coverstory_cover story 09/05/2014 18:46 Page 2
Network intelligence
and the cable industry is moving in this
direction – but the transition will not
happen overnight. “There are a lot of QAM
legacy devices and the new generation of
cable gateways now being planned are still
including QAM video support. IP video is
being slowly introduced, first for VoD and
OTT content, and eventually long-tail live
content will transition towards IP as well.
However, given the large population of QAM
STBs currently deployed, there is a clear
incentive to continue making use of this
resource at least for popular channels that
are part of the base product tiers,” he
observes.
Bulent Celebi, chairman and co-founder
of AirTies, says that IP will form a significant
proportion of video transport but its use will
largely depend upon the type of operator.
“For instance, telecom operators are by
definition all IP, but cable operators will
transition from DVB-C to an all IP type of
network within the next three to five years.
However, looking within the near term,
delivery will take a hybrid approach.
Broadcast will remain for all fixed and live
channels yet this will be coupled with IP
delivery for on-demand channels, eventually
shifting towards a complete internet based
delivery. Satellite operators will continue
with broadcast technology over satellite
because it’s a very efficient delivery
mechanism, but in all cases they will add IP,
resulting in a hybrid network of broadcasting
via satellite together with IP for
interactivity.”
Damien Lucas, co-founder and EVP of
ANEVIA, suggests that most of the
production head-ends have already adopted
IP-based delivery or are in the process of
doing so. “Contribution streams are carried
over IP in the backbone of cable networks or
via DTT networks. Because of need to
support legacy delivery chains, IP-based
delivery has not yet reached end users. Many
countries are still running analogue
transmission services,” he notes.
MIGRATION. “Migration to IP video
transport will vary by region and by access
network, but IP will eventually become the
default form of transport for video delivered
over wired networks,” predicts Brad Ferris,
head of technology and portfolio
management, Ericsson. “Despite IP being
the default method of transport for the
millions of hours of content consumed via
the Internet every month, there is still some
way to go before the billions of hours which
are still consumed linearly are completely
transported via IP.”
“The transition to 100 per cent IP based
video infrastructures is already well on its
way. Adoption of IP is being driven by two
major trends – Over-the-top (OTT) video
and cloud computing,” advises John
Nemeth, VP of EMEA sales for Elemental.
CAVALRY. Is HEVC the cavalry riding to
the rescue, or is it being held off at the pass?
What factors will drive its adoption?
Entropic’s Visser says the adoption of HEVC
is driven by three components: (1) the
benefit to operators: HEVC offers increased
bandwidth efficiency over
alternative compression
technologies, allowing
operators to offer more
channels and/or more
flexibility in utilising the
available bandwidth on
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