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flannel_flannel 15/08/2014 16:35 Page 1 EUROMEDIA DIGITAL MEDIA INTELLIGENCE PUBLISHER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Nick Snow [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR Colin Mann [email protected] n our annual survey of CPE – STBs or I HGs – (if you’ll forgive the acronym soup), vendors speculate whether the cloud or CPE will prevail. In years to CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Chris Forrester [email protected] come, will thin client IP connected devices PUBLISHING ASSISTANT Nik Roseveare [email protected] security, UIs and business rules they need, ART EDITOR Steve Overbury [email protected] COLUMNISTS Vivek Couto Larry Gerbrandt Steve Gold fed from the cloud with all the content, mean STBs and gateways will be redundant? OTT services – most muscularly epitomised by Netflix – were until recently regarded as a threat to pay-TV providers and, therefore, to the great symbol of traditional pay-TV; the dedicated STB. CONTRIBUTORS Robert Briel - Amsterdam Dieter Brockmeyer - Frankfurt Gail Chiasson - Toronto David del Valle - Madrid Chris Dziadul Pascale Paoli-Lebailly - Paris Philip Hunter Joe O’Halloran Farah Jifri Branislav Pekic - Rome The demise of one equals the demise of the other. SALES DIRECTOR Sanjeev Bhavnani [email protected] The STB or Home Gateway is here to stay for a PUBLISHED BY Advanced Television Limited Bondway Commercial Centre 4th Floor, Unit 4.01 71 Bondway London SW8 1SQ marginal capex but that is nothing compared to Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] www.advanced-television.com PRINTED BY Headley Brothers Ltd The Invicta Press Queens Road Ashford Kent TN24 8HH, UK Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] [email protected] Today, Netflix is welcomed into the embrace of traditional providers – sometimes for a price – as they sell their managed environment and its OTT abilities, dressed up as TV Everywhere, both to their subscribers and their content partners. STB makers and pay-TV providers have, symbiotically, never had it so good. good while yet. Sure, it would be nice to save the both the real and the perceived sense of subscriber contact and control that having a dedicated device in the home brings. And it certainly isn’t just about the cosmetics of command and control. If all you have is the cloud, what do you do if you can’t count on the cloud? In mid-August, I’m sure we all saw the stories about failing backbone routers slowing the Internet for whole countries and continents at a time. Ironically, of course, the creaking is caused by the ever growing amount of video traffic and its users. Could it be that a world of all IP delivery and ultra-thin generic clients is a case of ‘be careful what you wish for ...?’ © Advanced Television Limited 2014. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. ISSN 1477-8092 EUROMEDIA 5