New Technology Agenda16 April 2013 | British Museum, London
Programme highlights:• Panel session/Fireside chat: What buyers want
• Panel session: Multimedia Home Gateways and advanced user experiences
• Fireside chat: User Interfaces
• Panel session: The future of the living room
• Panel session: Advances in distribution technology
• Consumer panel: How consumers use devices for multiscreen services
Confirmed Speakers
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Anthony Rose, CTO and Co-founder, ZEEBOX
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Nick Thexton, CTO, Service Provider Video Technology Group, CISCO
FIRESIDE CHAT: Mycal Elliott, Senior Manager, User Experience, ROVI CORPORATION
James Caselton, Head of Product and Partner Marketing, DOLBY
Vassilis Seferidis, Director, European Business, SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS
Thomas Wrede, Vice President, Reception Systems, SES ASTRA
Giles Cottle, Head of Strategy, FREESAT
Dr. Neil Foster, VP Global Sales, IA, ACCESS
Steve McCaffery, Vice President, MOTOROLA
Carl Furgusson, Head of Segments Strategy, TV Compression, ERICSSON
Speaker TBC, CISCO
Speaker TBC, SMART DESIGN
Speaker TBC, NDS
And many more to be confirmed.
Detailed speaker information: www.screendigest.com/events/sites/technologyevent/speakers
news in brief
Tablet TV to explode
Nielsen is said to be working on
updating its TV rating system to
include ratings data for videos
viewed on streaming services and
connected devices including
Xbox, Playstation and iPad. The
move beyond traditional TV
ratings isn’t finalised yet, but
there are ongoing discussions
among a Nielsen committee
group that includes TV network
and ad agency reps, which appear
to be pushing in this direction.
The overall goal is to capture
video viewing of any kind from
any source.
SES overcomes setbacks
Satellite operator SES has
reported revenue growth of 5.5%
to EUR1.8bn in 2012 despite a
number of setbacks. The
company said a “strong sales
pipeline” helped offset the switch-
off in German analogue
broadcasting earlier in 2012,
which took EUR108m out of
revenue. The SES-5 launch delay
and reduction of capacity on
AMC-16 represented a further
EUR13m of lost revenue. Three
new satellites will create capacity
to fuel growth in 2013 and 2014,
as momentum is maintained in
Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Another four spacecraft are due
for launch this year, which will
add over 100 new transponders to
support growth, especially in the
developing markets.
Virgin embraces YouTube
UK cable operator Virgin Media,
has created a channel for
YouTube in its TiVo EPG, a sign
of further blurring between all
forms of content. The company
has integrated YouTube clips and
channels more deeply in TiVo’s
‘My Shows’ and ‘Search and
Browse’ areas.
10 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
News
BSkyB in Disney content exclusive
Sky and Disney are working
together to create a new
television channel, Sky Movies
Disney, the studio’s first
co-branded movie channel, as
part of a wide-ranging agreement
between the two companies,
covering exclusive content and
Disney Channels across multiple
platforms and devices.
The new channel will be the
home of new and old Disney and
Disney/Pixar movies in the UK and
Ireland, including the likes of
Bambi and Pinocchio, and marks
the first time that Disney has been
involved in a co-branded linear
movie channel anywhere in the
world. It is also the first time that
viewers in the UK and Ireland will
be able to watch all Disney films
on one single channel.
The launch of Sky Movies Disney,
which will be timed to coincide with
the Easter holidays at the end of
March, builds on Sky and Disney’s
24-year relationship in the UK.
The channel will show recent hits
including Brave, Tinker Bell: Secret
of the Wings and Wreck-It Ralph in
their first pay TV window. Future
releases that will be available include
Oz: The Great and Powerful,
Monsters University and The Lone
Ranger. The new movies will be
available on Sky Movies Disney from
around six months after they have
ended their run in cinemas and will
be exclusive to Sky Movies for at
least a year.
The agreement also gives Sky
Movies the first subscription pay TV
movie rights in the UK and Ireland
to other titles distributed by
Disney, including new movies
from Lucasfilm, and also Marvel
Studios features such as Iron Man
3 and Avengers Assemble.
Moreover, the agreement covers
Disney’s TV channels - Disney
Channel, XD and Junior.
The deal covers live and on
demand rights, as well as the Sky
Go service and the recently
launched Now TV internet TV
service, which has 25,000
subscribers. Disney films available in
3D will be shown on the Sky 3D
channel.
• Sky has retained the rights to
keep new release films from Sony
Pictures exclusively for a year before
they can be shown by rival
broadcasters or VoD providers. The
renewed agreement retains Sky’s first
pay-TV window rights to Sony titles,
as well as rights to older Sony titles.
SIS explores 4k workflowsSIS Live has formed a working
group to explore the technology and
workflows required to deliver live,
4K, multi-camera event coverage
from an outside broadcast unit.
The company has undertaken tests
with camera and equipment
suppliers, including a Premiership
football match between Chelsea and
Newcastle captured in full 4K using
the Sony F65 camera in order to gain
experience in manipulating 4K
pictures within an OB truck setting.
SIS said all its recent OB trucks
have been built to be 3G capable,
designed to handle 4K signals, and
supported the BBC and NHK in
their super hi vision transmissions of
the Olympic ceremonies.
Sky is also known to be trialling
4k, having retrofitted some of its OB
vans to be ultraHD capable, in
anticipation of a 4k channel launch
in the near future.
news in brief
PayTV subs fall in WE
Western Europe saw its first ever
decline in pay-TV subscriber
numbers last year, due mainly to
Italy and Spain, according to by
Informa Telecoms & Media.
There were a total of 92.6m pay-
TV subscribers in Western
Europe at end 2012, after
384,000 were lost during the year.
Italy lost 800,000 to reach 7.9m,
while Spain lost 261,000 to reach
4.3m. Of the rest of the Big Five,
Germany came top with 21.5m
(down 180,000), followed by the
UK with 14.4m (up 190,000),
then France with 12.2m (down
3,000). The rest of the countries
added 670,000 pay-TV subs to
reach a total of 32.3m.
Lithuania tops Euro FTTH
rankings
Lithuania tops the European
fibre-to-the-home league in terms
of penetration while the UK
doesn’t even make the cut,
according to official figures from
the FTTH Council Europe.
Russia has emerged as a clear
fibre leader in the region, having
added 2.2 million new FTTH
subscribers in the second half of
2012 - more than all of the 27
Member States of the European
Union combined - to reach a total
of 7.5 million fibre-connected
homes. Across the EU27
countries, the number of FTTH
subscribers grew by 15% in H2
2012, adding 820,000 subscribers
and bringing the number of fibre-
connected homes to 6.24 million.
Scandinavia and the Baltic
countries continued to set the
pace. Lithuania remains the
dominant fibre country, with
100% coverage of FTTH and over
31% of homes connected to fibre.
In total, ten countries have more
than 10% FTTH penetration,
including Portugal.
News
Smart TV penetration tops 25% Over a quarter of TVs shipped in
2012 were smart TVs, according to
IHS Screen Digest, which urges more
partnerships between manufactures
and payTV operators.
Worldwide shipments of smart
TVs came to 66 million units in
2012, up 27% on the year before, and
shipments are expected to rise to 141
million units and account for 55% of
global television shipments in 2015
and nearly two-thirds in 2016.
Despite a decline in global
television shipments in 2012,
consumer demand for internet-
connected televisions soared as
manufacturers refine their products
to add new features and to make
them easier to use and differentiate
themselves from the competition.
Screen Digest said that one of the
most promising features that can
drive consumers to the purchase and
use of smart TVs is partnership by a
smart TV brand with payTV
operators. “Using smart TVs as a
client device in a pay-TV household
can help TV manufacturers
distinguish their products in the
marketplace, reduce customer
premises equipment costs for
operators and ultimately benefit
consumers,” the analysts said.
An emerging trend of “smart-
ready” TV models has come about
through the partnership announced
by Roku during the CES with
several TV manufacturers,
including Coby, Hisense, TCL and
Westinghouse. Using the smart-
ready approach, any television
enabled with a mobile high-
definition link (MHL) can be
turned into a smart TV using a
Roku Streaming Stick. These types
of partnerships are highly valuable
to second- and third-tier brands
that wish to compete in the smart
TV market.
Sports rights costs top $1bn in LatAmIn line with other regions and markets
in the world, the cost of broadcast
rights in Latin America seem to be
growing exponentially, especially
in relation to Tier 1 sports such
as football.
According to Dataxis, the six
strongest football leagues exceeded
the $1 billion mark for the first time
in Latin America’s history. The main
domestic professional football
competitions in Argentina, Brazil,
Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru
attracted a combined $1.07 billion in
TV revenues in 2012, a rise of over
56% compared with 2011.
Broadcast rights for the
Brasileirão, Brazil’s domestic first-
division football league, were the
region’s most expensive, worth over
$610 million in 2012 and accounting
for nearly 57% of the regional total.
“Different local federations and
professional football associations are
currently experimenting with
different business models to
commercialise broadcast rights in
Latin America,” said Juan Pablo
Conti, senior analyst at Dataxis and
author of the report. “However,
regardless of the approach they have
been adopting, they have all been
increasingly successful in making
their margins grow.”
The Dataxis report also found that
there were a total of 116 different
dedicated TV channels broadcasting
sports programming in Latin
America’s seven main TV markets at
the end of 2012.
HD TV networks are fast gaining
space in the channel lineups of all of
the large pay-TV operators, with
Mexico exhibiting the largest
number of HD sports channels in
the region (12), followed by
Colombia (8) and Chile (7).
Argentina (with DeporTV), Brazil
(Esporte Interativo) and Venezuela
(Meridiano TV) were the only
countries to have a free-to-air sports
TV channel.
The second half of 2012 saw the
launch of Latin America’s first
OTT sports video services, in
Brazil (Esporte Interativo Plus,
featuring live coverage of multiple
sports) and Chile (Estadio CDF,
dedicated to football).
www.csimagazine.com March-April 2013 11
IHS Screen Digest Figure: Global Smart TV Shipment Forecast (in Thousands of Units and as a Percentage of Total TV Market)
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Smart TV Unit Shipments 51,934 65,713 84,837 113,289 141,134 173,278
Percentage of Total TVs 20% 27% 35% 45% 55% 65%
Source: IHS Screen Digest Research, February 2013
Here’s a column about
acronyms. Acronyms with
D’s in them. That’s a D for
definition and a D for
dimension. Sounds pretty
grand, right? First we had
High Definition (HD) TV,
and six years on the UK has 75 HD channels.
Then came Three Dimension (3D) TV. Three years
in and the UK has just one 3DTV channel. Pretty
soon we will have Ultra High Defintion (UHD) TV,
a technology that is being watched closely as the
next big thing in an industry that seems to go from
revolution to revolution every few years.
And if you like a proper revolution, rather than
those revolutions that turn out to be all talk,
you’re going to be hoping that UHD is the next
HD, not the next 3D. If you’re a channel, though,
you’re probably thinking, firstly: Not again… and
then, how do I make this pay?
HDTV represented a step-change in viewing
experience for both picture and sound. From a
business perspective, it made sense for a number
of channels to move rapidly to the new format,
especially those based around ‘experience’
content: movies, sports and high-scale
documentaries. For the channels there was a cost.
Firstly in content production or acquisition,
secondly in studio and play-out and thirdly in
transmission capacity, with HD requiring far more
bandwidth. The pay-off was an affiliate fee uplift,
though that differentiation is rapidly disappearing.
On the face of it, 3D also represents a step-
change in viewing experience. An image that
emerges from the screen allowing the viewer
almost to reach in sounds perfect for ‘experience’
content, again like movies, sport and
documentaries. Initially there was some
enthusiasm for 3DTV, with channel launches
globally keeping pace with activity in the early
days of HD. But that initial flurry of interest has
most definitely tailed off. So what went wrong?
And what lessons can be learned for the next
revolution in TV viewing?
One thing that did not limit channel launch
was the TV set. The natural replacement cycle
ensured that HD sets and, later, 3D sets reached a
high installed base relatively rapidly. But
otherwise the conditions that led to the HD
‘revolution’ were very different from the situation
that existed for the launch of 3D. For a start,
movie content shot on film was effectively already
HD and for some years prior
to the large scale launch of
channels, US series and
documentaries had been shot
in HD. Thus, there was no
appreciable content gap by the time HD channels
began launching. Secondly, there was no
fundamental change in the way television was
viewed with HD, simply an improvement in the
experience of the content received. The consumer
transition was thus simple.
3D could claim neither of these benefits. And
for the channels, the economics look particularly
unfavourable. The elevation in bandwidth costs is
the same as for HD, content availability is
extremely restricted and, unlike HD, rather than
attracting more viewers, a 3D channel is likely to
also have a limited audience, the very life-blood of
the channel economic equation is thus missing.
So what of UHD? The economic argument will
have to be strong. Even with High Efficiency
Video Codec (HEVC) and DVB-S2, a significant
uplift in bandwidth costs will still be necessary.
Currently and for the near-term, there will be a
content gap akin to that for 3D. Not so good
so far. But the difference is that the other key
factors - the obvious and immediate benefit to
the fundamental viewing experience, coupled with
the smooth transition in the way that consumers
watch television - will be in place. That means
that the future for UHD looks a little brighter.
The revolutionaries can thus celebrate that UHD
shouldn’t be the next 3D. The channels can keep
working on making it pay.
Where next for the channel business?Lessons that can be learned in the evolution from HD and 3D to ultra HD
Guy Bisson is research director, television, at IHS Screen Digest. In this regular column, he gives CSI readers exclusive insight from the
company’s new channel strategies service
Analyst corner
12 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
# c
hann
els
the first ten years: HD and 3D channels from year one of launch
1,200
1,000
800
600
400
200
01 32 4 5
years since first launch HD Channels (global) 3D Channels (global)
6 7 8 9 10
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The current fragmented nature
of the smart TV landscape
is creating a barrier to
investment in connected TV
applications. Developers,
broadcasters, service
providers and others argue
that to customise apps for each platform is costly
and time consuming, while research has repeatedly
shown that one of the issues slowing customer
acceptance of smart TV services is confusing
user interfaces.
The case made by Espial systems architect
Steve Morris is that by reducing fragmentation
among platforms and the cross-device differences
for a given service, the industry can help
consumers to see all the benefits of a smart TV.
Yet, as Ronald Brockmann, European MD at
ActiveVideo Networks explains, the TV ecosystem
is not only fragmented among vendors but also
across different model years of the same vendor.
The problem, he says, is compounded because of
the difficulty TV vendors have in maintaining
software on models more than one year old, and
the lack of motivation among many users to
provide system administration and updates on
their TV models.
Simple apps can cost £20,000, full VoD portals
up to £200,000, according to developer Capablue.
“Development requires significant engineering
experience,” says Jean-Marc Racine, managing
partner at consultancy Farncombe. “Even for a
given manufacturer you must port from one
model to another using different versions of the
software pack,” he points out.
Stunted smart TV market
According to Accedo CEO Michael Lantz,
fragmentation is possible to overcome (he points
to Accedo’s Cross-platform Development Kit) but
the main problem is that an app needs to be
submitted to each manufacturer for separate
approval and separate agreements. “This overhead
is many times much more cumbersome than the
actual development.”
All of this has resulted in a relatively slow
build-up of high-quality apps for smart TV
platforms compared with mobile where iOS and
Android dominate the landscape and present
scale for developers.
Apple, of course, effectively cornered the
mobile market by introducing browser-based
app development, but the use of apps on smart
TV is likely to remain very different, according
to David Watkins, research consultant at
Futuresource Consulting.
“TV apps are concentrated on a few popular
things that a lot of people might like such as
BBC iPlayer, YouTube and Lovefilm,” he suggests.
“Generating scale is much more relevant to
mobile platforms where
consumers will interact and
dispose of multiple apps on a
regular basis.”
Brockmann believes it near-
impossible for smart TVs to
reach their full potential if the
user experience is too poor or
if the library of apps is too thin. “If we’ve learned
anything from mobile, it’s that robust menus
of compelling apps drive adoption and usage,”
he says.
“Smart TV vendors need the help of content
providers and aggregators – including the leading
service providers - to provide a valuable
experience,” he adds. “But they also need
standards-based development environments that
can bring the innovation of small developers into
play, without the need to write content over and
over again for different devices.”
The BBC has been particularly vocal, claiming
that views of iPlayer via connected TVs have been
well below that of tablets and mobiles, in part due
to the ease of use on mobile platforms.
“Standardisation of TV browsers and the
implementation of scalable architecture for
smart TV app development are needed [the
14 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
Defragmenting smart TVSmart TV
The shift to a common smart TV platform environment would allow app developers to reach a much wider audience in a cost-effective manner but in the long term would such standardisation stifle innovation, competition and market development? Adrian Pennington reports
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
2011
Smart TV Unit Shipments
Global Smart TV Shipment Forecast (in Thousands of Units and as a Percentage of Total TV Market)
Sou
rce:
IHS
Scr
een
Dig
est
Res
earc
h, F
egru
ary
20
13
Percentage of Total TVs
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
0%
30%
20%
10%
70%
60%
50%
40%
BBC believes] to truly unlock the potential
of connected TVs and create scale for TV
applications,” says Futuresource’s Watkins,
although the BBC has been able to reduce
the customisation needed to deploy its iPlayer
app across multiple devices by using an
abstraction layer.
The vendor dilemma
The argument is that the entire smart TV industry
should look to standardisation in order to offer
more choice and better experiences which will set
them apart from their competitors and build new
and profitable business models. The sticking point
has always been on the TV vendor side who fear
that standardisation may reduce their ability to
maintain a competitive edge.
“Samsung, for example, is currently making the
running on smart TV with exclusive content deals
[eg, ITV player in the UK] and would see it as
undesirable for its competitors to provide exactly
the same content services,” suggests Watkins.
“Another point of differentiation for TV vendors
has been through control of the platform whether
it is through touch pad remotes, pointers or even
gesture and voice interaction. This has added a
further layer of complexity for app developers
wishing to optimise their apps for a particular
TV platform.”
Capablue founder Tom Cape says that for TV
manufacturers the dilemma is whether they want
to own the customer and start charging
broadcasters to be on their platform – or whether
they open their platform up, encourage more
and better app development, that may mean
more people buy connected TVs. “Manufacturers
don’t want their product to become the thin
client,” he says. “It commoditises what they do
when they’d rather retain as much value in the
device as they can.”
Yet, consumers will benefit considerably
from increased standardisation because it
will allow them to be able to have devices
talk to each other, irrespective of brands.
“Manufacturers are beginning to recognise
the value of this to the ecosystem as a whole,”
points out Shirlene Chandrapal, VP Connected
TV and Mobile, Smartclip.
“A big driver for this is the fact that consumers
are adapting to new technologies much faster,
especially when their devices are able to talk
to each other and the set-up process is simple
and fast. From this point of view, more
standardisation could set off a kind of ‘positive’
vicious circle, with easier to handle interfaces
and standardised smart TV platforms leading
to greater adoption by consumers.
“In turn, this makes it easier and faster
for content producers to take their services
or content to all smart TV platforms with a
better ROI. The networks can deploy campaigns
faster to market with a greater reach, while the
advertisers can reach a wider number of people
as well,” she says.
Smart TV Alliance prospects
Bowing to pressure, a group of content owners,
developers and CE manufacturers have banded
as the Smart TV Alliance (STA) to create a
common developer framework for Smart TV
apps based on the adoption of HTML5.
The group now counts 11 members, the newest
being Panasonic, Technisat, IBM, Specific Media
and ABOX42. With the addition of Panasonic,
the group now boasts four of the major global TV
brands which, Watkins points out, collectively
accounted for around 40% of smart TV sales
in 2012.
“Sony and Sharp are also potential partners
who would benefit from increased application
development for their platforms particularly as
they are unlikely to be able to compete with the
scale of Samsung on their own,” he says.
The ambition of the STA is widely applauded
but there are caveats. Accedo’s Lantz believes
it still tackles the lesser half of the problem -
the development platform - whereas the
submission and quality assurance (QA) process
remains separate.
“In order for this to take off, they need to
agree on a joint app store, which will be more
challenging the more members they have,” he
says. “If they pull off a common app store in the
next 12-18 months, I think this has potential to
be a huge success.”
The shift to a common smart TV platform
environment would make smart TV a “much more
promising arena for advertisers to experiment
with ad-insertion and pay-TV operators to develop
OTT service apps,” predicts Watkins.
For Capablue the initiative is a big step in the
right direction since they now need to consider
development for just three main platform groups
– the Alliance members, Samsung and third party
smart TV platform providers such as Roku and
NetRange (maker of Ikea-branded TVs among
others).
Apart from the STA, there are in fact
several other independent activities underway
to reduce fragmentation: Open IPTV Forum,
HbbTV, the Digital TV Group’s D-Book 7
specification, and Intellect’s profile for UK
products, among them.
“All of these activities are choosing from the
www.csimagazine.com March-April 2013 15
“If the Smart TV Alliance pulls off a common app store in the next 12-18 months, I think this has potential to be a huge success.”
Smart TV
same set of standards, and probably the same
sets of features from those standards, but there
is still a risk of confusion in the market,” says
Espial’s Morris. “Hopefully all of these
organisations can co-ordinate their approaches
and be clear about the similarities and differences
in their approach and goals. We’ve already seen
this to a degree with HbbTV, OIPF, and the
DTG, and further co-ordination can further
improve the situation.
“Standardising at a platform level would be
far more beneficial than at an OS level, because
the operating system is only a small part of the
picture,” Morris says. “HbbTV is a good example
of this approach, where what matters to service
developers are the capabilities offered by the
browser and the choice of operating system is
irrelevant. Similarly, consumers are not concerned
about the OS. Instead they care about the
performance of the product and the quality of
the services that are available.”
HbbTV 1.5, he notes, features a unified
presentation layer, adaptive streaming with
MPEG-DASH and the ability to secure
streams with DRM plus a test suite to
ensure interoperability.
“Why then would you recreate something
with a proprietary solution?” asks Farncombe’s
Racine rhetorically. “The reason is that in a
proprietary environment vendors can editorialise
which apps gets onto their TVs but with HbbTV
they lose that control because it’s an open
door for broadcasters and service providers
to create applications.”
What about Apple…?
Major brands like Samsung, LG and Sony
believe they can establish smart TV-based content
and service platforms to drive their own growth,
inspired by Apple, but this approach may be
short sighted.
“I think it’s impossible for anyone else to have
a similar strategy to Apple,” contends Lantz.
“What they should do is to continue to open for
third party innovation instead of forcing everyone
to use their solutions. It’s not consumer friendly
that Samsung’s own second screen solution only
works with Samsung devices and that they’re
reluctant to open up for second screen solutions
using iPad.”
And what of Apple itself, arguably a smart TV
solution (streaming media device Apple TV)
without the screen (yet). Any entrance into a
smart TV market trending toward applications
and digital content delivery would allow it to
bring to bear the strengths that enabled it to grab
share in mobile.
Apple sold around five million units of Apple
TV in the year to September 2012, representing
growth of nearly 100% from 2011, according to
Futuresource Consulting. The device is building
an audience and while content remains a weak
point it has been bolstered by the addition of
Hulu Plus.
Of the major TV brands, Samsung is the only
one with enough scale and momentum to ‘go it
alone’ and mount a serious challenge to Apple
or Google but, as Watkins suggests, it seems
unlikely that the South Korean powerhouse will
be moving away from its own proprietary platform
anytime soon.
“A possible scenario is that other TV vendors
such as Sony, LG join forces as a defence to
Samsung by supporting standardisation initiatives
such as the STA or even adopting Google TV en
masse, although the latter seems unlikely given
the very limited support [LG excepted] for
Google TV at present,” argues Watkins.
..or Android?
Android is probably the closest thing to a
proprietary operating system that will be widely
deployed, more due to the large pool of Android
developers rather than any inherent advantages of
Android as an OS.
“It’s an OS which was originally created
for low powered chipsets and it’s open source
roots will make it easy to pick up for Tier 2 and
Tier 3 device manufacturers,” says Lantz. “The
big question mark is what role Google Play will
have as an app platform in this case. Many
manufacturers want Android but not to tie
themselves into a Google Play ecosystem. I think
we’ll see a fragmentation among Android devices
for TV as well, just as we see for mobile.”
However, using a standard OS can add
additional burdens in ‘managing’ the TV set,
including security and anti-virus considerations.
ActiveVideo’s Brockmann believes that what
makes most sense is for the smart TV industry to
consolidate more functions around the cloud.
“Virtualising most or all of the development
functions in the cloud allows a unified approach
that can work across all different devices,
reducing development cost and time to market,”
he says. “This capability can co-exist with local
OS functions to drive TV vendor differentiation.
“Streaming – not downloading – content and
apps from the cloud can solve issues of security
and virus protection in an easier and more
foolproof way. Synchronisation can happen in
various ways, but using the cloud may be the
easiest way to ensure that all relevant interfaces
and services are available and up to date. This
does not necessarily have to rely on any specific
OS in the TVs themselves.
“Smart TV operators will achieve more
by using open standards wherever possible
and differentiating their services from their
competitors by offering fresh and innovative
end experiences to the consumer (e.g. great UIs,
intuitive usability) and a deep breadth of content,”
he says.
From CTVs to connected devices
The shifts towards open source technologies like
WebKit/HTML5, a feature of HbbTV and STA
specs, leads Dr Neale Foster, VP global sales for
Access, to argue that the presence of multiple
operating systems is not an issue at all.
“HTML5 enables the creation of advanced UIs
and application platforms regardless of which OS
is in place,” he says. “Proprietary OS’s are not
preventing TV vendors from capitalising on the
multiscreen ecosystem as they move towards
standards like DLNA and its Premium Video
profile which enables the secure sharing of media
seamlessly between devices in the home.
“Many smart TV solutions are already running
HTML5 on their application platforms and this is
likely to increase. The strength of HTML5 lies in
its ability to simplify the process of developers
and the content industry by providing content and
applications for the widest possible spread of
vendors, truly unifying all smart TV platforms
with other devices including tablets and
smartphones,” notes Dr Foster.
For Farncombe’s Racine, the TV market needs
to evolve drastically not just to smooth the
complexities of app development but also because
the TV itself may no longer be needed to deliver
services to the TV screen.
“Manufacturers have a common interest to
solve the problem or they risk ending up with a
product that is a simple, dumb display. There is a
scenario where a TV may be used to render
applications but streaming can be the domain of
external devices - smartphones and STBs. Where
users have broadband access they are subscribing
to an ISP which usually provides a discounted or
free STB. So who needs a connected TV in this
environment?” he asks.
16 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
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Untitled-5 1 11/02/2013 12:54:01
Is the age of network PVR (nPVR) finally
about to begin? I can remember writing
about this back in the middle of the last
decade and thinking then that in a perfect
world this would be a logical service for
most operators: capacity, control, only a
thin device in the consumer’s home and
lots of flexibility for upgrades. But we don’t live in
a perfect world, and in this case the imperfections
have come in the form of content owners nervous
about rights issues, as well as technical
shortcomings and complex, inadequate legacy
systems.
Today, those problems look less
insurmountable. Content owners’ objections are
fading in many markets, even in those, such as the
US, where they seemed particularly stubborn for
so long. The 2007-2009 Cablevision case, where
rights holders attempted to stop a trial of nPVR
services, now feels very distant.
Faced with the reality of the over-the-top
(OTT) world, a growing number of rights holders
have been prepared to let operators use a single
copy of content for all nPVR viewers, meaning
operators can make huge savings in storage costs
and capacity. At the same time, technical
improvements are making it easier and more cost
effective for operators to launch services, while
commercial pressures make the idea of doing so
look more attractive.
Service providers moving towards OTT and
multi-screen delivery is driving nPVR
deployments, according to Mike Gannon, home
product architect at Motorola Mobility’s
Home Business. “The current availability
of viable OTT services is making nDVR
a must-have service right now. The
growth of video consumption on 2nd and
3rd screen devices is causing operators to
evaluate how to deliver all their services to
all their consumers’ devices. This is the
primary reason why network based delivery
of PVR services will grow rapidly in the next
18-24 months,” says Gannon.
Adriana Menezes Whiteley,
head of strategy practice at the
consultancy Farncombe, says
that for operators are under
pressure to simplify their devices, nPVR can save
15% to 30% of the cost of client acquisition,
depending on the solution used, and two to three
months in bringing product to market. This is
because the device in the home is simpler and
generates fewer customer care calls.
“Another reason is a second wave of IPTV
launches. IPTV operators are usually late entrants
and find it more difficult to get exclusive content.
Many are looking at alternative approaches, such
as leveraging devices already in the home like
connected TVs which cannot be used as a
conventional PVR.”
nPVR can also help IPTV operators facing
constraints in the last mile to the home. “Allowing
for two simultaneous PVR streams to the STB
while the viewer is watching another HD channel
and using the internet requires a fibre FTTx
connection, but nPVR just requires one stream at
a time,” notes Menezes Whiteley. However, she
adds, “If nPVR uses a unicast stream, operators
with backhaul constraints who use multicast are
less likely to benefit”.
The contents rights issue remains a problem.
This means that, as Joachim Roos, founder and
CEO at technology provider Edgeware puts it,
‘geography is a factor’. “The rights issue in North
America has prevented anybody from really
launching nPVR services, because it becomes
unmanageable and unscalable,” he says. “In
Europe it’s a better situation.”
“What has happened is that content owners
have negotiated separate rights for delivery of
content into separate devices,” says Nick Thexton,
CTO of the service provider video technology
group at Cisco. “The technology has got better:
the management infrastructure has become more
trustworthy and cost-effective. So we’re a little
way from content owners not worrying about this,
but we’re making progress.”
Technical advances such as those made by
18 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
nPVR
“You want to be perceived as the intelligent broker: there is a competitive advantage in being the authority which allows devices onto the network.”
Personalisation in the cloudWith deployments taking place around Europe, are the stars finally aligning for network PVR, asks David Adams
Motorola (now part of Arris) and other vendors
have helped. Its version of High Efficiency Video
Coding (HEVC) compression technology can cut
the size of HD files in half compared to when
MPEG4 and H264 are used. That reduces storage
costs and bandwidth use for operators and makes
it possible for a unified platform to deliver
content to multiple devices via a single headend
and nPVR solution. With the growth of HD and
future introduction of 4k Ultra HD services
consumers do not have to rely on limited capacity
in the home.
It also enables rights holders and broadcasters
to specify within the metadata which devices are
allowed to play their content. And consumers can
be prevented from fast-forwarding through ads.
The biggest barrier, however, rmains the
regulatory environment which is still not clear on
the copyright issues surrounding single/multiple
copy of content, according to Motorola’s Gannon.
“Some operators are waiting for clarity on this
issue before proceeding with deployment.”
nPVR today
What sort of role will cloud-based PVR services
play in the TV landscape? OTT providers are
using the cloud in a variety of ways – think of
Netflix, Apple or Boxee – and will take eyeballs
from mainstream operators.
“Cloud-based nPVR services are public cloud
hosted and often done for OTT distribution;
network PVR could be owned as a mainstream
high quality cable access infrastructure,” says
Cisco’s Thexton. “In 2013 and 2014 we will see
examples of both. Our work has shown that the
cloud works for scalability of some user
experiences in multiscreen TV. But I think it’s still
the natural instinct of operators to want to own
that infrastructure themselves, rather than hand it
to a third party. I personally think that will change
in time.”
In the more immediate term, nPVR services
are beginning to make a mark within multiscreen/
TV-everywhere services. In Portugal, subscribers
to ZON’s IRIS triple play offering can access
recordings of programmes from about 80
channels for seven days and record two
programmes simultaneously. Subscribers will soon
be able to select which programmes they would
like to retain for more than seven days. Dutch
telco KPN has been able to attract more than one
million subscribers to its nPVR service, launched
in 2011. Subscribers pay an extra EUR5 per
month for the service, which also offers the ability
to record up to six channels simultaneously.
There have also been deployments in
Switzerland, where the telco Netstream is using
Edgeware technology to provide wholesale IPTV
services to Swiss operators, while Swisscom uses
Alcatel-Lucent solutions to develop nPVR services
so that it will no longer need to maintain outdated
PVR equipment in subscribers’ homes.
Another technology provider, MobiTV,
launched nPVR services as part of its end to end
multi-screen platform in July 2012. CTO Kay
Johansson says the company is currently working
on several projects that will involve nPVR, in
Europe and the US.
Thexton adds that Cisco itself is involved in “at
least three” nPVR projects in Europe and North
America.
Offering multiscreen services will help
operators fight OTT competitors, but enabling
nPVR for multi-screen poses technical challenges.
“This is where you need to study the workflow for
these requirements,” says Nivedita Nouvel, vice-
president of marketing at Broadpeak.
“Components like CDNs can help. The CDN has
different treatment for popular content and this
could also be applied to network PVR. If content
is not popular you store it in one format and treat
it on the fly. When content is popular you have it
available in all formats.”
Embracing new technology is essential, says
Nabil Kanaan, senior director of product
nPVR
www.csimagazine.com March-April 2013 19
marketing at RGB Networks. “A lot of the
traditional service providers have very proprietary
platforms but now need to compete with the next
iPad or iPhone, not to mention the Android
juggernaut,” he says. “In the past operators have
been controlling the end-to-end pipe and
controlling the EPG and how you pay for the
content. Now that’s beginning to unravel. The big
trend is cable operators becoming a platform for
app developers, who are typically third party
organisations.”
All providers need to make these services pay.
“Larger operators, who tend to have more
negotiation power with content owners – you see
this in the US with the likes of Comcast – have a
little more flexibility, so have been able to launch
services more quickly,” points out Kanaan.
“Smaller operators have less negotiation power
with the content owners, so they are held back.”
What about gateways?
If operators can make nPVR sustainable what
does that mean for another notable technology
trend of recent times: the home gateway?
“Technically it’s a lot easier to deploy in the
cloud than to provide or give away home gateways
with that storage,” says Boris Felts, vice-president,
product marketing at technology provider Envivio.
“The problem with home gateways is that
technology is evolving quickly: in two years’ time
your equipment might be obsolete. In the network
the operator has more control and it’s future-
proof. But for some operators – for satellite
operators, say, who have to pay for all these
connections – a home gateway is going to be
more attractive.”
RGB’s Kanaan believes this question is far
from settled. “These are the early stages of this
market and there is no clear winner,” he says.
“From the consumer’s perspective there really
isn’t a drastic difference. The factors which make
it more complex for operators are things like
reliability. If you have a hard disk in the house
that’s typically the piece of technology that breaks
down the most. With the current rate of
technological change, do you really want to
commit yourself to having a device in the place
where it’s least easy to upgrade? Remote upgrades
can go wrong. If you’re sending a guy in, a
technician, then that home gateway has become a
block.
“Another factor is the question of being able to
target the user with more content,” he continues.
“You could have it stored in the house, but that’s
a very constraining architecture. You really want
to leverage the capacity of the cloud or the
operator’s network in order to refresh content. It’s
an elegant way to deliver targeted advertising too.”
On the other hand, some operators may have
reasons to want to keep some kind of equipment
in the home. Thexton doesn’t think DVR in the
home is doomed yet. “We’re going to have a
mixed economy for a long time,” he says. “With a
gateway you have a physical presence in the
home. One of the problems with virtualising all
services is personalised experiences tend to work
better with devices in the hand. In the home the
gateway becomes the physical embodiment of the
service. So pulling everything out of the living
room might not be your best first choice. You
want to be perceived as the intelligent broker:
there is a competitive advantage in being the
authority which allows devices onto the network.”
But in the longer term he still feels the cloud
will play a greater role. “With the cloud time to
market for new services can be lightning fast and
you can do it on a pay-as-you-go basis,” he says.
“If you want integration with social networking
and other service offerings then integration in the
cloud is a fast way to do it. As the newer entrants
start to do that some of the traditional operators
will get more of an appetite for it. As a technology
provider we don’t take a position: it just depends
on getting the use cases right.”
The other complication appears where
operators use a hybrid model that incorporates
OTT input into a STB. “Where the project is
hybrid it makes sense to have a hard drive in the
STB,” says Jean-Francois Galtier, COO at
Netgem. “But nPVR will be used more in future.
Probably it won’t be this year when there will be
massive deployments, but we think for maybe the
next two to three years.”
In the longer term, he says, the way consumers
respond to these services will be as important a
factor as legal or technical issues. “The big
traction for nPVR in the future will be prompted
by consumer usage,” he concludes.
“It comes back to consumers wanting a more
personalised TV experience,” adds MobiTV’s
Johansson. In a system where operators seek to
make money out of increased use of
personalisation, he says, “when you look at PVR
services the only really viable source is going to
be a network PVR, one way or another”.
20 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
nPVR
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Data has been described as
the new oil for the digital
media era, providing the
fuel for recommendation
and discovery that will
drive people to content and
create revenue. The talk is
of big data to reflect the vast amounts of
information now being generated about individuals,
the services they consume and the devices they use,
coupled with the growing ability to correlate and
then analyse this disparate information.
While the idea of big data has been creeping
up on us for years, it is only recently that the
hardware platforms and analytical tools are
coming together to harvest business value from it.
For broadcasting big data is bringing new
potential for deeper analysis by exploiting much
greater scale and diversity of data than before,
according to Steve Plunkett, chief technology
officer at Red Bee Media, the London based
media management and playout company that
spun out of the BBC in 2005.
“The television industry has historically relied
upon relatively small data sets such as those
provided by audience measurement panels,”
says Plunkett. “The big change now is that a
much wider range of data sources are becoming
available as the audience engages with content
using a two way medium, such as IP connected
smartphones, tablets, PCs, and connected TVs,
and socialises their thoughts on large public
platforms such as Twitter.”
Data as a tradable commodity
For TV, as for other sectors such as online
retailing, big data brings two dimensions. Firstly it
provides that fuel for competitive advantage, but
secondly it is becoming a commodity in its own
right because of the value it can provide, so in
that sense it is like the new oil,
or even a currency that can be
traded among providers.
Some of the bigger players
have recognised the value of
data as a tradable commodity
in its own right, with Liberty
Global, the cable operator now present in 12
European countries after its acquisition of Virgin
Media, releasing a report in 2012 entitled “The
Value of Identity” aiming to quantify the value of
personal data.
Then in February 2013 Cisco published a
whitepaper called “Unlocking Value in the
Fragmented World of big data Analytics: How
Information Infomediaries Will Create a New
Data Ecosystem”, arguing that large companies
should create big data repositories that could
serve whole industries including broadcasting.
These would be one-stop shops that collect the
data and perform analysis in real time on behalf
of customers within a sector.
Described as “infomediaries”, they would host
the storage and computational resources required
to aggregate data from a variety of sources,
process it into a standard form, make sure it was
secure, and then perform the required analyses.
The precedent for this infomediary model has
already been set in the financial sector, where the
same infomediaries provide centralised credit
checking for all parties.
Metadata and the OTT threat
Broadcasters and many pay TV operators though
have a more urgent and pressing need to exploit
data on a rather smaller scale to compete in the
multi-screen era and see off competitive threats
from new over-the-top (OTT) players such as
Apple, Google and Amazon. To do this, they
must use data to exploit the one key commodity
they do hold more or less exclusively, premium
content. “Broadcasters have something that
Google and Facebook don’t have today, high
quality content that attracts an audience, which
in turn attracts advertisers,” notes Plunkett.
22 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
Data and analytics
The new oil for the digital media eraBig data will be big business for broadcasting, says Philip Hunter, who digs deep to uncover the many layers of value such data creates for broadcasters, operators and other companies in the TV value chain
The role of data can then be seen as helping
optimise the delivery of this content to consumers
so as to increase their consumption, keep them
happy so they do not churn, and reduce costs
across the ecosystem. The first of these objectives
is achieved by harnessing data for content
discovery and proposing attractive offers.
Metadata, in this case data describing the
content in terms of genre, actors and other
categories, has a big role to play here and is
itself a source of competitive advantage, as
Samsung realised in partnering with RedBee
Media to improve content discovery and
presentation to its smart TV customers.
“This includes high quality editorial metadata
that describes programmes, links to other sources
of related material and images and videos related
to programmes that are then presented in
rich graphical user interfaces to the audience,”
says Plunkett.
Mark Cullen, chief executive of ETV Media,
said last year that the industry is at a very early
stage (‘baby steps’) as how to turn the potential
on offer into real revenues. “We think that
whoever grasps this opportunity - and scarily we
don’t think it will be from the TV industry
because we think the TV industry will be too
conservative to make these steps - will be in a
good place. Hence you look out at Google or
someone else, but whoever it is has a chance to
re-establish new value in the food chain. The
broadcasters couldn’t be nudged over by someone
else who comes and eats their lunch.”
Not so Channel 4, which was one of the first to
liken data to oil and is undertaking a number of
ventures to extract as much value as possible. The
broadcaster is embarking on a deeper level of
targeting with the launch of a new commercial
data initiative which will offer advertisers sub-
demographic targeting on its 4OD VoD service.
Channel 4 is one the most progressive
broadcasters in terms of seeing the value of data
and trying to gain a better understanding of its
commercial potential, and has also tapped into
Bristol-based social TV analytics start-up
SecondSync as it looks to understand the growing
trend of audience usage of social media channels
and dual screening, more of which later.
SecondSync tracks and analyse social media
conversations around TV broadcasts via a
dashboard to provide audience insight that can
be used along alongside more traditional audience
metrics. As a first step, Channel 4 is exploring the
correlations of social media conversations and
patterns alongside BARB (Broadcasters Audience
Research Board) overnight figures in order to
offer enriched insights to their business.
Service quality and viewing experience
Big data can also improve the quality of content
delivery, particularly for IP delivered services, but
also traditional cable TV where the existence of a
return path enables feedback from the customer’s
set top box. This is going to be an important
application of big data, according to Tom Weiss,
founder and CEO of Genius Digital, which
specialises in managing and analysing TV data.
“One of the key applications we see is identifying
viewers with technical problems and automatically
routing their calls to the technical support team,
or even pro-actively contacting them,” says Weiss.
This will be particularly valuable for IPTV and
OTT operators dependent on networks over which
they may not have complete control and are
subject to varying transmission conditions.
Century Link, the third biggest US telco
after Verizon and AT&T, is on the verge of
deploying big data for IPTV quality assurance
monitoring, having already done so for its
voice over IP services.
The telco has been collecting and analysing
machine data from a variety of sources,
potentially including information such as
customer ID, product ID, order information,
Twitter ID and other important details which,
taken together, can provide highly accurate
measures of customer experience. This can
embrace both the quality of the service, and
also the experience interacting with help desks
and call centres in the event of a problem.
“The key is to make use of this data to in a
near real-time fashion to understand when
customers aren’t getting the service they need
and find out where and why,” notes Matt Olson,
principle architect at Century Link. “This
includes data that tells us what’s going on with
service and also the network. There is an
important link between two, and it’s of critical
incorporate not just to have service data but also
network data.”
Olson says the analysis of big data was
improving customer satisfaction by anticipating
problems increasingly before they occur, and is
now being applied also to provisioning of new
services and for new customers, nipping teething
problems in the bud.
“We’re now focused on IPTV,” he says,
indicating that the spade work had mostly been
done in collecting the data, but that new
analytical tools would be needed to obtain quality
of experience feedback at the video level. The
data comes from routers, servers, session border
Data and analytics
www.csimagazine.com March-April 2013 23
“Liberty claimed that the majority of the customers in the Netherlands that have signed up for its Horizon TV service have opted to allow their data to be used in exchange for personalised services.”
controllers and CPE equipment as well as some
dedicated probes installed for the task, creating
data sets that have to be merged and then
analysed at different levels from the physical
media up to application layer.
The focus there is very much on quality of
viewing experience.
Audience measurement in a multi-screen
world
The third application of big data is about
efficiency and cost reduction, with an eye also on
comparing viewing figures across the various
platforms in the multi-screen age. Broadcasters
increasingly want to know which of their
platforms are generating the most eyeballs,
according to Justin Sampson, chief executive
of BARB, historically the principle source of
TV audience data in the UK through an ongoing
representative panel, currently comprising about
5,100 homes with 11,500 individuals.
“What we want to do is to let broadcasters
know what return they’re getting from the
different channels they distribute, so that they
and their advertisers can get a return for the
audiences they deliver on the various platforms,”
says Sampson.
The problem with present methods for
measuring audiences outside the panel system is
that they only count devices, not viewers. Only a
panel can drill down to viewers on the big screen
to count the audience size accurately and, as
Sampson points out, even on tablets and PCs with
supposedly one user at a time there is
considerable ambiguity.
“With tablets our anecdotal evidence is that
while the tablet may be owned by one individual,
it is being shared around, or alternatively using
technology such as AirPlay (an Apple product for
streaming content from iOS devices to TVs)
putting images up on the big screen,” says
Sampson. “It may be watched by four people.”
The solution is to combine panel data with
return path data generated at the site, which will
provide a base of solid data about tablet, PC and
smart TV viewing that will serve as an anchor for
the return path data relating largely to device
consumption alone. BARB is taking this hybrid
approach through its current project, Dovetail.
“The first stage of Dovetail is a data collection
specification, which we hope will provide census
level reports about what programmes are being
downloaded,” says Sampson. “Then we will put
this together at a later stage to determine who’s
watching what and when.”
The privacy conundrum
One other important big data aspect of concern
to both service providers and their customers is
privacy. It has been said that if data is
anonymised to the extent that it cannot identify
individuals such that privacy concerns are allayed,
then it becomes useless, but that is not quite right,
according to Gary Marshall, managing partner at
digital TV consultancy Farncombe.
“Big data in the TV space offers the capability
to provide detailed analysis of consumer
behaviour in an anonymous form which, when
allied to known demographic data, can be
powerful information for advertisers and
marketers,” argues Marshall. In that case the
data is useful but no threat to privacy.
But big data can also be used to help target
individual consumers or devices with advertising
and promotions, and then personal information is
involved. This is where the problems lie, not least
because, as Marsall indicates, legislation on the
matter is complex and differs across territories.
“This - coupled with the fact that the territories in
which data is collected, stored and analysed may
all differ - can lead to a considerable amount of
legal work to assure that the system operates
within the correct legal boundaries with regards
to privacy.”
As Marshall suggests, consumers will need
inducements such as loyalty schemes to volunteer
their personal data, but there are signs that they
will be willing to do in return for service benefits.
Liberty Global recently claimed that the
majority of the customers in the Netherlands
that have signed up for its Horizon hybrid TV
service launched September 2012 have opted
to allow their data to be used in exchange for
personalised services.
There are various shades to big data, with
both real time and historical applications, and
decisions to make such as whether to outsource
and what sources to integrate. The underlying
theme is that big data can no longer be ignored
and will play a key role in service delivery
and competition.
24 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
Data and analytics
“The television industry has historically relied upon relatively small data sets such as those provided by audience measurement panels. It is only recently that the hardware platforms and analytical tools are coming together to harvest business value from big data.”
CSI: What have you
found as you make VoD
an increasing area of
focus going forward?
CW: VoD is emerging
with consumers, whether
it’s via the Netflix’s or
LoveFilm’s of the world,
or via operators like Sky
and Virgin. Consumer
demand is increasing
and operators are seeing
this as a way with technology to enable more
consumer interaction and more value. The idea of
watching what you want, when you want, and
where you want is becoming more real with
technology, and as one of the largest programmers
and suppliers of content to distributors we are
trying to answer that need.
The question we are trying to figure out is:
what is successful VoD and how is it different
from a linear environment? Because it is. One of
the simplest things - the lead-in - doesn’t exist in
an on-demand world. You have to find a show,
figure out if you like it, watch it, and then there’s
nothing that tells you what to watch next.
The on-demand platform in general is a
challenge compared to linear when you are
watching live TV. You launch all your new shows
in the linear environment on the back of your
most successful shows. For us, historically
Deadliest Catch or now Dynamo, our hit shows are
the platform for launch. But when you’re watching
in an on-demand fashion there’s nothing to
encourage you to watch future episodes or to
recommend similar content. There literally isn’t
the promotional element with on-demand that is
so core and critical to a linear environment. So
it’s these simple things that technology has yet to
grab onto. These are the questions we are
grappling with.
CSI: So is this a lack of decent metadata, and also
search, discovery and recommendations or is there
more to it than that?
CW: There are three dimensions here. What do
people want to watch on-demand? Is it catch-up
TV or a deeper experience? Are they what we call
‘enthusiasts’ and they want to grab the show they
love? Or do they want to be a ‘tourist’ and get
more content? Which means, do you provide box-
set archives that you couldn’t do in the same way
in a linear world or maybe you offer entire series
to watch in one sitting in a binge viewing? We’ve
experimented with these models based on certain
events and types of content.
Secondly, it’s from an operator perspective, and
working with them to enable people to find the
content. Is it first and foremost about the brand,
recent content, the show or the franchise? It’s
about making that content come to life on their
platform. This is where the role of social in TV
viewing also can come into play. Out of 5,000
people we surveyed, two thirds are on social
networks but there is no one solution that acts as
what we call a ‘social scheduler’ to highlight
programmes for them.
Third, it’s the in-show experience. Is it just
about watching the programme straight for 45
minutes or should there be promotions and ads?
With these three elements, the viewing habit still
has to be defined, mainly because the ratings have
yet to be developed.
CSI: There is some progress being made on this
front, with BARB in the UK and Nielsen in the US
for instance…
CW: We don’t know what success is in this
environment, so we don’t know how we are going
to be successful in it. As a programmer that’s the
issue affecting the industry and there’s no one
answer right now. Everyone is developing different
ways of doing it. In the US, there are 5,000 cable
systems, but everyone gets most of their VoD
from two clearing houses. In Europe, there are
7,000 operators and there is no one single
delivery point; it’s all 25 different equations. You
end up with different programmes because you
have to get it to them individually. And because
there’s that lack of conformity and momentum,
that’s holding back the development, but also
leaving a lot of freedom and flexibility to do a lot
of testing.
CSI: Other content owners have spoken of this VoD
fragmentation. I guess you feel their pain?
CW: There needs to be a clear VoD leader. VoD
leadership is emerging in Europe with the likes of
UPC, Sky, Telenor or Canal Digital, but in the US
there’s only one solution. When I started this role
two years ago there were ten completely different
programmes, driven by ten different decision
makers or programmers, there was no efficiency.
So we centralised a bit of that work to develop a
model, and that’s how we’ve gone to the 50
operators we are with today and pushing our way
into double that in the next year.
CSI: A lot has been said recently about ‘binge
viewing’. Is it something that might apply to
Discovery?
CW: It comes back to the fact that it is happening
because of on-demand. So we now are trying to
come up with our own strategy for on-demand,
looking at what is the best set of shows for this.
Technology is empowering viewer behaviour and
consumer demand: how do we meet it in our own
unique story telling?
Technology like HD and 3D has influenced
and empowered storytelling. That’s what we are
talking about with 2nd screen and VoD, and also
ultraHD/4k too; how it can help us tell a story in
a different way, we are always looking at it from
that perspective.
Q&AQ&A
26 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
Dis
cove
ry’s
Ca
leb
Wei
nst
ein
Goran Nastic spoke to Caleb Weinstein, SVP and general manager of distribution for Discovery Networks EMEA, about the challenges and opportunities of content in an on-demand environment, and the role social TV can play in finding content
On the road to discovery
ww
w.c
sim
agaz
ine.
com
MPEG-DASH: Unifying the adaptive streaming world
www.csimagazine.com
Focus sponsored by
As video content becomes
more diverse and
ubiquitous, today’s pay-
TV operators must
adapt their services to
rising subscriber
expectations. Operators
are therefore increasingly targeting multiple
screens, ie TVs, PCs and various mobile devices,
in their attempts to offer competitive services
and reach the widest possible audience, anywhere
and anytime.
However, maximising the monetisation of
content across a multi-network environment
comes with several challenges: when the operator
wants to reach beyond its managed network to
various types of CE devices, including over-the-top
(OTT) video streaming delivery, the issue of
incompatible digital rights management (DRM)
systems arises.
Multi-platform challenges
Managing the interplay between multiple DRM
systems has long been asserted to be one of the
most significant barriers to successfully deploying
a multi-network, multi-screen delivery
environment. In fact, DRM schemes in general
are often regarded as presenting many challenges
for large-scale media distribution, leading some to
suggest that the approach in general may be
counterproductive. Interoperability, in particular,
has been a difficult technical problem when
dealing with a set of technologies that are, in
general, highly proprietary in nature and kept
closely guarded to limit the potential for
commercial exposure.
A unified security strategy based on an open
DRM scheme, such as the ISO/IEC standard
MPEG-DASH for Dynamic Adaptive Streaming
over HTTP, can help operators easily address the
unique requirements of different devices types,
giving them the potential to
open up the universe of multi-
network, multi-screen delivery,
and greatly accelerate the
growth of new revenue streams
based on this paradigm.
Today’s leading edge content security strategies
are characterised by the transition from a security
architecture with DRM technologies in multiple
competing “silos” to a more unified approach
across network types and stream formats. The
foundation of such an approach is that the typical
DRM silos are unified via a higher-level cross-
DRM “rights management” abstraction, which
enables the DRM servers to operate unimpeded.
This type of approach can be augmented by the
adoption of non-proprietary, open DRM
frameworks like MPEG-DASH. Such a framework
is particularly attractive as it offers operators an
ideal mix of unification and flexibility – media
delivery formats are unified and device
authentication and key management processes for
secure delivery remain flexible. In addition, this
type of standardisation can greatly accelerate the
growth of new services and revenue streams for
operators by opening up the universe of multi-
DASHing forwardPetr Peterka & Niels Thorwirth of Verimatrix discuss leveraging MPEG-DASH – and the role of open DRM standards - for enhanced revenue security
Sponsored feature
28 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
network, multi-screen and delivery to a new range
of standards compliant smart CE devices.
It is also important to remember that rights
management between the pay-TV and OTT
environments should be carefully controlled since
glitches in this aspect of delivery cause havoc on
the management of overall subscriber
expectations. Most importantly, a single security
platform clearly opens up the potential for flexible
business models that can help up-sell OTT
content for premium services and cross-sell over
multi-network, multi-screen distribution.
Standardising on MPEG-DASH offers the
potential to open up the universe of multi-
network, multi-screen and multi-operator delivery,
beyond proprietary content silos. And, by doing
so, could greatly accelerate the growth of new
services and revenue streams for multi-network
operators. In combination with a robust
protection mechanism, a whole new generation of
premium services are likely to become available in
the market.
Exploring the status of MPEG-DASH
The DASH file specification is currently on track
to fulfill its promise to unify the adaptive
streaming world. Application standards HbbTV,
3GPP and DECE have standardised on MPEG-
DASH, and it is anticipated that broadcast
standards will likely follow suit as well.
In addition, earlier this year, the DASH
Industry Forum released DASH264
implementation guidelines 1 offering
recommendations for testing and assuring
interoperability. Industry-wide collaboration in the
creation of the DASH standard is a large part of
its success; another factor is the support of
technical features that, as years of experience with
adaptive streaming have shown, are crucial
components of a mature solution.
MPEG-DASH offers a number of technical and
commercial benefits:
• It is decoupling the technical issues of delivery
formats and video compression from the more
typically proprietary issues of a protection regime.
In the world of DASH, no longer does the
technology of delivery have to develop in lockstep
with the release cycle of a presentation engine or
security vendor. This has been true for the
de-facto standard of HTTP live streaming (HLS)
for some while – but is now being formalised with
a broader base of technology;
• It’s not blue sky technology – the standard
acknowledges adoption of existing commercial
offerings in its profiles and an implied transition
to full standards compliance over a period of
time;
• It represents a drive for a single delivery
protocol standard, which helps reduce
balkanisation of streaming support in CE devices.
More broadly available device-neutral services and
less proprietary silo implementations in devices
such as connected TVs should help the market
grow overall; and
• It provides a vendor neutral option to address
the obvious current shortcomings of video
support in HTML5 – the adoption of which itself
is an important dynamic. This is especially
notable on mobile devices, as it signifies the end
of Adobe’s push to try and dominate that space
with their own standards.
The Verimatrix approach
Verimatrix, by virtue of long engagement with
DECE and other industry initiatives related to
DASH, anticipated the need for more efficient,
state-of-the-art approaches to the management of
content protection. Consequently, content
distributors of every description can implement
the company’s rigorous multi-network and multi-
device protection mechanisms with full
confidence that they will be able to benefit from
these new developments in adaptive streaming
and electronic sell-through.
Last year, Verimatrix introduced Verimatrix
VCAS™ for DASH, which offers a robust solution
for these multi-platform challenges by providing
DRM and content consumption transparency
across networks and devices. By providing DASH
support that is merged with existing Verimatrix,
PlayReady and Marlin DRMs, Verimatrix has
extended VCAS’ ability to enable content delivery
to millions of consumer devices without complex
client security integrations. This is having a
profound and positive impact on the time-to-
market for operators eager to extend their service
reach beyond their managed networks. Consumers
are benefitting from the ease of use and
transparency that follows from not having to be
concerned with different DRMs. Users don’t even
need to be aware what particular DRM is in use
for each device.
Conclusion
As we look toward the future, one thing remains
relatively certain: there’s no better way to future
proof an early-to-market multi-device service
strategy than by adopting architectures that
accommodate a multi-DRM approach. Moreover,
open DRM standards can go a long way to help
enable the type of consumer choice that all digital
TV operators are aiming for.
1 Guidelines for Implementation: DASH264
Interoperability Points: http://dashif.org/dash264-
available-for-public-review/
Sponsored feature
www.csimagazine.com March-April 2013 29
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www.csimagazine.com March-April 2013 31
Around 3,000 delegates
gathered at the Excel
exhibition centre to get
an update on the state of
the fibre market in
Europe, marking the
tenth anniversary of the
gathering. While there was the usual bravado,
there was also a current of realism running through
the event, with some even admitting that hard core
‘fibre evangelists’ are doing more harm than good
when it comes to promoting the cause.
On the whole, FTTH Council Europe’s
position is that fibre is an absolutely necessary
component to guarantee Europe’s competitiveness
going forward and wants to achieve Europe’s
(admittedly meagre) 2020 digital agenda targets
with fibre networks. The FTTCE argues that fibre
increases quality of life, brings economic growth
and sustainable development.
“The world won’t end in 2020. Our vision
needs to be long-term. Countries are choosing
FTTH or FTTC (fibre to the cabinet). In the
Telecoms Olympics that’s the difference between
gold and silver,” said FTTCE president Karin Ahl.
By the same token, the conference took place
under the shadow of EU cuts, which saw the
Connecting Europe Facility budget slashed from
EUR8 billion to EUR1 billion. This was identified
as a huge missed opportunity, although not an
insurmountable one.
So the FTTCE is under no illusion as to the
challenges the region faces to gain ground on
other pacesetters. There were 7.3m FTTH
subscribers in the EU at the end of 2012,
compared to 7.5m in Russia alone, 79m in Asia-
Pacific and 11.1m in North America.
There are some bright spots, however.
Lithuania and Andorra have achieved complete
fibre availability nationwide, while Scandinavian
and Baltic countries in general boast strong
penetration rates (see http://www.csimagazine.
com/csi/Lithuania-tops-Euro-FTTH-rankings.php).
Idate, which compiles the figures for the
FTTCE, attributes the high take up rate in the
Nordics to lots of door-to-door marketing and
proactive local communities. In France by
contrast, the main players aren’t promoting fibre
enough, reckons Idate.
Ahl admitted to CSI on the sides of a press
conference that the aim isn’t so much to surpass
Korea, Japan and other leaders as merely try
narrow the gap. FTTCE’s forecasts do point to
some optimism on this front, with 41.5m
subscribers predicted by 2017 and ‘fibre maturity’
(meaning 20% penetration) by 2022.
While progress has been made in the last ten
years, much regulatory and other work will still
need to take place for these numbers to
materialise. The problem is partly due to a wider
technology lag - Europe’s ICT budget is barely
visible compared to more advanced economies –
which itself is a symptom of cultural attitudes that
the recent budget cuts merely reaffirm.
Incidentally, the UK government didn’t see fit
to send an official to appear on stage, and Chi
Onwurah, a British Member of Parliament and
the Shadow Minister for Innovation & Science,
argued this might be partly a result of the UK’s
low FTTH ranking but also due to a
misperception of the topic itself, which requires
greater engagement with policy makers. “Part of
the problem where the debate is today in the UK
and other European countries is that politicians
and policy makers don’t know enough. They see
FTTH as a small bunch of techy geeks.”
She summarised the challenges nicely in her
address. “Incentives for this long-term investment
don’t exist for now. BT would suffer as result of
mass FTTH rollout; it’s market reality.”
Anthony Whelan, head of cabinet of
Commissioner Neelie Kroes, echoed these
sentiments. “We are working hard to ensure that
investors see there is a way of meeting the latent
demand that is brewing for high speed broadband
use. Kroes’ package, due as reform this summer,
aims to get the investment signals right.”
In terms of supply side obstacles, he noted that
80% of fibre roll out costs are civil work costs and
estimates that 30% of these can be saved by
observing throughout Europe best practices that
have been developed in certain regions, which the
Commission will this year turn into legislative
proposal. These include access to physical
infrastructure on reasonable terms, single contact
points for permits, and new buildings and major
renovations being NGA-ready.
To this end, the technology itself is almost
irrelevant. Having said that, there were some
impressive demos of fibre as a platform for
innovation, with a dedicated Applications Dome
inside the exhibition hall highlighting advanced
services such as eHealth, teleworking,
entertainment and the smart home.
FTTH Council Europe came to London this year, keen to promote the message that FTTH is the only winner in the ‘Telecoms Olympics’. Goran Nastic reports
Going for gold
One of the biggest
technical challenges
facing broadcasters and
content producers today
is the online delivery
of content. Consumers
now have a plethora of
connected devices, and expect television to be one
of the services available.
Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft have
implemented their own protocols for streaming
video to their platforms: HDS (Adobe), HLS
(Apple) and SmoothStreaming (Microsoft). All
three protocols are designed to scale and to work
well with content delivery networks (CDNs) by
being grounded in HTTP, the protocol that
underpins the web.
For the first time, these protocols – in different
ways – separate flow control from delivery of the
video data, and this can be exploited to provide
seamless, in-stream targeted advertising, a
potentially strong source of revenue. That is our
specialisation at Yospace, and is the reason why
understanding the inner workings of these
protocols is important to us.
Now there is a new entrant in the world of
HTTP-based streaming: MPEG-DASH – dynamic
adaptive streaming over HTTP. Its proponents say
it promises a single unified standard under which
all services can be delivered.
Broadcasters will no doubt twitch at the
suggestion of a single unified standard, perhaps
remembering that MXF was supposed to make all
digital content interchangeable. Because it aimed
to be all things to all people, the standard allowed
too much flexibility and manufacturers could
create “MXF compatible” systems which still
would not talk to each other.
There is a real risk this could happen with
MPEG-DASH. The MPEG-DASH specification
(ISO/IEC 23009-1) is in effect a data definition
language for HTTP-based streaming. It is
concerned with aspects of the MPD (media
presentation description file, usually referred
to as the “manifest” in existing adaptive bitrate
protocols) and the segment entities which contain
the video data itself. However, it does not address
codecs, nor does it mandate a great deal of the
client/server interaction regarding the delivery of
the data objects to the client device.
Profile incompatibility
This is where the concept of
MPEG-DASH profiles
comes in. Profiles detail all
the aspects that give you an
end-to-end specification from
which you can implement a
server, a client, an encoder/
packager and so on. The
MPEG-DASH standard sets
out the framework by which
it is possible to define any
number of profiles, based on
a control design constructed from a common
XML DTD.
This approach allows a framework in which the
designs of HLS, MSS and HDS can be
accommodated as individual profiles. But, as is
the case today, the MPEG-DASH profiles derived
from these protocols are incompatible with each
other. For a client system to implement all of the
proposed profiles is the equivalent of being HLS,
MSS and HDS compatible. This, you could argue,
makes MPEG-DASH irrelevant.
To deliver on the promise of unified streaming
suggests we adopt a single MPEG-DASH profile.
It appears that the enthusiasm for MPEG-DASH
is for a working group defining the ISO BMFF
profile. This profile owes its roots to Microsoft
SmoothStreaming, but would not be a great step
away from Adobe HDS either. However, it is just
about as incompatible with the
MPEG-TS profile of MPEG-DASH
as its parent HLS is with
SmoothStreaming and HDS.
Apple clearly has a significant
role to play in what happens with HLS and
whether support within iOS devices migrates to
the TS profile of MPEG-DASH. But it would
appear that Apple would have little to gain from
this.
What MPEG-DASH effectively promotes is the
migration from three competing and incompatible
protocols to two or three competing and
incompatible protocols, depending on whether
there is a schism between MPEG-DASH TS
profile and HLS, which in turn depends upon
what Apple does.
Today, broadcasters that
implement HTTP
streaming for video
delivery usually do not
implement both
SmoothStreaming and
HDS together. They select
one, usually implementing
HLS to reach iOS devices
and an increasing number
of other platforms
including Android. You could argue that in
practice MPEG-DASH gets us to somewhere that
is very similar to where we already are.
At Yospace we are supportive of any effort
to reduce complexity in the delivery of video
to connected devices. We are encouraged by
provisions in the ISO BMFF profile for in-stream
advertising insertion and content replacement,
and that consideration is being given to
functionally aligning these different approaches
to streaming.
However, while the work being undertaken in
this space is encouraging, we believe that nobody
should be expecting the concept of “unified
streaming” for connected devices being a practical
reality in the short term.
David Springall is CTO of Yospace
Knocking at the door of unified streaming MPEG-DASH has to be careful to avoid the pitfalls that plagued MXF in order to fulfil its promise, argues David Springall
Opinion
32 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
At this year’s Consumer
Electronics Show (CES)
in Las Vegas, there was
a clear shift from the
connected TV displays
of previous years to
smaller Wi-Fi devices
focused on creating a ‘connected home’.
Essentially the connected home is one which can
receive multiple services delivered over broadband,
hence its alternative title: the ‘internet of things’.
Such services could include media (movies, music,
photos etc) home automation and security, energy
monitoring and interacting with government.
Currently the connected home is more of an
ideal than a reality. However we have seen a big
move towards making it a reality. We already have
TVs and set-top boxes that can be controlled
remotely using a smart phone or tablet. Other
household gadgets, such as hi-tech alarm systems,
also benefit from similar connectivity to phones
and other wireless electronic devices. In parallel
to this we have seen the television transform from
a receiver terminal to a smart screen,
connected through the internet to a new world of
media and entertainment possibilities.
The Digital TV Group (DTG), the industry
association for digital television in the UK, has
been working with industry to explore TV white
space technology which can be utilised in the
connected home. TV white spaces are wireless
networks built to use TV frequencies that can be
used to improve broadband performance. The
networks can power ‘smart’ devices such as
in-home appliances and energy monitors or
enable rural broadband delivery by choosing
unused frequencies available in the area to
maximise efficient use of the spectrum.
The DTG is a member of Cambridge TV
White Spaces Consortium which conducted a
trial of TV white spaces and found that it can
be successfully utilised to help satisfy the demand
for wireless connectivity. The consortium
members are now recommending that Ofcom
complete its development of the enabling
regulatory framework in a manner that protects
licensees from harmful interference and
encourages innovation and deployment.
The connected home brings together the
information technology, telecommunications
and broadcasting industries and with them
their own technical standards. The CE
industry is now focused on developing
the home networking standards
required to link different products/
equipment in the home.
Often, connecting two products
from the same manufacturer will give
you a better experience compared
to connecting two similar products
from different manufacturers. While
this is great for the individual
manufacturer, consumers’ choice is
being limited to only buying CE
products from one manufacturer to
ensure the best experience.
Open standards for home
networked products
Creating clear open standards
for home networked products
will give consumers free
choice in the market and allow multiple devices to
interoperate. This will also ensure that product
innovation follows a pre-determined path and
we are less likely to see divergent technologies
competing for market share as with Betamax
versus VHS and more recently Blu-ray versus
HD DVD. The challenge for the industry is
to ensure people can get the most out of the
devices and services by providing a joined-up
and robust network.
This is an area where the DTG with its diverse
membership from across the supply chain, can
help industry come together again to develop a
core home networking standard. Work has already
begun in the DTG’s home networking group with
members such as Microsoft, Humax, LG and Sky
to achieve this.
The DTG is holding a technical seminar
on the Connected Home on 17 April. The
seminar will feature presentations from industry
on multimedia gateways, connectivity standards
and control and automation as well as a selection
of technical demos. For more information and to
register see www.dtg.org.uk/connectedhome
Making the connected home a realityThe DTH has been working with industry to explore TV white space technology which can be used in the connected home
Guest column
Simon Gauntlett is technology director at the DTG, the industry association for DTV in the UK. This is the latest in a line of regular guest columns to
provide CSI readers with updates on the DTG’s initiatives and activities.
www.csimagazine.com March-April 2013 33
In South East Asia and India over-the-top
(OTT) markets are witnessing a flurry of
announcements, with Apple finally opening
its iTunes Store in India in December
2012, and offer from services such as
BigFlix, NyooTV, Eros Now, hungama and
DittoTV from Zee New Media. In
Malaysia, leading pay-TV provider Astro has
launched Astro-on-the-Go to compete with TonTon,
Maaduu, DETV and Fine TV.
In addition, sales of connected devices in the
SEA region continue to increase. GfK Asia has
stated that consumption of laptops and tablets in
the largest market, Indonesia, reached 2.76
million units—an increase of 37% (in first three
quarters of 2012) over the previous year and
collecting revenue totaling nearly $1.24 billion.
Malaysia ranked second in both sales volume and
value, thanks to consumers spending nearly $1.1
billion on 2 million laptops and tablets.
But will flagging broadband speeds prove an
insurmountable barrier and delay the
development of OTT in the region?
To answer this question, Farncombe undertook
a comprehensive study of the broadband markets
in five key SEA developing countries: Indonesia,
Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and
India. The study analysed fixed and mobile
broadband service offers, technologies, nominal
and actual bitrates and pricing plans.
Our research shows that around 30% of the
existing fixed broadband residential subscriptions
offer speeds that are equal to or higher than
2Mbps – the threshold required by many OTT
service providers for delivering video content to
connected devices, including TVs.
We forecast that this percentage will reach
almost 50% by the end of 2017 – with more than
25 million fixed broadband connections equal or
greater than 2Mbps across the six countries by
then. India will lead, accounting for 28% of the
households in this segment, followed by Vietnam
and Thailand.
Indonesia is forecast to be the fastest growing
market of fixed broadband subs at or above
2Mbps of the six countries, with a CAGR for
2013-17 of 35%. Vietnam and
India will grow at 30%.
Platform wars
Farncombe’s research shows
that ADSL technology will
remain the dominant fixed
broadband technology in the region, but its share
will drop from 84% in 2012 to 65% in 2017.
Cable (HFC) will gradually increase its
presence and will increase with CAGR 2013-17 of
31%. Cable’s growth is however mostly driven by
the undergoing digitisation of cable TV networks
in India. In the remaining countries, cable will
continue to compete with ADSL, primarily, in the
capital and main cities.
FTTx’s market share will also increase as more
operators (e.g. BSNL and MTNL in India; Biznet
in Indonesia, TM, TIME and Maxis in Malaysia;
Globe and PLDT in the Philippines; TrueOnline
and 3BB in Thailand; VNPT, FPT and Viettel in
Vietnam) are now offering fibre services for the
residential market with declining prices, although
overall reach of FTTx will remain limited.
Malaysia emerges in top position in terms of
FTTx connections across the six SEA territories;
this is also reflected to the average download
bitrates which are increasing at a CAGR of 25%
in the final three years to 2017.
Broadband Wireless Access (mostly WiMAX)
will remain a niche alternative. Farncombe’s
research shows that WBA missed its opportunity
to play an important role on the adoption of
broadband services in markets where wired
networks have limited reach. The improvements
on bitrates that mobile broadband technologies
(e.g. HSxPA/ LTE) can offer, led to an increasing
number of operators investing on mobile
broadband infrastructure rather BWA. For
example, this trend can be demonstrated by the
surrender of Broadband Wireless Access
spectrum from both India’s incumbents (BSNL,
MTNL), a move which signals the end of
WiMAX’s chances to compete with other
broadband access technologies in the Indian
market. Other technologies such as satellite and
Ethernet are likely to continue to have limited
appeal and low market share.
Investments in network infrastructure and
34 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
OTT in Asia heats up Online video
South East Asia and India’s online video markets will boom as broadband subs over 2Mbps double by 2017, says Chris Chatzicharalampous, senior consultant at Farncombe’s strategy practice
2013f
0
10
20
30
million subscriptions
CAGR:22%
2014f 2015f 2016f 2017f
More than or equal to 2Mbps Fixed Broadband Residential Subscriptions in Indonesia, Malaysia,
Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and India
Note: Based on nominal bitrates Source: Farncombe analysis
upgrade plans from operators have also had an
impact on broadband speed offerings. India’s
Airtel announced that it is upgrading fixed lines
in 14 cities across the country to a minimum of
2Mbps. In another 80 cities connection speeds
are raised to a minimum of 1Mbps. Telekom
Indonesia announced plans to spend $2.30 billion
between 2011 and 2015 in the rollout of a
national broadband backbone capable of
delivering access speeds of 20-100Mbps in at least
497 cities, reaching 13 million homes. Network
rollout is underway and has reached 1.7 million
homes, stretching from Sumatra to Papua. In
Thailand, TrueOnline is covering three million
households with DOCSIS 3.0 and FTTx
technologies. With an investment budget of
$258 million for network expansion by 2013,
True aims to expand high speed broadband
coverage to 60 provinces, with “nationwide”
coverage expected in 2014.
However, further investment will be required
to improve broadband speeds across the
countries in the region. Average bitrates in
India, Thailand and Vietnam are increasing at a
quarterly average of less than 2% (based on
measurements between Q3 09 – Q3 12).
Malaysia and Indonesia perform better with
quarterly increases on bitrates of 9% and 8%
respectively (based on measurements between
Q3 09 – Q3 12). The average regional
connection speed is estimated at just 1.5Mbps
by the end of 2012.
Farncombe’s analysis, also, shows that the
adoption of mobile broadband will accelerate in
these countries. The driving factors are: the higher
percentage of rural populations; limited fixed
network infrastructure; the economic feasibility of
reaching reach remote areas; and the anticipated
commercial launches of LTE services following
mobile broadband spectrum auctions in 2013
together with an accelerated growth of
smartphone users.
Mobile broadband lines in India and Malaysia
are forecast to increase with CAGR of 49% and
31% respectively. Indonesia’s mobile broadband
subs will grow with a CAGR of 25% and
Vietnam’s at 23%. Nonetheless, mobile broadband
speeds have been relatively stable in last few years
and straggling to reach 400kbps (based on
measurements between Q3 09 – Q3 12). The
Philippines is the only country in Farncombe’s
study that maintained average mobile
broadband connections above 500kbps in 2012.
Indonesia’s bitrates have been increasing since
Q4 2011, reaching average of nearly 450kbps in
Q3 2012. India, Thailand and Malaysia show
similar performances of mobile broadband
speeds in the range of 350-400kbps.
Most fixed broadband plans now include
unlimited usage, unlike mobile packages, which
are typically ‘capped’ – an issue that still
inhibits OTT usage over mobile broadband.
Farncombe compared fixed and mobile
broadband costs by looking at how much each
charged ‘per Mbps’, taking into account actual
bitrates and mobile usage caps. We found that
on average mobile broadband users would have
to cap their monthly use at 1-3GbB to obtain
the same ‘per Mbps’ price-performance as a fixed
plan.
Similar results were derived across all six
markets, demonstrating that despite the
significant increase in mobile broadband users,
fixed broadband remains a much more cost-
effective choice for video use.
As competing two-way platforms will require
substantial up-front investment, especially for
countries with challenging landscapes like India,
Indonesia and the Philippines, OTT platforms can
offer significant opportunities for players in these
regions to reach audiences and capture market
share more cost-effectively and with tighter
launch-schedules.
www.csimagazine.com March-April 2013 35
Online video
2013f 2014f 2015f 2016f 2017f
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
79% 77% 75% 70% 65%
79% 77% 75% 70% 65%
3% 3% 3% 3% 3%4% 4% 5% 5% 6%3% 3%
4% 5% 6%
ADSL
Cable (HFC)
Other
Wireless
FTTx
700
millionMobile Broadband subs Smartphone users
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
2013f 2014f 2015f 2016f 2017f
Fixed Broadband technology market shares
Mobile Broadband Subs & Smartphone users in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and India
Source: Farncombe analysis
Source: Farncombe analysis
Multimedia Home Gateways Conference 201313 June 2013, BFI Southbank, London
Register now: www.csimagazine.com/conference Register now: www.csimagazine.com/conference
TechnologyConference2013
TechnologyConference2013
Iain Dendle Director, Business Development Europe, Shazam
Chairman for the dayPaul RobinsonPrincipalPR Media Consulting/ Creative Media Partners
Maria Ingold CEO Mireality
Vassilis Seferidis Director of Business Development Samsung Electronics
Richard CrossleyBusiness Development Manager Intel
Mohammed HamzaTV and Video AnalystSNL Kagan
Neale Foster VP Global Sales IA Access
Paul Bristow VP Strategy Middleware & Consumer ExperienceADB
Tom Morrod Senior Principal Analyst IHS Screen Digest
Top Industry Speakers Include:
Darren Fawcett Chief Technical Engineer PACE
Edmund Barrett Product Manager RWE
John McGuire Director of Product StrategyS3 Group
The only independent event to objectively analyse what the gateway entails, the current state of the market and future potential.
Platinum Sponsor Research Partners Media PartnersGold sponsors Platinum Sponsor Research Partners Media PartnersGold sponsors
Following on from last year’s successful debut, CSI magazine will be organising and hosting a follow-up conference dedicated exclusively to the home gateways market. This remains one of the only events in the calendar that objectively and independently analyses the value of these devices – for consumers and the industry ecosystem – and their future potential. On the one hand, the connected home is becoming a reality, on the other, the proliferation of internet enabled devices, OTT services and cloud-based systems are putting an increasing question mark over operator controlled set-top boxes, Walled Gardens and other traditional broadcast and telco approaches.
The emergence of home gateways has to be placed inside this context, which this conference will critically evaluate.
Commercial deployments started
in 2012, most visibly in the form of UPC’s Horizon box, but also from Shaw, Cablevision, Bouygues and others. Moreover, the Home gateway Initiative (HGI) itself is this year due to release an official definition of what constitutes a gateway and provide technical recommendations. But what is the value proposition and business case of these advanced hybrid products? Is current technology fragmentation surmountable? Is it a case of too little, too late? This event aims to provide an answer to these questions, and many more besides.
The day will see expert speakers debate a range of topics in a series of lively panels, including those dedicated to regulation, technology, user experience and business models. In addition, unique case studies will be given by those directly involved in some of this work.
Liberty Global is the leading international cable operator with its U.S. headquarters in Englewood, Colorado and its European headquarters in both Amsterdam and London. They will be discussing the home gateways market and next generation broadband networks and will be sharing their experience of the Horizon TV gateway project before and after the launch.
Faycal Amrani
Managing Director and Chief Architect
Liberty Global
Keynote PresentationCSI Technology Conference 2013
• Pay TV operators
• CE manufacturers
• Suppliers & vendors
• Content owners
• Service providers
• Press
• Analysts
• Consultants
• Broadcasters
• Associations & Regulatory bodies
• Financial Investors
• Utility companies.
The Must Attend Event For:
Book Your Place:
Earlybird Price: £399 + Vat (earlybird ends 1st April 2013)Regular Price: £499 + Vat (FREE for Operators/Service Providers, Broadcasters and Content Providers)
BOOK NOW FOR £100 DISCOUNT
Consumers today watch video
delivered to an array of
devices via numerous
platforms. As this shift
toward anywhere, anytime
media consumption continues
at breakneck speed, content
owners, producers, and distributors face the
growing challenge of providing not only high
volumes of content, but also a consumer experience
tailored to particular platforms and viewing devices.
In this multi-screen environment, numerous
media processing steps are required to ensure that
content is prepared and delivered to the target
platform and device in the appropriate format.
High-availability, high-volume storage systems
play key roles in supporting these processes and
in enabling content providers to meet the high
demand for quality digital media on smartphones,
tablets, PCs and connected TVs.
Mature media storage
The need to handle high (and continually
growing) volumes of content with speed and
efficiency has led many media facilities to
establish storage solutions that blend expensive
and complex Fibre Channel SAN (storage area
network) storage with a separate shared file
system, or NAS (network attached storage). A
more cost-effective solution, however, is to
implement one mass storage system that offers
both the performance and simplicity that SAN
and NAS systems respectively offer, along with
unlimited scalability to assure easy expansion.
With such a system, media facilities needn’t
compromise on speed or quality in the delivery of
multi-screen content.
Low-cost storage capacity and high-bandwidth
are being united in storage solutions that combine
scale-out storage hardware with sophisticated file
system software. Such systems boast a boost in
bandwidth —up to tens of GB/s per system and
exceeding 1GB/s per client with the right file
system driver — that facilitates editing at high bit
rates and improves the efficiency of transcoding
and QC processes. The jump in bandwidth
available along with affordable storage capacity
serves to speed the flow of content through to
distribution. Intelligent data protection is ensured
by integrated software RAID.
Mass storage systems already have been refined
to meet the requirements of high-volume
workflows in areas such as postproduction. In
these workflows, as footage is synthesised into a
finished product, editors and special effects teams
generate numerous files in numerous formats,
both compressed and uncompressed. This work
produces a massive number of files, just for one
project, and a facility may generate hundreds of
thousands of files for multiple ongoing projects.
Further advances in mass storage for high-volume
workflows now support operators in their shift to
multi-screen delivery.
In multi-screen delivery models, source video is
encoded at different bit rates, resolutions, and
frame rates, and all of these encodes are managed
and delivered in multiple chunks that are sized in
a way that makes the best use of available
bandwidth. As content is prepared for a broad
array of formats and devices,
this ability to handle high
volumes of content efficiently
and cost-effectively is essential
to providing a seamless
experience for the media consumer.
Storage optimised for multi-screen
In today’s multi-screen models, sophisticated file
system drivers play a critical role in the
optimisation of overall operations. File system
software with built-in software RAID can assure
high levels of storage efficiency, fast application
performance, and high availability. With both
RAID6 (dual-parity) and RAID4 (single-parity)
options, users can balance storage capacity with
performance based on their workflow needs.
By dictating, at the file level, how media files
of different types and sizes are striped across the
storage system, the user also can optimise the
balance of bit rate against system performance.
Recognising bit rate, latency, and other media
file characteristics, the system can use parameters
for even the latest codecs to store media with
different bit rates — from the lowest to the
highest — in the same folder without giving
up performance.
38 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
Storage
Multi-screen storageSupporting the multi-screen model with mass storage solutions. By Vikramaditya Gupta, senior manager, product line management at Harmonic
The Harmonic MediaGrid
While generic NAS or clustered NAS systems
provide slow serial access to media, the advanced
file system drivers in leading mass storage systems
leverage client-side software to provide
applications with fast and parallel access to data
distributed across multiple storage nodes.
Leveraging the throughput of all storage nodes,
this type of mass storage system provides
simultaneous read/write access to storage nodes
on both “sides,” rather than on mirrored
synchronised systems. Consequently, any addition
of storage nodes to the system results in a direct
increase in performance.
Narrowly focused enhancements to media
storage systems also are enabling improved
performance with broadly used applications, such
as leading edit systems. While using the same
familiar workflow, users realise benefits such as
faster load times for complex projects, a gain
made possible by the file system driver’s
improvement in how storage is accessed by a
particular client. Further efficiencies are being
realised through greater integration of media
storage systems with SOA-based platforms that
manage services across the workflow. In addition
to streamlining key processes from ingest through
archiving, these advances give operators a
content-aware window into the file system. All of
these operational gains contribute to faster
delivery of more multi-screen content.
Storage paired with processing
The processing activities enabled by a “media-
aware” mass storage system are a vital part of
IPTV and OTT content delivery models. In live
IPTV encoding applications, the storage system
supports stream processors in transcoding SD
and HD content in real time, complete with
multiplexing and scrambling capabilities, and
sometimes with automatic audio level adjustment
and forward error correction, as well. With this
approach, users can realise flexible high-density
transcoding between any two formats in a
minimum of space and without incurring high
power consumption costs.
Service providers are using this model to
deliver the highest quality video to any device
cost-effectively. By concurrently generating
their primary services and mobile/Web device
profiles from a single compressed SD or HD
input, media companies can very simply and
effectively monetise stored content via new
distribution outlets.
As operators strive to maximise use of available
bandwidth, they depend on real-time video
processing and transcoding systems to provide the
best possible picture quality for that bandwidth.
Implementation of carrier-grade transcoding and
adaptive streaming preparation systems enables
operators to transcode SD/HD MPEG-2 or
MPEG-4 AVC content into multiple H.264 video
streams, which then are packaged for adaptive bit
rate delivery via the appropriate OTT service.
Any number of streams can be generated
through this approach if the transcoding model is
sufficiently scalable and if it supports the most
popular major adaptive streaming protocol
standards in use today, including Apple HTTP
Live Streaming (HLS), Microsoft Smooth
Streaming, and Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming.
Operators thus can provide hundreds of
simultaneous streams, offering a variety of OTT
content for viewing on an even broader variety of
viewing devices.
To facilitate efficient delivery of VoD content,
operators are using their mass storage systems to
support file-based enterprise-class transcoding
solutions and HTTP streaming servers.
Transcoding stored content to meet industry-
standard protocols, including Apple HLS and
Microsoft Smooth Streaming, operators can
prepare and publish live, VoD, and network PVR
content to multiple viewing devices. In most
cases, the transcoding solution ensures that
outputs meet the parameters dictated by major
CDNs, as well as the encryption methodologies
used to keep content secure.
The multitude of multi-screen services — live
streaming, VoD, catch-up TV, start-over TV, and
DVR — requires that the transcoder be just as
scalable as the mass storage system supporting it.
Ideally, the system can support processing
volumes ranging from a single transcode to large-
scale multimode transcoding, automated and
controlled by a workflow management system.
This scalability, along with flexible transcoding
capabilities, allows operators to compete in the
TV anywhere, anytime environment.
Robust media storage and rapid any-to-any
transcoding in high volumes allows content
owners and distributors to monetise content
over additional service offerings while increasing
their brand visibility and boosting available ad
impressions. In an increasingly competitive
multiscreen market, these benefits are essential
not only to retaining existing customers, but
also to expanding viewership over current and
new services.
Foundation for multi-screen success
The delivery of live IPTV services to set-top boxes
and the provision of live and VoD services to
tablets, smart phones, and PCs using OTT
technologies require high-volume media storage
and processing, and the advanced media storage
systems today offer a mix of characteristics and
capabilities designed to meet this demand.
Seamless interoperability with media
applications and with numerous third-party
control and processing tools facilitates smooth
integration of mass storage into a growing number
of file-based workflows. At the same time, robust
performance and ever-more-appealing prices for
scalable storage capacity provide operators with
the power, reliability, and flexibility they need to
prepare and deliver quality linear and nonlinear
content with efficiency.
Deployed together, mass storage systems
and media processing systems provide the
foundation for the multiscreen workflow.
They not only support operators in providing
an extensive and growing array of channels, but
also open the door for additional growth —
whether it’s the enhancement and customisation
of conventional viewing platforms or expansion
into media delivery via entirely new platforms
and formats.
Storage
www.csimagazine.com March-April 2013 39
“To facilitate efficient delivery of VoD content, operators are using their mass storage systems to support file-based enterprise-class transcoding solutions and HTTP streaming servers.”
To advertise contact Tiro Bestonso +44 (0)20 7562 2427 [email protected]
Business DirecTory
ATX Networks designs, manufactures, markets and delivers a broad range of products to the global cable television industry. Other sectors served include hospitality, education, institutional, government and health care.
A broad range of digital video products including digital signage & content streaming, bulk content transition, multichannel encoding, encoding & transcoding, RF & optical transmission, RF filters, transmitters/receivers, headend and MDU amplifiers, node segmentation, node/amp upgrades, monitor/control equipment, pads/EQs, drop amps, digital voice switches, and connectors.
VISLINK plc is a global business, strategically focussed on providing secure communication technologies to customers in our chosen markets. We have three international business units organised to serve our customers in Broadcast, Surveillance, and the related Services markets. Our world renowned brands of ADVENT, GIGAWAVE, LINK, MRC and PMR lead the way with award winning products including IP gateways, microwave radio, satellite transmission and wireless cameras.With offices in the UK, USA, Dubai, South Africa and Singapore, and dedicated sales and engineering teams, VISLINK has the experience and expertise to deliver the most comprehensive solutions for today’s challenges.
Irdeto empowers companies to protect and monetize their digital assets and maximize return on content with innovative and reliable software technologies end-to-end solution and services. The company’s products include conditional access, digital rights management, business support systems, set-top box software solutions and, through its Cloakware subsidiary, software and datacenter security. More than 400 customers worldwide trust Irdeto to secure delivery of their valuable content across digital broadcast, IP, Mobile, enterprise and government networks. Irdeto solutions currently enable simple to advanced business models on more than one billion devices and applications.
For more information, please visit www.irdeto.com.
ADB designs, manufactures and deploys solutions to distribute pay-TV and multimedia services to the connected home, for all types of networks, providing an amazing user experience.
ADB believes in a future where multi-media content will come from multiple sources and seamlessly move between multiple screens and devices, at the user’s preference. The Company has delivered over 30 million consumer premise devices to a global customer base. ADB’s innovations and software expertise have been recognized by numerous industry awards.
Taurus Avenue 105, 2132 LS HoofddorpThe NetherlandsTel: +31 23 556 22 22 Fax: +31 23 556 22 40 Email: [email protected] Web: www.irdeto.com
Address: 27 Maylands Avenue, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP2 7DE, UKPhone: +44 (0)14 42 43 13 00 Fax: +44 (0) 14 42 43 13 01Website: www.vislink.com Email: [email protected]
Rödelheimer Landstrasse 75-85, 60487 Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland Tel: +49-17-1998-3676Email: [email protected]: www.atxnetworks.com
Advanced Digital Broadcast S.A. Avenue de Tournay 7, CH-1292 Chambesy, Geneva, Switzerland Tel: +41 22 799 0799 Fax: +41 22 799 0790 Web: www.adbglobal.com
NDS, now part of Cisco, creates the technologies and applications that enable pay-TV operators
to securely deliver digital content to TV STBs (set-top boxes), DVRs (digital video recorders),
PCs, mobiles and other multimedia devices. Over 90 of the world’s leading pay-TV platforms
rely on NDS solutions to protect and enhance their business.
NDS Group Ltd, One London Road, Staines, Middlesex TW18 4EX Tel +44 (0)178 484 8500 Fax +44 (0)178 484 8600Web: www.nds.com Email: [email protected]
40 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com www.csimagazine.com March-April 2013 41
40 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com www.csimagazine.com March-April 2013 41
To advertise contact Tiro Bestonso +44 (0)20 7562 2427 [email protected]
Business DirecTory
Intelsat is the leading provider of fixed satellite services worldwide. Intelsat supplies video, data and voice connectivity for leading media and communications companies, Internet Service Providers and government organizations. Intelsat’s valuable regional video neighborhoods deliver more television channels than any other system. Intelsat’s terrestrial network of eight strategically-located teleports and over 36,000 miles of leased fiber complements a global satellite fleet of more than 50 satellites, covering 99% of the world’s population. Intelsat utilizes a fully integrated satellite operations model, enabling global delivery from a single platform. With Intelsat, communications with your customers are closer, by far.
Bridge Technologies designs, develops, and manufactures advanced analysis, measurement, and monitoring solutions for the digital media, broadcast and telecommunications industries.
The award-winning VideoBRIDGE series provides an advanced platform for converging TV services employing stream-based IP packets and all other Digital TV interfaces within DVB and ATSC for Cable, Terrestrial and Satellite. Compatible with all major industrial standards such as MPEG-2, h.264/AVC, HTTP based streaming and ETSI TR 101 290, the VideoBRIDGE series offers a complete end-to-end system for the continuous quality assurance of media services.
The Humax range of award-winning digital TV set-top boxes and recorders for Freeview and Freesat has a product to suit any TV viewer. Feature rich and technologically advanced, yet intuitive and easy to use, the Humax range offers the ultimate way to enjoy multi-channel, subscription-free digital TV, from high definition (HD) and on-demand content, to recording features and multi-media services.
Verimatrix specializes in securing and enhancing revenue for multi-screen digital TV services for more than 500 operators around the globe. The award-winning and independently audited Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS™) and ViewRight® solutions offer an innovative approach for cable, satellite, terrestrial and IPTV operators to cost-effectively extend their networks and enable new business models. As the recognized leader in software-based security solutions for premier service providers, Verimatrix has pioneered the 3-Dimensional Security approach that offers flexible layers of protection techniques to address evolving business needs and revenue threats. Maintaining close relationships with major studios, broadcasters, industry organizations, and its unmatched partner ecosystem enables Verimatrix to provide a unique perspective on digital TV business issues beyond content security as operators seek to deliver compelling new services. www.verimatrix.com
EchoStar Europe is dedicated to enabling digital entertainment providers to optimise revenues by delivering added-value connected device solutions, services and applications. Through a comprehensive product range, including STBs, DVRs, home networking and TV anywhere technology, our solutions enable the provision of state-of-the-art and cost effective entertainment services.
Headquartered in the UK, EchoStar Europe comprises a number of business units and is affiliated with EchoStar Technologies, a subsidiary of the publicly traded EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS).
6825 Flanders Drive, San Diego, CA 92121, USATel: +1-858-677-7800 Fax: +1-858-677-7804Web: www.verimatrix.com
Humax Electronics Co., Ltd, The Mille Building (8th Floor), 1000 Great West Road, Brentford, London TW8 9HHWeb: www.humaxdigital.com
Sandakerveien 24c, Building D5NO-0473 OsloTel: +47 22 38 51 00 Office Switchboard Tel: +47 22 38 51 01 Office Fax Web: www.bridgetech.tv
3400 International Drive, NW, Washington D.C. 20008 USATel: +1 202 944 6800 Fax: +1 202 944 7898Web: www.intelsat.com
Beckside Design Centre, Millennium Business Park, Station Road, Steeton, Keighley BD20 6QW, United Kingdom Tel: +44 1535 659000 Fax: +44 1535 659100Web: www.echostar.com
The online video market is
booming and, according to
figures released by Mintel
recently, sales and rentals of
digital movies and TV shows
have quadrupled since 2007
and look set to almost double
by 2017. However, with online piracy still posing a
major problem for content owners, the online
entertainment industry shouldn’t rest on its laurels.
The lure of free and easy-access online video is
strong in today’s always-connected world, where
the latest news and gossip about hot films and TV
shows spreads worldwide in seconds. Consumers
expect content to be available on demand
However, with the temptation of pre-released
content available for free on illegal sites, massive
numbers of consumers are knowingly or
unknowingly committing content theft worldwide,
costing the industry many billions of dollars each
year.
The business losses for content owners are
staggering with recent figures from the Institute
for Policy Innovation suggesting that it costs the
US economy more than $58 billion per annum.
Here at Viewster, we believe that content owners
have yet to get to the heart of the piracy issue. By
taking a superficial stance and prosecuting
individual illegal video sharing sites or the people
who access this content, consumer mindsets are
not changing. Online audiences are simply finding
alternative illegal sites to watch videos. If content
owners want to keep their hold over the online
video market, legal offerings must be made more
appealing.
Tech-savvy online audiences look for easy-
access to great content and the first point of call
for content owners should be to make their legal
content more freely available. A recent study by
Ofcom found that 32 per cent of UK adults who
have downloaded or streamed video content
illegally in the past would not do so again if all of
the films and TV shows that they wanted to see
were available from legal alternatives. At Viewster,
we believe that a good compromise is to make
video available through free-to-view services that
are monetised with advertising. Not only could
this lure viewers away from illegal services, it
could also generate substantial new revenue
streams for content owners.
While online video services revitalise their own
offerings, industry bodies also need to recognise
their responsibility in cracking down against
illegal video content sites. Starving them of
revenue would force them to shut down or go
legal. If credit card companies stopped consumers
making payments to illegal website owners and
advertisers stopped supporting these illegal
websites it would be much more difficult for
content theft to continue. Furthermore, search
engines could make illegal content harder to find
by filtering out these sites from their results, a
mission that Google has already made
considerable headway with. However, if we want
to make real progress in combating online pirates,
we need to convince far more bodies to take
action in order to drive uptake of legal
alternatives.
There is, of course, a careful line to tread in
enlisting the help of authorities in monitoring
piracy as consumers wouldn’t appreciate a ‘Big
Brother’ style monitoring of their activity. With
this in mind, the entertainment industry would be
wise to follow the music industry’s example and
tackle the pirates, rather than those who are
downloading content illegally. Last year’s closure
of Megaupload by US officials shows how
effective this can be. At Viewster we saw traffic
increase by 20% on the day that Megaupload was
shut down, as users searched for alternative ways
to access films and TV shows on demand. Clearly
audiences will seek out legal services if they are
well positioned to meet their needs.
TV’s Napster moment will come
As video-on-demand sites improve their offering
and access to illegal content sources becomes
more difficult, we expect that the film and TV
industry will experience the same ‘Napster’
moment that the music industry went through last
decade. While it may not be possible to ‘stamp
out’ online piracy altogether, just as it’s not
possible to eradicate shoplifting completely, we
can make it harder to steal movies and TV shows
online. At the same time, content owners can
work with VoD service providers to make legal
sites and services more compelling, helping to
drive a change in consumer behaviour and protect
content owners’ intellectual property.
Kai Henniges is managing director at Viewster
The fight goes onLegal offerings must be made more appealing if content owners are to combat online piracy, argues Kai Henniges
Viewpoint
42 March-April 2013 www.csimagazine.com
page forty three www.cable-satellite.comAwards 2013CSI magazine l Awards
CSI Awards 2013
1. Best outside broadcast or playout technology or service
2. Best digital video processing technology
3. Best cable or fibre contribution/distribution/ transmission solution
4. Best satellite contribution/distribution/transmission solution
5. Best monitoring or network management solution
6. Best customer premise technology
7. Best workflow/asset management/automation solution
8. Best content protection technology
9. Best content-on-demand solution
10. Best interactive TV technology or application
11. Best IPTV technology or service
12. Best mobile TV technology or service
13. Best HDTV technology or project
14. Best Web TV technology or service
15. Best Ultra HD TV Technology or project - NEW
16. Best TV Everywhere/multi-screen video
17. Best Social TV technology, service or application
18. Best Contribution to TV Accessibility - NEW
For Sponsorship opportunities contact:
Tiro Bestonso, Commercial ManagerTel: +44 (0)20 7562 2427Email: [email protected]
For judging or entry enquiries:
Goran Nastic, EditorTel: +44 (0)20 7562 2416Email: [email protected]
Categories open for entries:
ENTER NOW: www.csimagazine.com/awards
The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in September 2013, Amsterdam.
There are 18 coveted Awards up for grabs this year and remember you are welcome to enter multiple categories.
EpicNG
www.intelsatepic.com
High Performance.Open Architecture.When you have it all, that’s
At Intelsat we’re used to big things.
We already own and operate the biggest satellite, teleport and fi ber infrastructure network in the world. But we’ve got even bigger plans.
Intelsat EpicNG – our Next Generation high-performance satellite platform with an innovative combination of C-, Ku- and Ka-bands, wide beams, spot beams, and frequency re-use. For broadcasters and media applications this means:
• Content Regionalization: advertising, time zone, language
• Customization: bitrate, resolution, encoding format
• More Throughput: HD content to smaller terminals
• Backward Compatibility: better performance through existing infrastructure
For you, this means lower cost of ownership.
More control. More choices. That’s Epic.
Meet with Intelsat during NAB 2013 at Booth SU3111.
Contact us at [email protected] for details.
6689-CSI.indd 1 3/4/2013 9:34:59 AM
