Asia-Pacific Broadcasting (APB) Systems Integration 2016 | Page 18

Be subscriber-centric
with the cloud
As any visitor to IBC 2016 can attest,
cloud technologies were the hottest topic of
conversation for the broadcast technology decision
makers, even outstripping the move to 4K/Ultra HD
(UHD), 8K and the IP standards war between Aspen
and AIMS. BY FINTAN MC KIERNAN
So why is the cloud so important and
how relevant is it to broadcasters in
Asia, especially South-east Asia, at
a time when Indonesia and Malaysia
are still migrating to HD. Surely the
cloud, 4K/UHD and moving to IP are
problems for America and Europe, and
not really relevant in KL and Jakarta
just yet? Well, perhaps 4K/UHD will be
slow to get out of the starting blocks
and IP has some serious standards
issues still to be ironed out, but
cloud is here and is already making a
difference for broadcasters.
The cloud is not about change
for change’s sake, or technology
for technology’s sake — it’s about
efficiency, cost-effectiveness and
flexibility. The cloud is about much
more than moving transcoders into
Amazon or moving playout into
Azure or even launching over-the-top
(OTT) services. The cloud will affect
broadcasters from multiple fronts
simultaneously, from live acquisition
to transcoding, to post production to
long-term archiving, to delivery.
In various shapes or forms, cloud
will become the de facto platform
for the majority of systems running
in broadcasters’ central apparatus
rooms (CARs). In the very near future,
cloud-based video headends will be
agonistic to the fact that TV is being
consumed on a set-top box (STB) or
a mobile device. The terms IPTV and
OTT will become irrelevant and the
operator will become more consumer
reactive than ever, and will even
become consumer predictive.
So while the consumer may be a
paid subscriber or may be a freemium
or ad-supported viewer, the operator
will be able to leverage cloud-based
services to analyse their viewer
behavioural habits like never before.
TV operators will be able to act on
individual consumer behavioural traits,
they will have the algorithms at hand
to predict consumers’ mood, desires
and actions, they will have the tools
to automatically augment their video

service offerings to become more
sticky, reduce churn and increase
ARPU. If this sounds like science