alticast_1 27/02/2015 16:13 Page 1
According to Susan
Crouse, director of
product management at
multi-screen solutions
specialist Alticast,
broadband pay-TV
service providers are
well placed to play a key
role in ensuring delivery
of premium content to
user devices in the home.
t seems every new report or
article popping up these days is
about the dynamic nature of the
media delivery industry and the
myriad offerings that want to shake
up the market. Whether it is the
announcement from a large
corporation delivering hardware for
OTT solutions or new media packages
I
portable devices. These often use HDMI
technology and many do not provide a tuner
for over-the-air scheduled content.
Both the OTT providers and traditional
MSOs are taking advantage of this
technology shift, whether through an HDMI
stick device, a slightly larger ‘puck’ device,
or a small hybrid that still contains a tuner.
Other devices use mobile CPU technology
devices. In these instances, the consumer
has the advantage of one contact point for
ensuring Quality of Service (QoS).
If dependency on WiFi is a concern, there
are options. Some devices on the market
provide an Ethernet connection to ensure a
wired media delivery service and some
include a tuner, creating a hybrid solution.
These options allow operators to consider a
The changing landscape of Consumer
Premises Equipment for video service delivery
from companies aimed at capturing
the elusive millennial market, one
thing seems to be consistent: the
emergence of IP content delivery as a
driving force of change.
The chaos in the market is evident, as
more companies enter with new IP-based
services, which intrinsically have lower
delivery costs. The
cable and satellite
media industry is
continuing to look for
cost savings in new
devices, their
deployment, and
support. The industry would also like to
bring down content costs, but that margin is
already very slim. Because of the huge
amount of content now delivered via IP to
consumer devices, business models are
under scrutiny to address the market flux
and to maintain the existing customer base
or, in the case of millennials and cord
cutters, capture new customers.
These changes, in turn, are driving the
design of devices that provide access to
content. While there is a surge in tablet and
mobile video viewing, there is also a shift in
the market to more compact and even more
14 Cable Media
and there are a growing number of market
entrants using the Android OS, which has
gained widespread adoption in the mobile
arena.
Another small form factor viewing device
is the CI+ CAM, which is compatible with
the majority of TVs manufactured for the
European market. The latest version of the
standard, CI+ v1.4,
incorporates IP delivery as well
as multi-tuner and transcoding
support. The main advantage
for an operator deploying the
CI+ CAM as an STB
replacement, rather than an
HDMI module, is that it uses the same
framework as the legacy STBs in its network.
The CI+ CAM can use the broadcast network
for delivery and traditional CA for security,
while leveraging the host device, such as a
Smart TV, for decoding, thus eliminating the
cost of a tuner in the CAM itself.
The fact that IP-only devices rely on the
WiFi network in the home can be an
advantage to MSOs, who often provide
Broadband service as well, so they are a
central point of service and can determine
whether their markets are ready with
appropriate bandwidth to deploy IP-only
variety of approaches as they look to expand
the ecosystem in the home.
As media viewing hours are trending
away from linear TV watching, aside from
live sporting events, operators are providing
more and more of their content on-demand
via Cloud services including virtual DVR
functionality, giving the viewer the flexibility
to watch on their own schedule inside or
outside the home. This trend is becoming
more critical as secondary media delivery
services are encroaching on the number of
viewing hours from the viewers' primary
content provider, or in the case of
millennials, when their only viewing is done
with secondary catalogues.
One barrier for this ‘TV Everywhere’
model has been content rights; many
operators need to renegotiate the rights to
allow users to watch content at home or on
the road. The needle has made a dramatic
move in this direction, as many operators
have web portals allowing selected channel
viewing on Consumer Provided Devices
(CPE).
A secondary, less obvious barrier is the
ability to provide large screen consumption
outside the home, as most TV Everywhere
viewing is currently limited to computers,
ADVANCED TELEVISION