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september/october 2012
At tipping point: Are CDNs the future
of broadcast?
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Discover our broadcast systems
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IBC HALL 1, STAND 1.D71
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[email protected] www.kitd.com
12 Analyst cornerIHS Screen Digest’s Guy Bisson provides an analysis of news channels fighting it out in EMEA
14 Ultra HDTVA look at the latest developments behind the emerging Super Hi-Vision scheme, as well as the upcoming HEVC compression standard
18 COVER STORY - CDNs and OTTIs unicast IP the future of television and, if so, how do payTV providers approach CDN technology?
22 T-commerce & micropaymentsAs major broadcasters and PayPal embark on new ini-tiatives, can the market finally succeed?
26 Integrated playoutDespite its benefits for TV operators, integrated play-out is not yet for everyone
30 OPINIONShazam CEO Andrew Fisher argues that companion apps are heralding the biggest change in viewer behav-iour in the history of TV
35 Roundtable: TV accessibilityA panel of experts discuss how access services can be extended to new VoD and connected platforms
45 Roundtable: Social TVLooking at the opportunities - and where the money is
52 Cloud broadcastOver-hype may be distracting from the real benefits of cloud computing for media production
56 ArchivingThe need for better metadata and asset management
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
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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
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Editor’s report:As the industry convenes in Amsterdam for on one of its largest gatherings at IBC it is a good time to ask where things are heading. More and more insiders are beginning to point to an over-the-top future, arguing that unicast IP is the logical end-point of all TV broadcast. Moreover, they argue that a tipping point has been reached where it is cheaper to deliver video over CDNs than via satellite. It is interesting to note that the debate has permeated
wider circles; the UK’s House of Lords Communications Committee recently called for TV services to be delivered via the internet in order to free up spectrum for wireless broadband. How feasible or likely is such a switch? Our main feature examines this fascinating discussion, including what business models are open to OTA and payTV operators looking to get into the CDN space. Elsewhere, we put the underlooked topic of archiving and media tagging under the spotlight. A preview of IBC can be found on p54. GN
Contents
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news in brief
OTT comes to Norway DTT
Norwegian terrestrial broadcaster
RiksTV plans to distribute
on-demand content to audiences
over the internet as a supplement
to regular DTT transmissions. It
marks the first time a DTT
operator will deliver over-the-top
content in the country, allowing it
offer similar services to cable and
satellite TV providers. RiksTV,
which transmits encrypted payTV
channels, will launch a hybrid
DTT and OTT set-top box to
support the launch. The
broadcaster will use equipment
from Vimond Media Solutions,
including the vendor’s Media
Platform and associated
professional services, which will
manage the workflows for the live
and on-demand content.
The London Olympics, billed as the
first truly Digital Games, have helped
host broadcaster the BBC set a new
record of 106m requests for related
video content across all online
platforms, more than double seen for
any previous events.
Video proved hugely popular, with
those requests broken down to 62m
for live streams, 8m for on-demand
streams and 35m for clips, eclipsing
the previous highs of 32m for the
Beijing Games and 38m for the 2010
World Cup.
New features such as chapter
markings received an average 1.5
million clicks per day, with people
using them to navigate instantly to
key moments.
The Red Button, which gave users
access to every event live, saw 23.7
million viewers to the 24 SD, HD
and Freeview streams throughout the
Games, and every single stream
attracted at least 100,000 viewers.
Audiences viewed specialist sports
such as judo and weightlifting in
considerable numbers, according to
the broadcaster.
The BBC attracted a record-
breaking 55m global browsers to its
BBC Sport online portal throughout
the course of the Games. This has
mirrored the corporation’s record
Olympic TV reach across both linear
TV channels and Red Button, with
over 51.9m viewers in the UK - the
largest TV audience reach for a
major event for at least ten years.
At the busiest day, the BBC
delivered 2.8 petabytes of traffic,
with the peak traffic moment
occurring when Bradley Wiggins
won Gold with over 700 Gbps. The
BBC claims streaming quality was
the highest it has delivered online,
averaging over 1Mbps.
• The European Broadcasting
Union has used the London
Olympics for its first large-scale
multi-vendor trial of MPEG-DASH
streaming to personal devices.
Belgian public broadcaster VRT
demonstrated a live video stream
encoded with the DASH ISO Base
Media File Format Live Profile,
delivered through the CDN run by
Belgian telco Belgacom to devices
including tablets and smartphones.
BBC breaks records with Digital Games
News
news in brief
Cisco-NDS a done deal
Just over a week after the The
European Commission cleared
Cisco’s proposed $5 billion
acquisition of NDS, the deal has
officially closed. First announced
in March, Cisco will now
integrate some NDS products
and employees into its Service
Provider Video Technology
Group (SPVTG). Ex-NDS
chairman and CEO Dr Abe Peled
becomes SVP and chief strategist
for Cisco’s Video and
Collaboration Group, part of the
SPVTG unit.
Sky acquires Parthenon Media
Sky has completed the acquisition
of Parthenon Media Group in
order to establish a new
distribution arm to market the
international rights to its original
content. Sky is putting more
focus on its own content and has
this year already invested more
than £450 million in British
commissioning and production, a
figure set to increase to £600
million a year by 2014, with most
of the growth set to come in
genres such as drama, comedy,
entertainment, arts and factual.
Channel 4’s personal touch
Channel 4 has confirmed that
over five million people will have
registered with the broadcaster by
the end of August as it aims to
give a more personalised
experience. C4 is the first UK
broadcaster to embrace using
registered viewer data to inform
its strategy about what users want
to watch, including exclusive
content such as online premieres
of brand new episodes before
they arrive on TV. C4 has now
also confirmed a series of trials
with major UK media agencies to
test new advertising solutions
using its data platform live.
06 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
News
Trial HbbTV spec for UKIntellect, a trade association for the
UK’s technology sector, has thrown
the cat among the pigeons by
outlining its preferred way for
aligning the UK with the European
HbbTV standard.
HbbTV is the dominant hybrid
TV standard in Europe, but usually
seen as a ‘lightweight’ standard in
UK circles and Intellect is raising
its proposal for consultation with
broadcasters so that it could work
seamlessly alongside the UK’s
Freeview HD platform for example,
though no mention was made of
the recently announced YouView
platform.
To this end, the trade body is
releasing a specification enabling
deployed HbbTV capability on
devices within the UK DTT system,
with the announcement of test
stream made available and hosted
by Intellect. The publication will
also be followed by a ‘roadshow’ of
currently deployed HbbTV
capability in markets such as
Germany, for example.
“Harmonisation with the EU
offers more choice to UK consumers.
It brings the ability to connect and
stream additional channels and
applications from across Europe,
whether Eurovision or local news
from a potential holiday destination.
Moving towards TV without borders
also gives huge scale advantages to
UK content-makers and technology
companies, in short the UK’s vital
creative industries,” said William
Higham, director at Intellect.
“Today is part of a discussion with
UK stakeholders about how the UK
can be a leading part of the
European television market again.
There will soon be millions of
devices in the UK’s home that could
activate their HbbTV capability,
broadcasters across Europe such as
the major French and German ones
who could use it, and a huge
reciprocal opportunity for the UK.
And we will only achieve critical
mass for UK content makers and
technology companies if we lead in
such a way that the rest of Europe
can follow,” he added.
HbbTV promoter ANT Software
welcomed Intellect’s consultation.
“This specification takes a pragmatic
approach to reducing market
fragmentation by enabling device
manufacturers to rapidly launch
HbbTV-compliant products and
services. At the same time, it
provides a stepping stone to the full
D-Book 7, the UK technical
specification for gigital terrestrial
television. By offering a baseline for
enhanced TV services, we see this as
both a vote of confidence in HbbTV
and an acknowledgement of the need
for cost-effective solutions across a
range of markets across Europe and
beyond,” said Steve Morris, a systems
architect with the company.
The Digital TV Group (DTG), the
industry association for digital
television in the UK and an active
HbbTV member, has also welcomed
the news since then.
Connected TV user experience index set upFarncombe is starting to use its
testing lab in London to benchmark
the usability of connected TV
devices, in an effort to improve the
overall user experience.
Provisionally called The
Connected TV Usability Index, the
aim is to develop a standardised set
of quantifiable tests to compare the
user experience across devices.
Farncombe believes that manufac-
turers and operators will find the
index a valuable tool to help them
understand how to enhance the TV
viewing user experience.
The consultancy has worked out
a “standardised” battery of tests
that assesses the most common
‘user journeys’ on connected TV
devices, the types of feature that
improve usability, and bad UX design
practices best avoided.
Over the coming months
Farncombe will be testing an initial
batch of connected TV devices, and
publishing some of the early results
as a new industry monitor, with win-
ners across a number of categories
announced in due course.
The company is welcoming sub-
missions from manufacturers who
offer devices that support connected
TV. Those wishing to have their
device evaluated are invited to apply,
at no cost.
Fragmented user interfaces (UIs)
are one manifestation of a connected
TV market that is fragmented overall
and it is to be hoped that these
efforts will help at least this particu-
lar subset. The BBC, along with
numerous payTV service providers,
have gone on record to say that dis-
parate user experienecs pose a seri-
ous threat to future smart TV growth.
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NDS_Expand_Campaign_AW_Cisco_CSI.indd 1 16/08/2012 10:24
news in brief
Sky invests in Roku
BSkyB and News Corp have
taken part in the latest investment
round of internet TV platform
Roku, which saw $45 million
raised. The company will launch
the Roku Streaming Stick this
autumn, a wireless, dongle-sized
streaming device that integrates
with smart TVs and other
connected CE devices. Menlo
Ventures and Globespan Capital
Partners also took part.
Star Plus HD comes to UK
Arqiva will support South Asian
broadcaster Star in its launch of
the UK’s first South Asian HD
channel. Star Plus HD Hindi
entertainment channel, uplinked
on capacity on the Eurobird 1
satellite, will be broadcast to
BSkyB subscribers.
News
Canal Digital to launch hybrid offerCisco-owned NDS is helping Canal
Digital launch a hybrid next-
generation TV platform as a hosted,
managed service.
NDS will deliver, host and
manage an end-to-end hybrid
infrastructure for the Nordic DTH
pay-TV provider, enabling a scalable
and flexible service. Such deals are
common in the telecoms space and
are now increasingly making their way
into broadcast too.
Enabling satellite and over-the-top
service delivery, the new platform will
allow Canal Digital subscribers to
access personal content anytime,
anywhere and on multiple devices in
and out of the home. Features include
viewer profiles or contextual
applications on the main screen and
secondary devices.
The Snowflake user experience
framework provides the basis for a uni-
fied UI to be implemented across all
devices. The NDS Unified Headend
and MediaHighway middleware also
form part of the system package.
US cord cutting gathers pace? US pay-TV operators have seen the
largest subscriber drop in history, as
they lost 350,000 customers in Q2
as a result of weakening economic
conditions and strengthening
competition from over-the-top,
according to IHS Screen Digest.
The second-quarter results were
slightly worse than the 340,000
decline during the same period in
2011 as OTT players like Netflix
continue to work against cable and sat-
ellite segments. There are now just
over 100 million basic payTV subscrib-
ers in the US.
Cable lost about 600,000 video
subs in the quarter, continuing a trend
that has seen its subscribers decrease
in number during each of the last con-
secutive 21 quarters. Satellite also fell
during the first quarter, down by
62,000, its first contraction since the
second quarter of 2011.
IHS did note that while OTT
presents a challenge to pay-TV, the
magnitude of the threat is largely
overblown as losses were largely due to
seasonality, and also the economy. It
believes that the number of pay-TV
video subscribers generally will remain
flat to slightly negative through the
remainder of 2012, lasting through
2016 and beyond.
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news in brief
First Sat-IP converter
SES has certified the industry’s
first Sat-IP converter, a piece of
IP-based satellite reception
technology the company
introduced in late April. The first
converter to gain certification is
the Multibox Sat-IP from
Luxembourg-based developer
Inverto Digital Labs. According
to Inverto, it enables viewing of
TV content on other client
devices and eliminates the need
for tuner-based set-top boxes. SES
created Sat-IP specifically for
satellite IP distribution in the
home, opening up multi-screen
opportunities for satellite
operators worldwide.
MobiTV opens up nDVR
MobiTV has said its network
DVR solution will be released as
a standalone licensable product
to service providers worldwide.
Previously available only as an
element of MobiTV’s end-to-end
multi-screen platform, the
solution navigates rights
management across countries by
configuring for any of the
governing international rules.
MobiTV has implemented several
modes for recording and storage
to accommodate user and content
rights for geographies around the
world, including master copies
and personal copies.
Connected TV gaming
Worldwide consumer spending
on video games on connected
TVs will grow to $1.6b in 2016,
from $88m this year, according to
IHS Screen Digest. In 2016, more
than 800m actively connected TV
devices will have exposure to
monetised games content. The
dismantling of market hurdles
involving hardware capability, UI
and middleware fragmentation
will drive growth.
10 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
News
Avanti offers pay-as-you-go Ka-bandLondon-based Avanti
Communications has launched a
subscription-free satellite internet
service in Europe.
The company believes the new
Ka-band service development
opens new market opportunities for
Avanti partners across Europe,
specifically for the holiday and
second home owners, events-based
services and hospitality services.
Traditional fixed term contracts for
broadband internet services are
typically 12-24 months.
It uses the Hylas-1 satellite, which
was launched into orbit in November
2010, with a second satellite due for
launch on August 2, extending
coverage to Africa, the Caucasus and
Middle East.
The new service package delivers
download speeds of up to 4Mbps and
upload speeds of 1Mbps with data
top ups available from 1 Gigabyte.
French DTT gets Restart featureFrench public broadcaster France
Télévisions is using HbbTV
technology to enable a Restart
facility over terrestrial allowing
viewers to begin watching
programmes on air from the
beginning.
The DTT functionality is free of
charge across all five channels of
France Télévisions, starting this
evening, with users accessing the
service through the blue button on
the remote control.
“We are convinced that Restart
will meet a real need felt by DTTV
viewers. Backed by our staff’s
development work we can now
provide an end-to-end service for
our channels from content uptake
through to provision of the app for
viewers with a DT connected TV,”
said Franck Langrand, director of
the TV division of TDF.
TDF has worked with TV
channels on the HbbTV standard for
the last few years, which forms the
basis of interactive applications and
services for connected TV sets. TDF
carries out the live uptake of content
from France Télévisions, extracts the
programmes to be offered in Restart,
codes them in formats compatible
with HbbTV 1.1 and HbbTV 1.5,
archives them on its Content
Delivery Network, signals the service
through DTT, and delivers the
programmes on demand through
the CDN.
Other new HbbTV-based services
to launch shortly will include video-
on-demand, catch-up TV, event
channels and others to enrich the
DTTV platform.
The news follows the recent
announcement by the BBC that it
was launching similar Restart
capability, enabling viewers of the
iPlayer service to rewind and restart
live TV without waiting for the
programme to end.
D-Smart goes OTTTurkish payTV provider D-Smart will
become the latest operator to launch
a multi-screen over-the-top service.
The D-Smart OTT service will be
implemented using KIT digital’s
Cosmos video platform and will
support the delivery of live and
on-demand programs to audiences in
Turkey and around the world across
multiple connected devices,
including PC/Mac, tablets and
smartphones.
KIT digital will design and
configure the software solution and
will partner with a local systems
integrator to complete the
implementation.
Although penetration of
traditional digital TV is expected to
nearly double by 2016, multi-screen
viewing habits in Turkey are expected
to grow five times as quickly in the
same period, according to data by
research group Screen Digest.
“This OTT project will provide
our customers with an unparalleled
user experience across their
preferred devices,” said Ali Gueven,
CEO at D-Smart.
D-Smart is Turkey’s second largest
DTH platform, servicing 1.8 million
users with 29 HD definition and 183
SD channels.
In the UK, another satellite
provider, BSkyB, made headlines by
launching its own OTT service this
month, catering to those wanting
more flexible programming packages
via IP devices.
news in brief
DOCSIS 3 drives cable
modem growth
Cable modem revenues rose 10%
in Q1 2012 mainly as a result of
accelerating deployments of
Docsis 3.0 equipment by North
American operators, according to
Infonetics Research. Wideband
shipments rose by more than 50%
versus Q1 2011. “The cable
companies are making a
consistent effort to move
subscribers to DOCSIS 3.0
service tiers. This is something
we haven’t seen until now,”
Infonetics said. Huawei ended the
quarter as the world’s top
broadband CPE vendor, followed
by ZTE, Motorola, Technicolor
and Arris.
TVs to surpass console
connectivity rates
Over half of all TV sets in North
America and Western Europe will
be connected by 2017, according
to ABI Research, up from 10% in
2011, meaning that game
consoles will be de-throned as the
most connected CE device.
Console penetration rates by
2017 are expected to pass 61%
and 46% in North America and
Western Europe respectively, with
penetration rates significantly
lower in other regions.
Satellite backhaul to triple
New research from NSR predicts
a long term shift from legacy
SCPC and TDMA systems to
High Throughput Satellites
(HTS) and O3b as the global
satellite backhaul market is
expected to reach $2.3bn in 2021,
from $800m in annual revenue.
OpEx considerations, which have
hampered market adoption of
satellite solutions due to high
bandwidth costs, will see a big
drop, which will lead to higher
penetration levels in key markets.
News
The end of STB domination loomsIHS Screen Digest is predicting 2016
as the year that OTT devices supplant
set-top boxes as the leading pay-TV
access platforms among the largest
payTV providers that are engaged with
multi-screen deployments.
In 2015, 49% of all devices
obtaining television services from 43
of the largest global cable, satellite
and IPTV operators that have
commenced deployment of multi-
screen services will be PCs,
smartphones and tablets, up from
just 18% in 2011, according to IHS.
Meanwhile, STBs will decline to
just 51% of pay-TV operator devices
in 2015, down from 82% in 2011.
Having said that, IHS still forecasts
the STB installed base of multi-
screen operators to increase from
274.5 million in 2011 to 321.7
million in 2015. At the same time,
multi-screen devices actively
receiving pay-TV services will rise to
310.1 million, up more than 400%
from 60.1 million in 2011.
It is also worth noting that the
total installed base of STBs is
actually much larger, when
incorporating pay-TV providers
that aren’t engaging in the
deployment of multi-screen
services. Multi-screen operators
accounted for only about one half
of the global total of 538.8 million
installed STBs in 2011, and will
represent only about one third of
the 849 million in 2015.
Nevertheless, change is most
definitely afoot. Bell Canada, which
will be supporting almost eight
times as many phones and tablets
in 2015 than STBs. Overall,
operators will be supporting
approximately 1.5 devices per STB
installed in 2015.
PCs were the most common
devices associated with multi-
screen pay-TV deployments in
2011, but the second wave will see
Android and iOS tablets and
smartphones dominate. By 2015,
the number of iOS devices
accessing pay-TV services will rise
by nearly 800%, while Android will
grow by more than 1,200%
www.csimagazine.com September-October 2012 11
Forecast of Installed Base of Set-Top Boxes and Active Multiscreen Devices Accessing Pay-TV Services for 43 of the Largest Operators (Thousands of Units)
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
STB Installed Base of Multiscreen Operators Active Multiscreen Devices
Broadcasters at opposite ends over social TV strategyTelevision broadcasters around the
world are deeply divided over their
strategy for social TV, according to
new research from Futurescape.
It is generally accepted that social
networks and viewer interaction
around TV are transforming the TV
industry and consumption patterns.
A key trend identified by
Futurescape in the first half of 2012
is that some broadcasters are moving
to counteract Facebook’s and
Twitter’s power over TV audiences.
These broadcasters are investing in
social TV companies and launching
their own social TV platforms for
greater control.
They claim that curating
conversations about their shows gives
fans more focused and enjoyable
discussions than on Twitter or
Facebook, and it also enables them to
counteract the social networks’
dominance in social TV. To this end,
broadcasters are increasingly
integrating social TV within their
own digital platforms, web sites and
second screen apps.
Others, however, are partnering
with the social networks to facilitate
viewer interaction. This is most
evident for the kinds of major news
and sports programming that viewers
discuss on second screen devices
during the live broadcast. They have
extensively integrated Twitter into
their social TV activity, typically by
showing hashtags as part of a show’s
transmission to encourage viewer
participation.
CNN and the BBC both recently
announced major deals with
Facebook, which has developed a
new and more aggressive strategy of
moving into the social TV space,
which will enable users to view,
discuss and share the video entirely
from within Facebook.
NBC has a dual strategy. It is
developing its own platform, with
Chatline, and working with Shazam
to give viewers second screen
information for its Olympics
coverage. Yet it also has a
Facebook deal for the Olympics:
broadcasting a Facebook Talk
Meter of users’ reactions.
Sou
rce:
IHS
Scr
een
Dig
est
July
20
12
International news channels were not
spawned by war, but war has certainly
nurtured them. CNN International rose to
prominence across Europe during the first
Gulf war. Al Jazeera, began to spread
rapidly across the region during the
second. International conflict is one area
where the ‘cable’ news channels’ fast-moving and
cost-effective business model has excelled. Today
there are 30 different news channel brands
operating across EMEA, reaching between them
378 million homes.
CNN International, the undisputed old man of
the international news channel scene, has the
widest reach in EMEA with 161 million
households, but several others are now not far
behind, and while CNN dominates in both
Western and Central & Eastern Europe, the
crown in the Middle East goes to BBC News.
The single biggest surprise is the meteoric rise
of Al Jazeera in Europe. From fairly limited reach
less than a decade ago, the channel has risen to
become the second most widely distributed news
channel in Western Europe and the second in the
Middle East. It fares a little less well in Eastern
Europe, where it lies in sixth place behind
CNN, Russia Today, Euronews, CNBC and BBC
World News.
But it is the European story that serves as a
case study for maximising distribution in an
efficient manner. Efficient because it achieves
80% of the distribution of CNN International
from less than half the number of carriage deals.
It has done this through focusing on carriage on
larger free DTT platforms and free satellite,
gaining distribution scale with the minimum
number of deals.
Economies like this are only possible because
of the international nature of news channel
brands. Most of the successful large-scale brands
work well across borders with minimal
customisation and localisation. Language-wise,
that means that the biggest international brands
are all English-language. But there have been
some moves towards the creation of region-
specific news brands with Turkey, Eastern Europe
and Arabic-language markets targeted with
channels such as CNN Turk, CNBC Arabic, BBC
Arabic and CNBC Biznes (Poland).
Fulfilling a similar role in targeting specific
language or ethnic groups are the international
feeds of national news channels, the Chinese
CCTV and Russia Today being
key examples.
Different strategies
Strategically, the choice to focus on basic-tier pay
platforms or free-to-air platforms has been
important to the way in which channels grow. For
maximum reach, the strategic approach also
needs to be adjusted to the region, without
devaluing the brand itself. In Western Europe, a
focus on basic tier pay has served news channels
well. A similar strategy has generally been taken
in Eastern Europe. But in the Middle East and, to
a lesser degree, Turkey, a focus on free platforms
has been the preferred strategic approach.
Even in Western Europe, thanks largely to the
rise of digital terrestrial television platforms, it is
free multichannel that has been growing most
strongly in recent years. Al Jazeera, which has
focused heavily on free platforms as part of its
rapid growth strategy, has benefitted from this.
And other channels have clearly taken notice:
CNBC went free-to-air in the UK recently.
For most channel majors it seems that one
international news channel is enough. Within
other genres it is common to expand sideways,
with minor variations on a theme making most
efficient use of programming archives and current
production. But the same scale economies clearly
do not apply to content that is created on the fly
and had limited re-use potential. Only the BBC
and NBC Universal have developed families of
news channels.
The value of news to a portfolio is, nonetheless,
indisputable: news channels are key to a number
of channel groups in terms of brand awareness
and in spearheading entry into new markets and
onto new platforms.
The value of newsRead all about it: an analysis of news channels battling it out in EMEA
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 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
Pay
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200
250
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400 EMEA: News channel cumulative household reach by platform 2011
Harmonic_ChannelPort_CSI_080212.pdf 1 8/2/12 3:08 PM
Many broadcasters
have barely settled
their investments in
HD infrastructure
let alone
contemplated
transmission at
full HD 1080p, yet the next leap in
broadcasting is headed this way.
The Joint Collaborative Team on
Video Coding (a body comprised of
MPEG and ITU teams) has finalised a
draft for the H.265 codec, aka high efficiency
video coding or HEVC, as the successor to H.264
MPEG4 AVC.
The aim is to improve coding efficiency by at
least twice that of AVC. On the one hand this will
benefit streaming technologies, notably to boost
the quality and efficiency of online video services.
On the other it will pave the way for two
UltraHDTV systems: at 4K (3840 pixels wide by
2160 high) and 8K (7680×4320).
“UHDTV promises to bring about one of the
greatest changes to audiovisual communications
and broadcasting in recent decades,” states
Christoph Dosch, chairman of the Broadcasting
Study Group. “Technology is truly on the cusp of
transforming how people experience audio-visual
communications.”
Matt Smith, VP, internet TV strategy &
solutions at Envivio, thinks the industry is about
to advance another level. “Compression will play
a huge role in delivering optimal quality with
optimised throughput and bandwidth – basically
the best ‘bang for bit’. Looking at the success and
broad adoption of H.264, we are very excited
about the future and what HEVC/H.265 will
bring.”
According to David Wood, chair of the ITU
working party in the Broadcasting Service Study
Group and deputy director of the EBU’s
Technology and Development team, “Greater
compression efficiency means that broadband
networks and mobiles that use them can deliver
higher quality video before congestion problems
set in, or before measures like MPEG-DASH must
be taken to stream at lower quality because of
congestion. Essentially ‘bits are bucks’ and the bit
rate gain is what will make HEVC
attractive.”
The draft parameters for a
UHDTV signal format
accommodates 8Mpixel images
at 4K and roughly 32 Mpixel
images for an 8K system. The
quality steps (HD-4K, 4K-8K) are of about the
same order as the quality step from SD to HD.
“However the colour gamut for both UHDTV
systems is larger than for HDTV, and there are
two options for creating YUV signals from RGB
signals,” explains EBU’s Wood. “One is the way
we use today for HDTV, called ‘non-constant
luminance coding’, and the other, which will have
benefits in some circumstances such as
compression, is ‘constant luminance coding’.
We’ve gone every which way we can to move the
quality forward.”
Super Hi-Vision advances
The most advanced iteration
of UltraHD is the NHK
scheme Super Hi-Vision. The
Japanese broadcaster is
pursuing R&D covering all
aspects of SHV broadcasts,
from programme production
to broadcasting facilities, as well as SHV TV sets
for the home.
“We are steadily reducing the size of cameras
and have also developed larger capacity terrestrial
transmission which has enabled us to carry out
the first-ever field experience of terrestrial SHV
transmission,” explains Dr Keiichi Kubota,
director-general of NHK’s science and technology
research labs. “We have devised image sensors for
SHV cameras to capture fast-moving objects more
clearly at 120 frames per second (fps) with the
ultimate objective of perfecting a 120Hz frame
rate. And we have developed (with JVC) a high
frame-rate SHV projector.”
Part of its mission is to build up the supply of
SHV displays for the home with 4K screens
rolling into the market from 2013. Following
Sharp’s lead of an 85-inch 8K prototype LCD at
CES2012, NHK partnered with Panasonic to
develop a 145-inch 8K (7860x4320) plasma.
NHK has developed a screen that down-
converts from SHV to HD (though the display
itself only has a resolution of 4K). The smallest
SHV display is an 85-inch LCD, which Kubota
says may be a feasible size for household use in
the future.
“We are pressing forward with our R&D on
lighter displays with less energy consumption and
studying the appropriate display sizes for viewing
in the home,” says Kubota. “Our ultimate goal for
SHV is to achieve its full potential standard-wise
with a 120Hz frame rate and a wide-gamut
system,” he explains. “The standard was
tentatively adopted at the ITU-R, SG6 in April,
and we are in the process of getting it approved.”
Where first for HEVC?
The initial version of the HEVC standard includes
a 16x9 aspect ratio, progressive only and for
frame rates up to 120Hz. It will be 8 bits/sample,
4:2:0, single layer only with an extension planned
for January 2014, which will include 10 bits/
Higher and higherIf bits are bucks then HEVC promises a gold mine but how far are we from practical use of the next-gen compression scheme and do we even need a super high resolution future, wonders Adrian Pennington
Ultra HDTV
14 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
“In the short term one needs to cool down expectations. As we progress further, the industry will realise the full magnitude of the production challenge.”
Ultra HDTV
sample, 4:2:2 and 4:4:4.
The support for a higher frame rate option may
be necessary for accurate portrayal of motion at
extreme resolutions on large wall-sized displays.
PayTV operators and vendors are already thinking
along such lines. NDS, for example, demonstrated
how HD to 4K video on a giant living room
screen could be expanded and contracted in
accordance with content and usage over its proof
of concept Surfaces platform at IBC2011.
If a plug-in can be developed for download then
the first applications of HEVC can be used almost
immediately for HD carriage over the internet.
Encoding specialist ATEME believes there could
be commercial deployment of 4K compressed in
MPEG4 using its EAVC4 encoder which is
claimed to deliver 20% efficiencies over existing
technologies.
With only a few countries to date using DVB-
T2 it is likely that those countries yet to deploy a
DVB-T2 system might use a HEVC DVB-T2
scheme. France is one such country already with
HEVC on its radar for a DTT 2.0 launch in
2015/16.
“Provided there is enough volume there to
make the set top box affordable then HEVC
would surely allow more HD broadcasting,” notes
Wood. “HD bit rates will probably be down to
4-5Mbps with HEVC (incidentally similar bit
rates at which SDTV began).”
Using HEVC for satellite broadcasting outside
of NHK’s system, which has a 2020 target for
domestic TX, will be limited to cases where it is
practical to ask viewers to change their set-top
boxes or receivers.
“I am not sure it will be easy with satellite
broadcasting to change the STB to HEVC, unless
the change also brings some significant picture
quality such as UHDTV, which persuades the
viewer that it is necessary,” suggests Wood.
A three-year program under the French
consortium 4EVER aims to demonstrate a first
complete Ultra HD production and transmission
chain by mid-2013, based on HEVC.
Members include ATEME, Orange Labs,
GlobeCast, TeamCast, Technicolor and Doremi.
On the production side, the lead partner will be
France Télévisions which is already experimenting
with 4K content.
Big challenges to a 4K future
Challenges include overcoming a lack of
standards for transport of 4K uncompressed
video around a production environment and the
lack of a standard means of getting 4K onto a TV
set itself.
“The 4K consumer sets demoed at CES2012
all used different ways of getting 4K to the TV by,
for example, aggregating several HDMI ports,”
explains Jérôme Vieron, who leads advanced
research at ATEME. “In the short term one needs
to cool down expectations. Without a standard
uncompressed 4K format that is accepted in a
production environment, and a common way of
getting 4K video from STB to TV set,
development will be impeded.”
He adds: “As we progress further, the industry
will realise the full magnitude of the production
challenge. Just now the level of noise we get from
4K content and the amount of light that needs to
be cast on a scene makes capture very restrictive.”
However, ATEME is also wise to the possibility
that consumers may perceive no benefit to a 4K
viewing experience. Could their viewing be
enhanced by concentrating on spatial
performance rather than pixel count? High Frame
Rates have become a hot topic in digital cinema
where it is argued 48-60-120fps erase visual
artefacts to create a hyper-realism.
“4EVER is focussed on assessing the perceived
benefit of the video experience,” says Benoit
Fouchard, chief strategy officer, ATEME. “We are
not making a final statement about whether this
will be achieved by high frame rate or by freeing
up bandwidth but if you take the average screen
size in homes as 50-inch (and current high-end
TVs can interpolate that at 120Hz) it is obvious
that compared to current HDTV 1080-i you are
much more likely to create a ‘wow!’ effect by
increasing the frame rate than by an increase in
resolution. The industry needs to make sure that
the end-user experience is there.
“At 4K we are talking about a more real
immersive experience that is closer to reality,” he
continues. “This can be addressed by resolution
and frame rate but with the frame rate all of the
challenges we discussed go away. There is already
a chain of production and already STBs that
can decode 60fp full 1080 so it would seem that
the technical challenges are much less than for a
4K image.”
Bob Hannent at Humax, agrees: “All of the
testing that I have witnessed has the concept of a
public display in mind, which is made clear when
the resolution of the format is so high that even
those with good quality vision find it difficult to
perceive. The EBU’s own analysis on HD has
previously acknowledged that, at standard viewing
distances, most people couldn’t perceive much
better than 720 lines on an typical display”
Dr Keiichi Kubota, DG of NHK’s science and technology research labs. Left: NHK’s new SHV camera
www.csimagazine.com September-October 2012 15
The BBC is thinking along similar lines and
will get a chance to assess audience reaction to
SHV over 15ft screens and 3D to conventional
TV sets during the Olympics where both are being
trialled. The BBC is playing an active role as
R&D partner with NHK in SHV.
“You can argue that the jury is still out on 3D
and ask whether the long-term coverage (of sport)
may be more like Super
Hi-Vision,” says BBC
executive sport producer
Paul Davies.
Tim Plyming, project
executive, digital & editor
live sites, BBC London
2012 added: “I am finding
that some audiences feel
SHV is a totally immersive
experience in the way that
3D is not.”
The Olympics SHV trials
featured largely static shots
with viewers expected to let
their eyes roam (edit)
around the vast amount of
pictorial information. A
visual grammar for editing,
pans and effects such as
wipes is a long way from
being developed and it may
be that SHV is only suitable for select experiences
or live events.
While higher resolution and higher dynamic
range native content can deliver greater flexibility
in post production (given the right amount of
grunt processing power), there is debate as to
what point humans can no longer resolve the
higher resolutions thrown at them.
“There is certainly interest around the world
for UHDTV and HEVC,” states Fouchard. “As for
HEVC, in the short term, there could be more
traction for the use of the new compression
standard in highly constrained networks for
resolutions at or below HD than for UHDTV.
“As a premium service and for a limited
number of channels, there will be no difficulty to
find satellite, cable or even terrestrial bandwidth
for UHDTV, even using just MPEG-4 as a
compression standard. Just as for 3D, the most
immediate challenges are the production of
UHDTV content, and the delivery of an
affordable and compelling [ie significantly
enhanced over HD] viewing experience to the end
user. From this perspective, UHDTV is still in
its infancy.”
“It has previously been demonstrated by BBC
R&D that frame rates above 120fps even on
normal HD dramatically improves motion
perception and given that 300fps is a multiple of
both the Japan/US-lead 60fps and the European
50fps, it is an achievable long term goal which
could be planned for,” adds Hannett at Humax.
While some broadcasters and operators will
be unwilling to make the leap given the amount of
legacy MPEG-2 around, some argue that HEVC
and UHDTV make the perfect case for leaping
over MPEG-4 and going directly to these systems.
A single global DTT system?
The Future of Broadcast TV project, which
includes the EBU, DVB, IEEE, ETRI, ATSC and
China’s national TV research centre is examining
whether there could be a single worldwide system
for broadcasting terrestrial television in a future
technical generation. At the moment, the group is
assembling ‘use cases’ for a future terrestrial
broadcasting system. The future system will
certainly use HEVC or the next generation of
compression after that.
“Don’t forget that the compression technology
cycle is usually six-to-ten years, so our DVB T’n’ -
whatever it is, may arrive in the post HEVC era,”
says Wood. “The capability to deliver at least the
4K UHDTV system will certainly be a
requirement for the new system - and maybe even
the 8K system too, if the new transmission system
uses a technique like MIMO, which dramatically
increases channel carrying capacity.”
In 2005 NHK predicted that UHDTV was for
deployment from 2020 and that still looks
realistic, though to what extent is open to
question.
“I am not sure it will be easy with satellite broadcasting to change the STB to HEVC, unless the change also brings some significant picture quality such as UHDTV.”
16 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
Ultra HDTV
145inch SHV PDP
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The expanding market for over-
the-top (OTT) video services
is increasing interest in
Content Delivery Networks
(CDNs) designed to overcome
the bandwidth constraints of
existing network
infrastructure by serving content closer to end-users
with high availability and high performance.
CDNs are proving increasingly popular with
the TV industry’s big players including the BBC,
which uses a combination of its own CDNs and
those of third party providers, the film and TV
streaming service Netflix, which is planning to
move all its video traffic onto its own new Open
Connect CDN, and Sky whose Now TV service
for connected devices will also use CDN
infrastructure.
Such is the impact of the technology that,
earlier this year, digital media technology provider
Nagra argued that the industry will soon reach
tipping point at which CDN will become cheap
enough to migrate broadcast content into an OTT
environment, arguing that even satellite would be
cheaper to go all-OTT within a decade.
Whether that prediction proves true, and the
impact the technology will have on the wider
payTV/OTT provider space, is open to debate. As
operators make plans for premium services like
multi-screen and IP-based Video on Demand
(VoD), CDNs offer an efficient means of
streaming high definition jitter-free video and
television programming that can also increase
their network backbone capacity. However, the
CDN concept also poses a threat to pay-TV
operators’ well-estsblished business models and
requires significant upfront investment, either in
third party CDN capacity, or in new server
infrastructure, if operators plan to manage and
run their own CDN.
“Third party CDNs are already providing many
pay-TV operators with scalability or sailover
capacity,” says Matthew Huntington, vice
president of product marketing at Nagra. “As
operators increase their VoD offerings and their
existing video server infrastructure gets to the end
of its life, there will be an increasing shift towards
adaptive streaming CDN-based technology.”
Multi-screen video is becoming a key part of
service providers’ overall video strategy.
Interestingly, more than a quarter of video
consumers have paid to watch videos on their
tablets, according to Mark Hyland, VP of sale and
marketing at QuickPlay Media, whose customers
use the company’s managed service to deliver HD
video OTT during large sporting events like NHL
and the Olympics. While TV continues to
maintain a strong grip, OTT video is gaining in
strength and Hyland in the next 18 months we are
likely to see momentum of adoption shift in
favour of OTT.
How it works
CDNs are an internet-based distribution system
designed to increase the speed and reliability of
content delivery to end users by replicating the
content files in servers, called
caching servers, or edge
servers, located in
geographically dispersed data-
centres.
The graphics content of
web pages is often delivered via CDN, but the
technology is especially well suited to bandwidth-
hungry applications such as streaming audio,
video, and IPTV programming, as it minimises
problems with excessive latency, as well as large
variations in latency from moment to moment,
which can cause annoying ‘jitter’ or buffering in
streaming audio and video.
Most CDNs are capable of handling popular
streaming methods such as Flash, Windows
Media, Silverlight and progressive download and a
large CDN can include thousands of servers,
making it possible to provide identical content to
many users efficiently and reliably even at times
of maximum internet traffic or during sudden
spikes in demand.
Another advantage is content redundancy
which provides a fail-safe in the event of damage
to, or malfunction of, a part of the internet. Even
during a large-scale outage that disables many
servers, content on a CDN will remain available
to at least some users.
Akamai Technologies was one of the first third
party CDN services and is now the market leader,
working with many of the world’s largest content
providers, closely followed by Limelight Networks
and CDNetworks. More recently, telcos and
content providers have started investing in their
own CDN server infrastructure.
Adding the costs up
Nagra’s research into falling CDN costs looked at
the cost of satellite delivery per home versus OTT
TV via a CDN. Its calculations were based on a
250 channel offering delivered at an average of
4Mbps per channel and 25.5 hours of viewing per
user a week. Transponder costs were estimated at
$3 million a year and CDN costs at $0.044 per
GB.
Speaking at the Connected TV World Summit
in London in May Thomas Decieux, head of
product marketing for multiscreen solutions at
Nagra said that for networks with over one
million users it is already cheaper to deliver a full
At tipping point?Content Delivery Networks are underpinning the OTT ex-plosion, but how should payTV operators make use of the technology and how long until most video goes over-the-top? Stephen Cousins reports
CDNs
18 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
CDNs
channel offering via CDN than broadcast it via
satellite and that while the economics did not yet
work for two million subscriber networks, they
soon would. Nagra calculated that a pay-TV
service similar to CanalSat, with over five million
subscribers, would reach its theoretical tipping
point in 2018 and that a 10 million subscriber
service such as BSkyB would reach the same level
in 2021.
“While these figures don’t necessarily mean
satellite operators are likely to switch entirely over
to CDNs very soon, it indicates that the
economics are there to support some large scale
pay-TV operators who want to run off a CDN,
which changes the market dynamic,” says Nagra’s
Huntington.
However, others are more cautious about the
technology’s impact on the market. “Although the
trend it definitely towards delivering content
through IP networks and CDNs in order to
address different home networked devices and
new forms of consumption, it is a bit premature to
say that existing networks are going to be
surpassed by CDNs any time soon,” says Dr. Paul
Stallard, head of systems management at
Ericsson. “If even a quarter of content being
consumed today over traditional broadcast
platforms suddenly went over the internet there
would be an enormous requirement for extra
capacity.”
Of course, the switch to CDNs is also
dependent on when existing cable and satellite
infrastructure reaches the end of its life and is no
longer able to offer the speed and definition users
demand. Most cable operators currently deliver
VoD over traditional QAM video server
infrastructure, but as they scale up their VoD
offerings this will lead to a shift to adaptive
streaming and CDN-based technology.
The pressure of bandwidth bottlenecking was
made apparent at UK cable operator Virgin
Media, which has one of the largest VoD services
in Europe based on traditional cable video server
technology. Due to broadband constraints in
existing units, the company has moved BBC
iPlayer content over to IP DOCSIS 3.0 delivery in
its TiVo deployments.
Home or Away?
If delivery via CDN is set to become a feature of
any successful pay-TV operator’s network then a
key question is whether to buy capacity from a
third party international or national vendor, or
purchase your own CDN equipment.
The inherent global nature of the internet has
made it impractical for most content providers to
maintain duplicate servers strategically positioned
around the world so they rent capacity from large
international CDNs, such as Akamai, who have
the infrastructure in place.
However, since most pay-TV provider only
operate nationally or in certain regions, a more
practical solution is perhaps simply to rent out
local CDN infrastructure or invest in their own,
especially as large third party CDNs can also have
high setup fees and other hidden costs, creating a
barrier to smaller clients.
“We have seen a strong move from operators
wanting to build their own CDNs,” says Dr Paul
Stallard, head of systems management at
Ericsson. “That’s partly because they want to be
able to cut out the cost of having to pay to
distribute content every single time it enters their
network. A CDN ensures popular content only
comes into the network once as it is pushed out
to the edge.”
Investing in a CDN could help operators better
manage bandwidth across their core network - if
you can serve popular content from the edge of
the network direct to the customer, you don’t have
to traverse your core network every time a user
requests content. Investing in dedicated CDN
infrastructure also gives pay-TV providers the
opportunity to enter into that value chain and
potentially charge other broadcasters and content
providers for CDN services.
“Every major project that we see going on with
operators has some form of discussion, planning
or specific requirement around an ability to offer
wholesale services,” says Duncan Potter, vice
www.csimagazine.com September-October 2012 19
Sou
rce:
Hea
vy R
eadi
ng, 2
010
Operators Wanto CDNs to Protect Their Place in Video Distribution Value Chain
Video ProductionIndie producers, Endemoletc
Broadcaster, studios,cable netsUniversal, Paramount, SKY
Video ProductionIndie producers, Endemoletc
Broadcaster, studios,cable netsUniversal, Paramount, SKY
Online DistributorNetflix, iPlayer, Hulu,YouTube, Amazon
Online DistributorNetflix, iPlayer, Hulu,YouTube, Amazon
Content Delivery NetworkAkamai, Limelight
Service ProviderBT, Orange, AT&T, Telefonica,Verizon
Service ProviderBT, Orange, AT&T, Telefonica,Verizon
DevicePC, mobile phone, STB, tablet
DevicePC, mobile phone, STB, tablet
Exhibit 1: Video Dominates Global Internet TrafficSource: Cisco Visual Networking Index, 2012
71.1EB
35.5EB
Video
Web and Other Data
Voice Communications
File Sharing
Video Communications
Online Gaming
0 2011 2012 2014 2015 2015
UK proposes move to internet TV deliveryA report from the UK’s House of Lords Communications Committee has called for an examination as to the possible switching off of over-the-air broadcasts to the delivery of TV over the internet. The parliamentary body argues that this will free spectrum for wireless broadband.
The report, ‘Broadband for All - An Alternative Vision’, says: “It is likely that IPTV services will become ever more widespread, and eventually the case for transferring the carriage of broadcast content, including public service broadcasting, from spectrum to the internet altogether will become overwhelming.
“We recommend that the Government, Ofcom and the industry begin to consider the desirability of the transfer of terrestrial broadcast content, and in particular what the consequences of this might be and how we ought to begin to prepare.”
If nothing else, it seems that this will push the debate from simply industry to political circles, both in the UK and beyond.
president of operations at distributed video
delivery network platforms expert Edgeware.
“This is especially prevalent in any project
involving multi-screen deployment. A CDN/
wholesale service integration with traditional
CDNs, content providers or aggregators is seen as
critical to accelerating the return on investment of
the project.”
A dedicated CDN is likely to require a high
level of capital expenditure on equipment and
related systems management, which perhaps only
the largest operators could justify.
“If your network covers half the population of
your country, the necessary investment in servers
would be too great,” says Jacques Le Mancq,
president and CEO of CDN equipment provider
Broadpeak. “And if, for example, you have a
million subscribers wanting to watch a live TV
event on an iPad then Akamai’s CDN technology
is still going to be inadequate and cause
bottlenecks.”
To address this gap, Broadpeak has developed
the new technology NanoCDN (due to launch at
IBC 2012) which leverages the computing power
of the home network (the STB or home gateway)
as an actual component of the CDN.
“Figures from market research firm Infonetics
show that pay-TV operators will spend $8 billion
in 2014 for IPTV and cable STBs and $4 billion
for home broadband gateways, which is a huge
investment, so why not also use these devices for
distribution?” says Le Mancq. “That CPU
capacity can be exploited to perform certain
CDN functions, dramatically improving the
scalability of the service and therefore reducing
the cost of investment.”
Broadpeak’s solution uses a combination of
local CDN servers and the operator’s home
network boxes to create a faster streaming service
ideally suited to live content, claims Lemanq.
Making it happen
If CDNs are to bed in successfully then pay-TV
operators must overcome a few technical and
financial barriers. Preparing content for
transmission via CDN means understanding the
needs of the multiple devices receiving data at the
other end, including netbooks, iPhones,
connected TVs etc. These have different aspect
ratios, screen resolutions etc and there are also a
range of different adaptive streaming formats
including Apple, Adobe, Microsoft etc. If it’s
successful, the recently announced Dynamic
Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH)
multimedia technology standard for MPEG could
reduce some of this complexity.
Companies like Ericsson can help with this
through their content management systems
designed to handle any transcoding, package
content into different formats and address rights
issues related to content.
CDN success is also reliant on broadband
penetration, a key figure being 5Mbs, above which
an HD TV or catch up TV service really becomes
feasible. Forward thinking operators could think
about having the flexibility to move channels over
to an OTT offering when they have the necessary
broadband penetration.
“This is where managed service providers can
help companies wrestle all the complexities of
delivering OTT video. Managed service providers
are able to stitch together the best systems in the
cloud to ensure acceptable QoS and UX for end-
users,” says QuickPlay’s Hyland.
Above all, a successful CDN strategy is reliant
upon a wider understanding of the changes taking
place within the industry. “Over the last five years
the multi-screen revolution has happened so fast
that parts of the industry and even some
responsible managers have not had time to react.
Therefore, the main barrier is management’s
ability to plan and react to this new industry
situation,” says Tomas Petru, president of CDN
provider Visual Unity.
“They need to catch up soon. CDN is
definitely the key logistic underlying all content
distribution for the immediate future. In the
digital world it will influence the quality of TV in
the same way that transmitters influenced the
quality of analogue television,” he concludes.
20 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
CDNs
Exhibit 1: Video Dominates Global Internet TrafficSource: Cisco Visual Networking Index, 2012
71.1EB
35.5EB
Video
Web and Other Data
Voice Communications
File Sharing
Video Communications
Online Gaming
0 2011 2012 2014 2015 2015
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Conference 6-11 September : Exhibition 7-11 September
IBC is at the cutting-edge of new technology in therapidly evolving electronic media industry. It couplesa comprehensive exhibition covering all facets oftoday’s industry with a highly respected peer reviewedconference that helps shape the way the industrywill develop in the future.
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To most TV viewers the idea of
actually buying consumer
goods through the TV still
seems very odd. Yet
consumers in many countries
already buy pay-per-view
content from broadcasters in
what might be termed a form of T-commerce. And
in the UK viewers are arguably more used to
interacting with the TV than anywhere else, after
years of using the remote control to access Ceefax/
Teletext and now Red Button services. With more
smart TVs and many viewers also using a second
CE device, whether a laptop, smartphone or tablet,
as they watch the main TV screen, it might even be
thought surprising that T-commerce hasn’t yet
taken off, so could this be about to change?
The idea is not new. We’re all probably familiar
with the ‘Jennifer Aniston’s sweater’ concept:
you’re watching an episode of Friends, you like
Jennifer’s sweater, so you access an interactive
service that lets you buy it. There are various
reasons why this has never taken off. Some TV
operators tried to develop interactive commerce
back in the 1990s, but didn’t get very far, partly
because consumers didn’t care for the restrictive
walled garden approach, but also because it wasn’t
much fun to use.
“I’ve always been highly sceptical regarding
T-commerce,” says Michael Lantz, CEO at smart/
IPTV app specialist Accedo. “It’s cumbersome to
navigate images or text on TV. Fundamentally, TV
is a lean back medium, quite unlike the
interactions consumers are used to initiating
online.”
Consumers are perfectly happy buying from
shopping TV channels. But they turn to a
shopping channel to shop, or at least to browse,
just as with a retail website. They tend to be less
happy when the decision to make the shopping
and entertainment overlap is taken out of their
hands. It will be interesting to see how PayPal’s
latest attempts in this area fare. In June, PayPal
vice-president Scott Dunlap told Bloomberg the
company hoped to launch new T-commerce
services in the US later this year, in conjunction
with TiVO and Comcast.
Maybe if more consumers get used to making
micropayments through the TV to buy content
that will help get them used to T-commerce. In
March, BBC Director General Mark Thompson
announced Project Barcelona, the development of
a new service that would allow viewers to
download favourite shows from the BBC archive
for a small fee. Meanwhile, the UK’s other major
terrestrial broadcaster, ITV, is preparing to launch
its own micropayments system for online video,
including archive and preview content.
Payment will be powered by MGt’s PayWizard
platform. “I can’t share too much more detail at
this stage,” says Jamie Mackinlay, commercial
director at MGt. “What’s been well-publicised is
that ITV want to balance their revenues; to find a
way of making more direct monetisation revenue
to equalise their dependence on advertising.”
It will surely be a long time
before this type of service
changes the revenue model at
ITV in a significant way.
Consultancy informitv believes
ITV would need to convert all
its online viewing to a paid-for model if online
revenues were to account for 10% of ITV’s total
revenue. But PayWizard does offer a useful way
for ITV to experiment with alternative business
models.
“We’ve provided a platform where they can
manage pay and non-pay customers in the same
environments,” says Mackinlay. “We can help
them provide new offers or discounts. We can
help provide complex business patterns for
subscriptions. And we help with the functionality
for single sign on and provide interoperability
with content management systems, DRM, CA,
analytics and finance systems.” The system will be
operational later this year, with the service likely
to be launched to consumers sometime in 2013.
This type of technology, which enables secure,
one click payment once a consumer has set up an
account, could also be used to buy content or
other goods related to particular shows or brands,
Mackinlay suggests, such as access to the Green
Room on entertainment shows like the X Factor,
previews of new shows, or DVD box sets.
For any of these services, he suggests, two
things are all-important: excellent management of
the necessary data used to drive the service; and a
very good user experience to help consumers
through the registration process. But if
micropayments for content are to become more
widespread there are some business issues to
settle too. Some content owners may want to use
broadcaster or connected TV platforms to bypass
the cut Apple takes for content passing through
its ecosystem, but there are likely to be differences
of opinion over how and where the parties
involved make money out of these arrangements.
“TV manufacturers are trying to charge people
for a position on their portal,” says Fearghal
Kelly, senior vice-president, global partner
solutions at digital video specialist KIT Digital.
“We can see a potential for CE manufacturers to
Show me the money – and user interestWith new initiatives from PayPal, and broadcasters BBC and ITV emerging from the works, can T-commerce and TV micro-payments finally succeed, asks David Adams
T-commerce
“ITV would need to convert all its online viewing to a paid-for model if online revenues were to account for 10% of its total revenue.”
22 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
T-commerce
charge a percentage per transaction carried out
on those platforms, like Apple. But if they push
into that too much they will get pushed back.”
At the same time, he notes, if payment goes
through the major card payment providers they
will also want a cut. That might not matter too
much when a broadcaster is selling its own long
tail content, but might make the whole exercise
unviable for content purchased from elsewhere.
Companion devices may drive growth
There have been some interesting advances in
T-commerce through connected TVs. Capablue’s
Connected Commerce app solution enables
creation of TV apps for interactive promotions
and is used by M&S TV, a retail app launched by
UK retailer Marks & Spencer for connected TVs.
But even Capablue CEO Tom Cape is uncertain
about selling physical goods this way. “It’s easy for
digital goods,” he says. “But a whole ecommerce
transaction, including what size, what colour, do
you want it left with your neighbour if you’re out
when it’s delivered – I think that’s too much to do
through the TV.”
Kelly agrees. “Once you have people typing in
credit card details it’s a hassle,” he says. The
solution to this problem used by KIT’s clients is
to set up an account on a PC or laptop first, with
an activation code used to synchronise the
account with your TV interaction.
But one key reason why it is just possible such
services really could prosper over the next few
years is the growing use of a companion device, or
second screen: a tablet, laptop, phone, or similar.
Even with activation codes, or PIN-protected one
www.csimagazine.com September-October 2012 23
Top: RES-PS3. Left and above: Rovi TotalGuide
click payment, it’s still easy to see why the second
screen looks a better option for payment: it
doesn’t interfere with TV viewing and – although
this may not be entirely rational – feels more
secure.
This is of great interest to a technology
provider like Rovi, which provides services based
around metadata used in EPGs, but can also
embed detailed metadata about products and
brands into programme content, making it easier
for a consumer with a second screen to access
information about what they see on screen.
Richard Bullwinkle, chief evangelist at Rovi, gives
the example of an episode of US show Entourage
which featured a lot of Aston Martin cars, for
which it provided metadata for viewers who
wanted to find out more about them. But, he
adds, few clients have identified enough of a
profit opportunity to ask for this sort of service.
Another initiative being watched closely by
industry observers is the Zeebox, an app-based
platform designed to turn a second device into a
kind of social network/commercial-displaying
remote control. Zeebox launched in the UK in
2011 and will launch in the US and Australia
soon. It has attracted investment from BSkyB,
which sells sponsorship and product placement
opportunities around the tags Zeebox allows Sky+
subscribers in the UK to see around actors,
objects or topics under discussion on screen.
But if you see something on TV in which you
are interested, don’t you just Google it anyway?
Particularly if you’ve got a tablet on your lap?
“The companion device service needs to offer
more,” says Lucy Gill, user experience consultant
at Serco ExperienceLab. “If you’re just getting an
app to be sold to, people don’t tend to take too
kindly to that. But if it gives you extra information
and there’s a link with social networking, then
maybe being sold to at the same time is
acceptable. Maybe even wanted.”
So who could make money out of such
interactions? Cape says Capablue is engaging with
brands, retailers, media agencies and broadcasters.
“They will all try to make money out of it,” he says.
“With transactional interactions off brand
promotions, who owns that environment? The
broadcaster owns the content, but the media
agency is operating the interaction.”
“I think the power will need to move to the
ecommerce company, because they are the only
ones who will engage with the consumers,” says
Accedo’s Lantz. “I hope broadcasters would be
willing to experiment without too much of a
revenue share. They are the winners in the long
run if this takes off. In the short term they need to
subsidise development.”
But boardroom negotiations won’t matter if
consumers don’t want to shop this way. William
Cooper, founder and chief executive at informitv,
fears some consumers will be repelled by services
too overtly advertising-led. “In some of the models
it seems prompts are going to pop up all the time
and I’m not sure there’s much consumer appetite
for that,” he says.
“I think what research has told us is that a lot
of online shopping seems to be quite goal-driven,
not spur of the moment. But if they can come up
with special offers people will go for... I think the
jury’s still out on that.”
But Rovi’s Bullwinkle thinks there is evidence
that consumers can be engaged more effectively
when using the EPG. “We have some evidence that
is a good time to reach out to people,” he says.
“Maybe they’re looking for a funny show and you
should them another show or movie they could see
on demand or buy on DVD. That also requires a
lot less work: I don’t have to embed metadata into
the show: people can just lean forward and say I’m
interested in this or that product.”
KIT Digital is thinking along similar lines, says
Kelly. “We see that interactive EPG as being the
biggest game changer right now,” he says. And
tablets and similar devices are getting cheaper all
the time, he adds.
When are we likely to see more of these sorts
of services? “I think that paying for things
through your TV is still pretty unreal to most
consumers, so I would imagine it will take some
years to really catch on,” says Gill at
ExperienceLabs. “But as apps emerge that may
change. It’s not a market that’s really been tested
yet. We certainly see interest in it: when there are
shows on TV with a lot of hype around them, or a
movie with hype around it there are people who
want to spend money on something to do with
the content. So I think acceptance will come at
first from small niches.”
David Springall, founder and CTO at
personalised ad insertion company yospace,
agrees. “If you’re trying to monetise Coronation
Street you’re probably going to struggle, but if
you’re talking about a cookery or DIY show that
better lends itself to interactivity it could work,”
he says. “Certain shows will lend themselves
nicely to commerce.”
Cooper thinks we probably shouldn’t be using
the term T-commerce at all. “The idea that it’s
something discrete is probably a mistake,” he says.
“We’ve all read a newspaper while watching TV
and been exposed at advertising. We’re not seeing
different behaviours, they’re just reflected on
different technologies.”
But, according to Lantz, T-commerce could still
become quite significant for broadcasters. “This is
definitely an area of innovation over the next
three to four years,” he says. “The number of
transactions compared to the ecommerce market
in general will be tiny; it will be more of a
complement, to make people more excited about
certain brands. But I do believe that the long term
potential is for a big market. Everyone I talk to in
the advertising and broadcasting worlds is pretty
excited about it.”
“A lot of online shopping seems to be quite goal-driv-en, not spur of the moment.”
24 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
T-commerce
The M&S TV retail app for connected TVs
viaccess_pg25.indd 1 13/08/2012 12:15:13
The idea of integrated playout
or Channel-In-a-Box (CIB)
dates back at least 15 years,
and is now used to describe
single systems that combine
at least all the basic functions
of playout in a single device.
This includes automated scheduling, graphics
insertion, master control switching to convert a
channel to a desired target output format, and the
video server itself.
The first integrated playout systems were built
using dedicated hardware with proprietary inter-
faces, lacked scalability, and were incapable of
handling more than a few channels. Although
they incorporated the playout functions them-
selves in a single box, there was still a lot of inte-
gration work required to tie up with the surround-
ing workflow and automation. This tended to
wipe out savings made from having a single box.
These earlier first generation CIB systems were
adopted in relatively small numbers by some
broadcasters in the hope this would
reduce the cost of adding new channels or
whole programme streams by having just one box
to deal with. Then more recently over the last two
years the field has at last taken off
with the arrival of second generation CIBs
based on commodity hardware and standard
interfaces, making them more scalable and
easier to integrate with existing workflow
automation. These CIBs still leave room for
improvement and are not suitable for all situations
- it may not be the right solution for playout of
complex channels, and will only deliver the
promised benefits if content preparation and
validation are also improved. But now it seems
clear that over time all broadcast operations will
adopt some form of integrated playout, as part of
an overall migration towards IT and file based
workflows.
These systems are not necessarily going to
comprise just a single box in the physical sense,
but more a common platform for adding channels
and integrating function such as graphics
insertion for each one, linking with multiple
servers on which video is stored. However, the
objective is to reduce the amount of hardware
needed to playout a given number of channels, to
save both on space and power
consumption.
One of the best on these
counts is Harmonic’s
ChannelPort CIB, which
consumes just 100 watts per
channel, and can handle four channels in a 1RU
(rack unit) box 1.75 inches (45mms) high. More
typical values for CIBs are 400 watts per channel,
and two channels per RU.
The cost savings associated with reduced rack
space and power consumption are essential in the
current era of content proliferation, where
broadcasters and operators are delivering ever
more channels to a growing number of target
platforms with diminishing returns for each one.
Increasingly CIB vendors are under pressure to
achieve further cost savings by incorporating
additional broadcast functions and reducing the
device count needed by a broadcast facility, with
the ability to handle a large number of channels
becoming a minimum requirement.
“The best integrated systems are already
running hundreds of channels on a daily basis,”
says Scott Rose, senior product manager for iTX,
the automated IT-based playout system from
Miranda. “They are now moving on to solve wider
problems within a broadcast facility, such as
integrating monitoring and control, and taking a
fresh look at graphics and other vital but less-
than-efficient workflows.”
Integrated playout is also taking on more
complex and popular channels than before, while
earlier first generation CIB was largely confined
to niche or thematic channels delivering mostly
recorded content. “Leading integrated playout
technologies have the capabilities to handle live
content, and are now far from being limited to
thematic channels,” says James Gilbert, joint
managing director of Pixel Power, whose
ChannelMaster CIB integrates storage, graphics,
DVE (digital video effects), audio, subtitling,
master control, live feed and long-form video
playout. But Gilbert points out there is still some
way to go before CIB becomes widely accepted
for premium channels.
Thinking inside the boxIntegrated playout can reduce costs and improve scalability for TV operators and broadcasters of all sizes, but it is not, at least yet, a universal panacea, argues Philip Hunter
Integrated playout
“It seems clear that over time all broadcast operations will adopt some form of integrated playout, as part of an overall migration towards IT and file based workflows, but it is not ready for complex or premium channels.”
26 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
Harmonic’s ChannelMaster
www.csimagazine.com September-October 2012 27
Integrated playout
“The requirements of some premium channels
in terms of playout formats, such as analogue, SD,
HD, terrestrial, satellite, perhaps 4:3 and 16:9,
international reach and regionalisation, can be
quite complex,” notes Gilbert. “For a fairly simple
channel, integrated playout can handle the
requirements - and even in some more complex
scenarios the technology can handle 70% of the
requirements - with only minimal additional
outlay to complete the chain. But in the case
of the most complex channels that figure can
be reversed: CIB technology may realistically
be providing 30% of the solution, with
additional spend to cover the other requirements,
and this clearly doesn’t make so much
economic sense.”
Such channels may also require additional
quite specific functions that cannot cost
effectively be accommodated within a CIB. “For
example, there may be a special audio device of
some sort that a broadcaster wants to use between
the video server and the graphics insertion,” says
Gilbert. “Without an audio effects send/return,
users won’t be able to do that. Broadcasters may
also, for example, need to do this if they are using
some form of proprietary VBI (vertical blanking
interval) inserter – a situation where demand is
likely to be so limited that no CIB provider will
bear the cost of integrating that technology.”
VBI is a hangover from the days of CRT
displays, being essentially the time gap between
display of successive frames, and is now used for
other functions, such as graphics synchronisation
and sending text data.
This leads onto a potential flaw common to
any system that integrates
multiple functions that
previously ran in standalone
systems, which is that it can be
a lowest common denominator
failing to excel at any of the
tasks. Gilbert admits that for
complex channels especially,
broadcasters still have a best-
of-breed mentality, where the
advantage of having optimum
components for each function
is deemed more important
than any cost savings that can be achieved by
integrated playout.
There is also a danger that existing functions
have to be given up, according to Andrew
Warman, senior product marketing manager at
Harris Broadcast Communications, which is
about to enter the integrated playout arena with a
product launch at IBC 2012.
“Today the typical benefits of reduced cost per
channel, less space, less power consumption and
easier overall integration for control, often mean
Special o�ersat IBC 2012Hall 5 A.21
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CBC in Toronto uses Miranda’s iTX platform to streamline its national tv and radio broadcast
Integrated playout
28 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
that some things are given up, such as automation
flexibility, system and device redundancy, play list
redundancy approaches, media storage flexibility,
choice of video codecs, and complexity of
graphics,” says Warman. Harris has been aiming
to avoid the need for such sacrifices in its new
product, he adds.
So far this lack of flexibility in particular has
almost entirely kept CIB out of newsrooms with
their specific and often complex integration
requirements for live content, according to Mark
Errington, CEO of Oasys, whose CIB product
called Player is aimed at medium-sized
broadcasters and operators. “Channel-in-a-box is
least applicable in the newsroom, especially where
there is a high degree of interaction with multiple
live sources, and controls over studio equipment
are required,” said Errington.
Choosing the CIB
Apart from the qualities of the CIB system itself,
an important consideration in choice of vendor
will be the approach to migration from legacy
playout chains comprising multiple components.
The challenge lies in continuing to work with
existing automation technology without imposing
constraints on the new integrated playout. Some
automation vendors have developed hybrid
solutions combining CIB with their existing
products, but most vendors of integrated playout
dismiss this approach as being too inflexible.
“These implementations are often constrained
by an automation system that was designed to
control many third party external devices often
via legacy drivers,” says Miranda’s Rose. “A
hybrid solution can lack the ability to truly exploit
the powerful graphics, effects and replay
capabilities of the integrated device.”
It also restricts choice of CIB, points out Pixel
Power’s Gilbert. “Using the hybrid model forces
the customer to choose the CIB solution made by
the customer’s automation provider and that may
be compromised in other key areas, or areas that
are of specific importance to that customer like
graphics, live capabilities and so on,” he says.
“More recent CIB solutions are automation-
agnostic so customers can choose their preferred
integrated playout technology independently of
their preferred automation system. It’s generally a
major upheaval to change an automation system.”
But although the automation system may not
be changed, the move to CIB should be
accompanied by a complete reappraisal of the
overall workflow and the associated quality
control processes to ensure that this does not
impose an additional burden on staff as the
playout functions are integrated. Unless this is
done, CIB will bring little benefit. Deployment of
CIB will inevitably involve some changes in the
process of content preparation and validation,
and at this stage action should be taken to avoid
need for additional checking by playout staff.
It is therefore what happens outside the box as
much as inside it that will determine its success.
While integrated playout will continue to expand
and embrace more workflow functions, it can
never replace the need for continuous
improvement in the surrounding processes of
content preparation and scheduling.
CBC in Toronto using Miranda’s iTX platform
Miranda iTX playout
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The birth of TV over 50 years
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way people view the world.
Now, another sea change is
occurring - the transition
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viewing behaviour. The
technologies behind the internet, mobile devices
and television are converging to form a new and
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electronics manufacturers, technology providers,
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Key to this vision of the future of TV is handing
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A new world of media engagement
Mobile usage is rapidly taking over as a standard
way of life as the number of mobile connections
worldwide rises to an all-time high – in fact, within
the next three years, mobile access to the internet
will surpass that of computers. Additionally, the
claim that mobile devices are increasingly serving
as a second-screen is supported by a recent study
conducted by media research company Nielsen,
which surveyed smartphone and tablet users in the
US. The research found that 88% of respondents
use their mobile device while watching TV. Of
these, 45% used their mobile devices to access
social networking services during television
adverts, 27% looked up product information for
ads they saw, and 22% looked up coupons or deals
related to the ads.
When you look at these findings together, you
have more than a trend – you have a tidal wave
that points to mobile devices both phone and
tablet - as the ideal candidate to revolutionise a
new category called “media engagement”. More
and more people everyday are using their mobiles
to consume content and interact with what they
are watching on television, whether it’s to get more
information about the shows they love or order
products they want to buy in the moment.
At Shazam, we have proven that content drives
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year’s Super Bowl, when we partnered with a third
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retailer, Best Buy, to make
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adverts Shazam-enabled.
Viewers were able to use their
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to win prizes, see exclusive
content and receive special offers. This
dramatically increased brand awareness, with
engagement numbers in the millions. More
recently, we launched our first interactive ad
campaigns in the UK with Pepsi Max and
Cadbury during ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent final and
received 50,000 tags in just one minute of airtime.
On average, 65% of people who tag ads and shows
go on to interact further.
As the digital revolution continues unabated, it
is imperative that advertisers and broadcasters
consider a second-screen strategy. We believe the
second-screen enables them to extend engagement
time, which both builds brand affinity and turns
fans into super-fans. Companion apps offering
this added content also provide an exclusive
experience that keeps viewers engaged in a show
from episode to episode. Increased viewership, of
course, is why networks are so attracted to second
screen capabilities which bridge the gap from one
episode to the next, ultimately turning a casual
viewer into a fan.
With the content revolution in full swing, the
way TV is watched is fundamentally changing in
today’s multi-screen environment, becoming more
personal, interactive and engaging. The TV
industry is on the verge of an incredible
transformation and using innovative technology
such as the second-screen allows brands to get
closer to consumers and, crucially, to extend their
engagement beyond the 30-second adverts to a
deeper, more interactive brand experience.
Get set for the second-screen revolutionAndrew Fisher, CEO of Shazam, argues that companion apps are heralding the biggest change in viewer behaviour in the history of TV
Opinion
30 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
“On average, 65% of people who tag ads and shows go on to interact further.”
Android and OTT
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32 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
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Technology push versus market
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It could be said that some early Internet-based
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When push comes to pullEchostar’s Gary Stephenson and Ian Walker discuss Android and other innovative converged technologies
Why are we hearing so much about Internet technologies such as Android™?
Gary Stephenson, Product
Manager IP at EchoStar: “The
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is moving across to mobile
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Ian Walker, Director of Sales &
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From the manufacturing perspective, the major CE companies
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www.csimagazine.com September-October 2012 33
Sponsored feature
What is the key to the proliferation of
the Android™ platform?
Ian Walker: “The market is
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TV. It is rapidly becoming the de facto
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The key is that it is open and freely
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For broadcasters, content owners and
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BBC iPlayer and SkyGo are perfect examples of
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suggested by the UK’s DTG in its D-book 7
release - is how such apps, in this case catch-up
TV and other pieces of IP delivered content,
become fully integrated into the guide, allowing a
single point of reference for the consumer. TV
platform operators are now looking to exploit
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Why are operators interested
in Android™?
Ian Walker: “Mobile telephony
operators are particularly
interested in Android for
delivering over-the-top entertainment
services since they see it as a natural
extension of what they are doing in the
mobile space – as such Android is
considered the prime candidate”.
Gary Stephenson: “For
operators who wish to offer
walled-garden Internet delivered
services Android fits the bill and is the
logical next stage”.
So along with the shift in delivery technology
has come about a shift in the devices upon which
we consume entertainment. The IT domain has
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giant tectonic plates; the result has been a string of
devices that support both IT/lifestyle and enter-
tainment applications and one of the biggest inno-
vations is the tablet – a walking, talking portable
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Android™ have resulted in the ubiquitous pres-
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entertainment based services.
What barriers exist to the roll-out of
Android in the pay TV space?
Ian Walker: “There will always
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uncertainty where there is
dependency on any large corporation with
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seems highly unlikely that Google would
switch their open software model
overnight – the current model has
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What’s fair to say is that the broadcaster
can no longer afford to focus on the main TV
alone as the on-the-go generation uses new
technology to pull media consumption outside the
home and to multiple devices. EchoStar’s
investment – for example – in Sling Media
and in platforms such as Android™ has ensured
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has had to evolve into something that is wholly
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36 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
Chairman: Richard Lindsay-Davies, director general, Digital Television Group (DTG)
Richard is responsible for the organisation’s overall growth and development.
With over 20 years of television industry experience, Richard drives the DTG’s collaborative
culture. Richard joined the Group as director of public affairs in 2004 working with
government and stakeholders to establish the UK digital switchover body, Digital UK. He was
appointed director general in 2006. Prior to DTG, he worked at Sony, Toshiba and Pace.
Ian Mecklenburgh, director of consumer
platforms, Virgin Media
Ian played an integral part in launching
TiVo, the company’s first next-generation
digital entertainment platform. Ian has
over 20 years experience in the
communications, IT and media sectors,
including the BBC and most recently consulting to the likes of DTG,
where he worked on the launch of Freesat.
Martin Stott , head of corporate and
regulatory affairs, Channel 5
Martin is responsible for policy, regulation
and public affairs. He joined Channel 5
eight years ago from Channel 4, where he
had been deputy head of corporate
relations. His first role in television was as
a press officer for Channel 4, specialising in press and publicity for
current affairs programmes.
Chris Higgs, managing director, itfc
Chris joined itfc in 1990 and has overseen
its growth to become a major supplier of
services to broadcasters, content owners
and distributors, as well as the transition
into a digital media services business.
Chris was responsible for the introduction
of major new business areas to the company, including subtitling,
audio description and signing.
David Padmore, executive team member,
Red Bee
David is responsible for Red Bee’s access
and metadata services operations. David
has worked in the access services industry
since joining the BBC as a subtitler in
1993, as well as pioneering the use of
speech recognition. He also expanded Red Bee activity to meet the
growing demands for accessibility across Europe and beyond.
Leen Petré, principal manager, media and
culture, RNIB
Leen is responsible for the charity’s policy
and campaigning to ensure access for
blind and partially sighted people to TV
and related new technologies. Leen was
chair and is now member of the
Consumer Expert Group on Digital Switchover. She joined RNIB as
European Campaigns Manager in 2000.
Terry Riley, CEO, BSLBT
Terry worked for 23 years on the BBC’s
See Hear programme, becoming its first
deaf editor in 2000. After leaving the BBC
he became the CEO of the newly founded
British Sign Language Broadcasting Trust
in 2008. He is currently the Chair of the
British Deaf Association and a board member of the World
Federation of the Deaf.
Panellists:
Accessibility roundtable
www.csimagazine.com September-October 2012 37
TV accessibilityWith millions of people affected by some form of visual or hearing impairment access service (AS) are a strategic priority for broadcasters. Extending current services to new VoD and connected platforms is a key challenge going forward, one that this roundtable sought to address
Chair: The UK has led the rest of the world
in AS for linear TV, but how do we transfer that
across into the connected TV world and how do we
even out the disparity between the online world and
broadcast world? How should we define access
services going forward?
Ian Mecklenburgh (IM): One of the challenges we
are having with the development of our TiVo
service is that the product has moved from being
a simple EPG proposition to something that
integrates OTT and movie content. We’re trying
to find a way to make that accessible to our entire
customer base outside the EPG grid content - 35%
of the content viewed on the TiVo platform
already doesn’t come via an EPG. What we’re
wrestling with now is how in that world of time
shifted television and internet delivered TV we
deliver accessibility across all types of media.
David Padmore (DP): I would say from the
viewers’ point of view, they don’t care about the
source of the programme they are watching on
their TV set. They will distinguish less and less on
any connected TV platform where that video has
come from. We shouldn’t restrict the definition of
AS to the broadcast world; it is about all video, on
whatever platform.
Leen Petre (LP): From the users’ point of view,
the AS are in essence the services that make the
content accessible. So for blind and partially
sighted people that would be audio description
(AD) and that service is proven to work for
content that is delivered to cinemas, DVD
and linear TV. They don’t care whether the
content is on-demand, but they expect a
certain amount of that to be made accessible
through AD.
Terry Riley (TR): You need to look at what
provisions you have at the moment, because
there’s no point in transmitting if the original
service does not match the end-user. I’m speaking
as a consumer myself, not as BSLBT chair. I
watch subtitles every day, I can’t manage without
them or in-vision signing, and I’m not happy with
the service I receive. Subtitles are sometimes quite
poorly done and confuse the consumer even
more. We need to look at what we provide now
and make sure the mistakes are not transferred to
other mediums of TV.
Chris Higgs (CH): Believe me, the quality
of AS in the UK are probably the best in the
world. I think the challenge we face is the
delivery of these services because everybody
has different mechanism for watching video
these days. The challenge compared to trying to
get AD to DTT is there are now a multitude of
products in the UK with AS produced on them.
How do you get these into the different platforms?
The audience expects if they’ve seen a programme
with subtitles and AD on broadcast TV that it will
carry automatically onto whatever platform they
watch it on later.
Martin Stott (MS): I agree. I think the immediate
challenge as more on-demand (OD) viewing takes
place is to expect the same sort of provision.
What we have to remember is that most of the
OD viewing is of programmes that were actually a
linear service, although I acknowledge that a large
portion of content available on platforms like
TiVo isn’t linear.
IM: Which is the problem we have: the assets that
we receive for VoD are not necessarily delivered
with AD the same as they were when originally
broadcast. One of the other challenges from the
consumer side we have to make sure is that when
things get time shifted that the different variants
are made available to people. One of the things we
have inside our TiVo UI is a signing zone, collec-
tions of content that are graphically accessed. And
one of the things we noticed was that a lot of the
signed programming was at strange times of the
morning so we’ve started having our editors
looking through the schedules for the signed
versions of programmes because it’s all well and
good having the content there but actually
surfacing that through the platforms is important.
AS quality and search & discovery
Chair: Going back to Terry’s point of quality, David
is there a serious QoS problem that we can try to
improve?
DP: I think it’s something that is a core
Accessibility roundtable
requirement of the service providers, not only in
terms of the level of regulation, but the UK has a
set of content owners and broadcasters who are
also very committed to the QoS of the AS they
produce. It’s part of our lives to improve the
quality and continually invest in technology to
improve the level of textual accuracy in live
subtitling. I would agree however that the
exponential growth in video and the proliferation
of platforms to watch video is eroding some of
that quality due to a lack of standards or best
practices on these other platforms compared to
linear. I also know a frustration of the audience is
where there are live subtitles on what are
obviously pre-recorded programmes. But it’s a fact
of the service provider’s life that sometimes you
don’t get the video delivered to you before the
point of transmission.
LP: On the quality point, we have to recognise
that AD is an art not a science and there will
always be a difference of opinion and
interpretation, and we as an organisation
recognise that, as do most of the audience. The
gap around that quality of AD is there is no
central point or easy way for people to log
complaints or comments about AS. It’s an issue
we’ve raised with Ofcom and we hope they will
play a more central role in the future.
As for content & discovery, the key point here
is that indeed a lot of the content that is audio
described for linear TV can also be found on
catch-up and OD. We have to maximise
opportunities to make sure content travels across
media, from cinema and DVD into that OTT
world, and that’s where providers tell us they face
technical barriers, such as the procurement
process of media players for example, some of
which aren’t written or produced in the UK.
Chair: Martin, from a YouView perspective, this is a
great opportunity to embrace the new technology
coming in and I understand from Richard Halton
that they have spent a lot of time addressing AS.
MS: This is a positional issue, which is that as we
move more and more towards OD content there is
a lag in terms of AS that people associate with
linear are not immediately available OD. With
YouView it’s down to the individual players.
IM: Some people are using YouTube as a
distribution mechanism, which again begs the
question how AD and subtitles will be carried
through what traditionally are called OTT players
into TV platforms.
DP: There are a large number of complaints
which are to do with the reception and the ability
of the STB to decode the subtitles. That’s not to
say there aren’t inaccuracies but the broadcasters
are putting more pressure contractually to
increase the quality and textual accuracy of live
subtitling. We are subtitling more challenging
content. It would be useful for there to be better
open dialogue about what those audience
expectations should be.
We are trying to invest in technology,
particularly speech recognition, to increase the
text accuracy of live subtitling. The quality of
speech recognition is improving through the
investment that Google and Apple are making.
There’s genuine cause for optimism that the
access industry will benefit from that investment
and that live subtitling will continue to improve
over time.
Chair: Martin, as a channel provider on all these
platforms, who do people call, is it you?
MS: That’s part of the fragmentation we talk
about. If you’re a Sky customer, you might call
Sky.
DP: More and more that’s done on Facebook
and Twitter, that’s where a lot of the activity is on
access complaints.
TR: In the old days, we had an organisation
called DBC, who used to accept complaints
about subtitles and signed programming. A lot of
complaints now go directly to us but who do we
pass them on to deal with? How can we ensure
deaf people with legitimate complaints can pass
it on to the right people, in their first language,
which would predominantly be BSL?
MS: Like most broadcasters we have teams
who are there to handle complaints from
viewers. I understand they might not be able
to handle complaints in BSL directly but they
have friends or relatives who can complain
on their behalf. We are open for business on the
complaints front!
CH: We never got those issues a few years ago.
The BBC, ITV, Channel 5 and others are getting
closer to having most of their programmes
subtitled so you’re now subtitling things on the
38 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
Accessibility roundtable
edges of the quality barrier almost, including
programmes that are totally unscripted with fast
dialogue that have to be edited otherwise you will
see nothing on the screen apart from text. As
David said, we’re ahead of the technology: it’s still
somebody re-speaking or retyping the spoken
word, you will get errors, and there will be
complaints.
CH: We have to remember that subtitling is a
costly service to broadcasters. Companies such as
red Bee and ITFC have done an enormous
amount to bring those costs down by new working
methods and efficiencies. You have to bear these
costs in mind. Broadcasters see no financial
benefit out of subtitling and AS in the face of
declining revenues and profits. I think there are
more important things to discuss than the quality
of live subtitling, which I think is pretty good.
LP: I wanted to talk about programme discovery,
particularly for AD, which there isn’t that much
of. It’s important there are mechanisms in place
that help people find which programmes carry
AD. This is a problem for OD and catch-up
services, which don’t have some of the features in
place as for linear EPGs. You View won’t resolve
this problem. They are committed to providing AS
on linear but in terms of catch up or OD they are
be dependent on the media players.
Technology and standards
Chair: Coming onto technology, we have digital
broadcast, which in many ways isn’t any easier to
synchronise than analogue, but in the future as we
move away from broadcast to IP it will be easier to
add components and synchronise them. What do we
think are the horses we should be backing to help
discovery of AS?
LP: The solution for linear broadcasting was flags
in the EPG, indicating there is AD or subtitle that
goes with that file, and that was mandated by
Ofcom. There needs to be some technical work
done here that this things work across all
platforms. We as an organisation don’t expect OD
catch-up services to deliver receiver-mixed AD, go
with whatever is easier.
CH: If the content is not there then the discovery
is almost a side issue. I think what’s worth having
a discussion of here is the flow of AS through the
chain. We describe many films for cinema release
and there is no set chain for AD or subtitling from
that onto DVDs and other platforms. There is no
set mechanism where that AD or subtitles will
travel though the life of that content. And if you
have problems getting it from cinema to DVD
think of the problems you will have getting it to all
these new platforms. There are so many
components in the chain and it’s about unravelling
these. So you will continue to see massive gaps
unless that’s resolved.
MS: It’s not that straightforward from the point of
view of a broadcaster. Take a movie that comes
audio described from the cinema: we need to
insert commercial breaks in it, we may need to
edit it, make it comply with the broadcast code…
therefore what you end up with is a piece of linear
content that’s not the same, so you need to do the
AD again because the content changes.
DP: There’s another way of looking at this, which
may be idealistic, and that’s as the core value of
the access files to the content owner. What you get
when you create a subtitle or AD file is a set of
metadata about that piece of content. That
metadata is of great value to the whole content
discovery equation and increasingly we are finding
examples where content owners are beginning to
recognise the value of having a timed transcript of
the subtitled file of all their content. AD gives a
completely different spin on that metadata that we
can educate the broadcasters on. There’s lots of
value in those access files to things like archiving,
search & discovery, recommendations and even
targeted advertising, and I think the accessibility
agenda can really benefit from that.
Chair: Are there gaps in the standard?
DP: There are definitely gaps. Particularly with
AD we have a real problem with workflows, there
is a need with AD to standardise workflows.
IM: We launched TiVo 18 months ago and built in
basic accessibility functions like simple audio cues.
Of the one billion VoD views we did last year an
incredibly small volume came with audio
described VoD. BBC iPlayer used to run from our
VoD service, where it was our responsibility to
carry the subtitles and AD, but what happens now
is it deep links and fires up an iPlayer app in the
same way it does on YV at which point we pass
over control of that to the broadcaster. If we
launch to a player type world, which many of the
broadcasters are pushing for, we have to pass that
Accessibility roundtable
www.csimagazine.com September-Octover 2012 39
responsibility to someone else. I’m not sure
standards and regulations have caught up to this
new world we have created.
LP: If you have a service where there are no
additional breaks or editorial requirements, then
why can I get a film that has been audio described
by a studio on Netflix without that description? I
have a suspicion that it is a question of different
file formats and that’s a technical issue that needs
resolving. The model we should be looking at is
what the BBC Trust has chosen to implement.
They have chosen in their OD syndication that it
is their responsibility to take that content with
them no matter what iteration of the iPlayer you
are looking at.
TR: I meet a lot of deaf people and the UK is the
envy of the world for subtitling. We have 85-90%
legislated subtitling and signing is strong too.
BSLBT was set up because in-vision signed
programmes weren’t working as well as they could
do. Are we spending money on access services
when really the actual BSL community isn’t
getting the full value out of the money invested?
For me, the choice of programming and the time
in-vision signed programming is transmitted is a
waste of money, especially if I don’t have the
facility to record.
MS: We have to provide signing for 5% of our
programmes, but we don’t have the technology to
provide signing on a closed basis. Subtitling and
AD you can turn on and off, whereas it’s there all
the time with signing. So like most broadcasters,
we push it in the middle of the night because for
the vast majority of our viewers it is of no benefit
at all. This is something we have to look, how we
can best serve the BSL community.
TR: The difference between in-vision signed
programming and BSLBT made programming is
that ours are originally made for BSL audience.
It’s a different language, a different culture and
different pacing of the programme. Many deaf
production companies are now being set up and
they have a greater connection to the deaf
community. I think we need to be talking to
Ofcom about where we can include other
broadcasters. Internationally, we also have a
wonderful opportunity.
DP: Speaking on behalf of the broadcasters who
make the decision which content does get signed,
I think it’s right that a representative sample of
the programmes, the high profile ones, do get
interpretation. Hollyoaks and children’s channels
are good examples where signing is more high
profile within the schedule.
Regulation
Chair: I always think we should try and avoid
regulation at all cost and get the market to deliver it
initially. Do you have a view on this Martin?
MS: We have a good reputation in the UK
because the legislation that requires broadcasters
to provide AS. There is a requirement through
ATVOD that access services are carried OD and
this may turn into a regulatory obligation.
IM: If there is regulation it needs to be applied to
everyone and create a level playing field that also
includes pure OTT IP players.
LP: We’re not an organisation that will ask for
regulation if there are other means to do it but the
market system isn’t delivering on the OD front.
We have to be clever however in terms of
segmenting between some of those OD and catch
up services.
MS: It is much better if there is a collaborative
view about how we can provide AS on new
platforms, thereby how we can avoid regulation
but we shouldn’t forget it was regulation that
brought us to where we are now.
TR: It’s about compromise and negotiation.
LP: As a country, we have very strong anti
discrimination legislation around disability which
others don’t in Europe. To some extent that also
explains where we are in the UK.
CH: How many people that use AS are using the
new platforms and which platforms they are using
is what we need to understand. Maybe those
platforms should be targeted rather than
everything being blanketed.
IM: IIf we’re over-regulated that might stifle some
of that innovation.
DP: For me the biggest challenge at the moment
probably sits with the technology side of the
debate, the workflows and standardisation of file
formats. The outcome of those processes will be
crucial to making sure as online video proliferates
that the levels of accessibility we’ve seen on linear
TV translate into the new world.
Accessibility roundtable
40 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
This roundtable took place at the DTG’s
headquarters in London. Situated on the banks
of the Thames with views of Parliament and the
London Eye, the DTG’s modern conference
centre, meeting facilities and state-of-the-art
digital TV demonstration room are available free
of charge to DTG members and can be hired by
non-members for corporate events.
Multi-network security
Focus sponsored by:
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ine.
com
42 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
Sponsored feature
Cable and satellite operators
around the globe are
increasingly adopting hybrid
networks with various
combinations of DVB, IP and
over-the-top (OTT)
components as a fast and
efficient route for adding compelling new services to
previously broadcast-only, or one-way, pay-TV
networks. Therefore much attention is now being
placed on how operators can efficiently and cost-
effectively secure these new hybrid network
configurations.
While the addition of IP connectivity does pro-
vide a mechanism to broaden the operator’s ser-
vice offering, and can be undertaken as a stand-
alone project, it also presents a valuable opportu-
nity to re-evaluate the merits of an integrated
approach to revenue security for the pay-TV ser-
vice as a whole – including traditional broadcast
only delivery.
Broadcasters have historically entrusted the
security of their delivery service to conditional
access systems (CAS) with the foundation being a
removable smart card device with specialised
microprocessors and many layers of protection to
prevent internal logic from being compromised. In
a system architecture with limited or no return
path mechanisms, the smart card served as a
receiver identifier, a physical root of trust and a
defensible storage area for entitlement tokens,
local usage information, and the like.
The use of smart cards has long been a chal-
lenge from a cost and logistics perspective, but
the new reality of multi-network service delivery
also highlights the central role of protecting ser-
vice revenue in a rapidly evolving market land-
scape and how to achieve this goal. The market
dynamics, especially when combined with innova-
tion that has taken place over recent years,
demands that operators take a closer look at alter-
native approaches.
New market dynamics
Fast-paced technological advances in the software
and hardware underpinnings of security have dra-
matically changed the options available to service
providers as they contemplate new video service
and application strategies. Some old assumptions
as to the fundamentals of revenue security are no
longer valid. Consider the following:
The security architecture of the modern set top
box (STB) is increasingly becoming a function of
the sophisticated system-on-a-chip (SoC) devices
at the heart of their design. It is the enhanced
ability to embed custom secrets into these devices
that starts to blur the line between the protection
regime of a smart card and that of the STB itself.
From a high level, generic perspective (since
details of these techniques are highly proprietary),
even low cost SoC devices can now offer at least
the capability to be individualised with:
• Fixed unique identifiers;
• Hardware verified bootstrap mechanisms; and
• Embedded secret encryption keys.
The individualised subsystems of the SoC
solution are intrinsic to addressing the rampant
“control word sharing” piracy problem. This
type of piracy is most prevalent in environments
where content is available through the internet,
necessitating the revision of the entire security
strategy. In legacy systems, the control word (the
lowest level content scrambling key) appears “in
the clear” at some point between the smart card
and the SoC video/audio descrambler. Content
pirates have frequently found ways to intercept
these keys and share them in real time with other
(non-paying) subscribers over the internet. Thus
one compromised broadcast receiver can be used
as a “server” for many others to steal pay-TV
services. In the new individualised SoC
architectures, a common key is never exposed in
the control flow, and hence defeats the control
word sharing threat.
As this type of security breach has become the
predominant threat to broadcast pay-TV revenue,
use of these individualised SoC mechanisms at the
core of the implementation is being an
increasingly relevant and popular way to defeat
this type of attack and eclipse the system
contribution of the smart card. In fact, eliminating
the link between the card and the STB reduces the
potential exposure of any critical information and
removes an external interface that can be used to
enable information sharing techniques.
The most sophisticated examples of SoC
security solutions leverage highly engineered
security cores that are fully integrated into the
device, providing a hardware foundation that is
designed to defeat power, electromagnetic or other
signature analysis techniques. For instance,
Cryptography Research offers the CryptoFirewall
self-contained ASIC security core technology to
help build advanced solutions that integrate
completely with the software components of the
conditional access logic.
The full significance of these SoC advances is,
however, the extent to which they complement and
ruggedise the now highly developed
implementations of software security subsystems.
The newest techniques of software hardening -
often essential to meet content owners’ robus-tness
guidelines which attempt to ensure the adherence
of each device to specific licensing restrictions and
Securing hybrid deploymentsSteve Christian, VP of marketing at Verimatrix, explores a comprehensive approach to cardless multi-network security
“The full significance of SoC advances is the extent to which they complement and ruggedise the now highly developed implementations of software security subsystems.”
www.csimagazine.com September-October 2012 43
Sponsored feature
resilience to various forms of illegitimate usage -
include:
• Code obfuscation;
• Code integrity checking;
• White-box cryptography;
• Execution monitoring;
• Software authentication/verification;
• Binary encryption; and
• Clone detection.
These well honed techniques are at their most
effective when they leverage the hardware
subsystems of the underlying SoC. This takes us a
step beyond the benefits of software only-based
security, into the realm of integrated hardware
and software systems which achieve in a cardless
architecture the same or better levels of revenue
protection as a legacy smartcard approach. This
level of implementation is likely to become the
new gold standard as the momentum of
new security architecture adoption is seen
to accelerate.
The growing deployment of hybrid service
architectures creates an increasing proportion of
broadcast STB populations with a continuously
connected IP back channel. There is a highly
developed set of techniques that can use this
return channel for key management, integrity and
usage monitoring that extends beyond anything
supportable on a broadcast only STB. Some of the
more interesting techniques that illustrate the
power of a combined broadcast IP security
solution are out-of-band key delivery, explicit
confirmation of device entitlement changes and
bandwidth efficient software updates.
And, last but not least, we address renewability.
Renewability of security subsystems, for example,
is a distinct advantage in a landscape of fast
changing threats and business opportunities.
Content security is an arms race against pirates
and fraudsters, so the security must be renewable.
Software security, in combination with state-of-the-
art secure SoC technology, offers flexible
renewability options allowing service providers to
be proactive in their countermeasures approach
without the high costs of hardware update.
Counter to the flexibility created by the
mobility of GSM smart cards between client
devices, the portability of the pay-TV smart card
has proven to be a burden rather than an asset to
the industry. The logistics associated with separate
manufacture, programming, tracking and
consumer delivery at initial service purchase are
very considerable. After authentication, the smart
cards are frequently tied to specific STB hardware
and consumer level portability is highly restricted.
When considered alongside the logistics issues
of swapping smart card populations, including
STB incompatibility and call centre support, the
overheads of the separable hardware can hardly be
exaggerated. These costs, as well as the physical
costs of cards and the support logic to provide
reliable interfaces within STBs, lead
many new digital TV system operators in these
regions to demand a cardless security solution
from the outset.
Multi-network cardless solutions
in the real world
Software-centric security mechanisms are an
accepted fact of life for services that are streamed
across the internet and form the basis for this new
and exciting industry – after all, who wants to
suggest pushing a smart card into the back of a
PC or iPad to enable information and
entertainment services? Software-based security
solutions have also been propelling the global
telco-TV market to global prominence over the last
decade – the global footprint of Verimatrix is
testament to how effective these solutions have
been in deployment, and the extent to which they
have gained the confidence of the content
licensing community. Now seems like the right
time to evaluate the use of similar technologies in
hybrid and DVB deployments and reap the
benefits of ten+ years of product innovation
with a truly comprehensive single revenue
security architecture.
Consider, for example the recent selection
by YOU SCOD18 in Mumbai as an
example of an operator collective with
hard deadlines as a result of the
digitalisation initiative in India.
Rather than rolling out a traditional
DVB broadcast solution on their
cable infrastructure and a separate
broadband service for connected
devices, they opted for a
complete security
upgrade to a cardless
security solution. YOU
SCOD18 has taken on the
challenge of multi-network
content availability that optimises revenue sources
through a single security head-end. As stated by
the operator:
“We evaluated several CAS vendors and
ultimately chose to partner with Verimatrix
because of its ability to provide us with a true,
integrated multi-screen platform,” states N K
Rouse, director, YOU SCOD 18. “Choosing the
right security technology is a critical competitive
differentiator, especially with so many operators
participating in India’s digitalisation initiative. We
believe that partnering with Verimatrix will result
in many unique benefits, including enhanced
revenue security and the flexibility to easily
develop and deploy new multi-screen services
business models.”
A new market transition?
The acceleration of digital TV distribution in all
its forms, and the challenges of new service
deployments in the developing world speak to the
nature of the transitions underway in the pay-TV
world globally. Standing back from some of the
old philosophical fights about old and new
approaches to protecting the revenue of pay-TV
services, the nature of the new hybrid marketplace
and the shifts of technology and threat suggest a
significant change of dynamic. Integrated cardless
security solutions seem poised to delivery a highly
effective option to both IP-centric and traditional
broadcast service operators.
Beyond Content Protection to Revenue Security™
Join us for
Real World Solutionsfor Multi-network Revenue Security
erimatrix
Sept. 8 • 8:30 - 10:00 amIBC 2012 • Amsterdam
RAI Convention Centre • Room G102-103
Visit us at IBC - Booth #4.B54
46 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
Social TV roundtableThe onset of the internet and companion devices is bringing about new levels of interactivity, which in turn is fuelling new forms of social TV. But where are the biggest opportunities, who will benefit and where is the mon-ey to be found? This roundtable answered these questions and more.
Social TV roundtable
Future roundtables: CSI will be staging roundtable discussions on Shifting viewing habits; Satellite broadband, Cable CCAP and CDNs among others. For speaker/sponsorship opportunities contact Tiro Bestonso at [email protected] or +44 20 7562 2427
Chairman: Simon Gauntlett,
technology director, DTG
Simon is responsible for setting the
organisation’s strategic technical vision,
directing the group’s technical programme
and managing the DTG’s technology team.
Since joining the DTG in 2006, Simon has
edited and published three updated versions of the D-Book - the
technical specification for DTT in the UK. Prior to working for the
DTG, Simon spent seven years at the BBC’s R&D department.
Paul Robinson, president of international
for A Squared Elxsi (A2E2)
A2E2 is a creator, producer and
distributor of media entertainment for
children, and prior to joining the company
this year, Paul founded kids TV channel
KidsCo in 2005. He has also worked for
BBC Radio One and Walt Disney Company, where he still acts as a
media consultant.
Katy Howell, managing director,
immediate future
Katy helps brands like Sony, BBC and
HSBC adopt, integrate, and deploy social
media. With over eight years’ social media
experience and 25 years in marketing, she
advises companies: creating robust and
measureable strategies, working with a team of consultants.
Mark Christie, CTO, KIT digital
Mark has over 15 years experience in
engineering and technology roles, and
currently spearheads innovative and
highly customised solutions for customer
deployments. Prior to joining KIT, Mark
was the CEO of Ioko and co-founded the
business in 1996, before it was acquired by KIT in April 2011.
Andy Hooper, director, converged
experiences, home business, Motorola
Mobility EMEA
In his role, Andy is involved with his team
in many leading edge discussions with
cable, satellite and IPTV service
providers, and is advising clients how to
win in the multi-screen world. Andy has worked at Motorola for six
years, and has a 16 year career in consulting and software sales, pre-
sales and product management.
Andy Eardley, co-founder, TV App Agency
Andy’s involvement in TV App Agency
follows 25 years experience building
businesses in the technology and software
sectors. He worked with firms including
Apple, HP, IBM and then moved into the
software sector. The TV AA was launched
in 2011 to provide TV app development and app store submission,
enabling companies to get onto connected TV.
Pa
nel
lists
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www.csimagazine.com September-October 2012 47
Chairman: I guess we should start in trying to
understand what is social TV? Can we put a box
around it? Is it about changing the way we watch
and interact with TV?
Andy Eardley (AE): You’ve got two types of social:
you’ve got the private social TV (STV) and the
public social TV. Private STV has always been in
our living rooms where we share with our families
and people within those walls. And then you have
public STV which goes potentially across the
globe. It could be commenting about a show
together. It could also be a difference between
social and anti-social TV. You can see Twitter and
Facebook (FB) apps on TV but do you want to
see someone else’s Twitter feed on your TV?
Katie Howell (KH): I’d say it’s even broader than
that. We had the same debate six years ago about
social media, asking what it is. From a marketeers’
perspective it’s about being social. It’s any
interaction between a community that is
connected and talking abut TV programmes or
broadcasters. That would be my definition. It’s
about connected communities as opposed to the
device, which is just a facilitator.
AE: But there is a most appropriate device for
what’s going on. Sharing it with a friend on
Twitter or Facebook shouldn’t appear on your TV.
It can appear on smartphones or tablets which is
the appropriate place for it.
KH: Audiences will wonder on and off devices
they are using, they will happily jump form one to
another, expecting a seamless experience but
blending the standards of Facebook and Twitter
with unique propositions quite happily.
Chair: Is there an interest in what Joe Bloggs is
talking about or more about the trends associated
with a particular programme?
KH: I think it’s a bit of everything. You get a
mixture of arguments and opinion and expression.
You get more consolidated social conversation
usually a few days after the show is broadcast.
Understanding that flow is part of every
programmes definition of social analytics.
Chair: Are the content makers and producers
starting to use STV more?
Paul Robinson (PR): I think the answer is yes.
Before digital came along we had very little supply
of channels and audiences were large as a result
of that, watching the same thing, they didn’t need
other means of engagement with those shows. As
we’ve got more supply, there’s been more
fragmentation of viewing and technology has
enabled us to re-engage people back and continue
to keep TV as a talking point. So I think as a TV
content creator that’s a great thing because the
big risk for us is that TV would not play the same
role in peoples lives. We want people to talk about
TV and I see social media as being about keeping
TV salient and a topic of conversation. But it’s
also a means of discovery; in a world with more
choice it becomes more difficult to find new
things, it becomes harder to break down silos and
find out about things you don’t know. Even
recommendation engines only tell you about
programmes they know you like.
To answer your question, we are now thinking
very careful about how to construct storylines and
alternative end games that will enable people to
talk about your product versus someone else’s. If
you can build brand awareness through a Twitter
stream that’s good business. Do we know all the
tricks yet? Absolutely not. It’s still early days.
Chair: Is it all about live, or is it about the long tail
too?
AE: Look at the numbers from Netflix. They just
streamed over one billion hours of VoD in June,
which is bigger than a lot of cable operators.
Andy Hooper (AH): One of the ways they drive
that amount of take up is through their Facebook
integration. The amount of people who are
connecting their FB accounts to these apps for
OD content periodically do help them find
content to watch. It is about OD and live but it’s a
different type of engagement.
KH: It’s wider than just that live programme. It’s
about extending the conversation to provide more
opportunities for more monetisation of the
content. So how can I take that programme and
episode it across the week or broaden it using
social interaction? You see programmes like Mad
Men grab the social consciousness and people are
creating their bits around it, almost co-create with
the programme. It’s that kind of broader thinking
that will come into play with social and connected
audiences.
AE: The second screen has allowed TV to be a
broadcast medium in the house but your
personalised experiences are kept there, doing
your social interactions while watching the TV
with other people.
PR: That’s exactly what happens now. Everyone is
watching the TV but have their own individual
second device doing their own thing. What is
interesting is that research I’ve seen suggests
that most of that activity is not directly related
to what’s happening on TV. It’s actually people
checking their FB accounts, emailing etc.
Maybe 20% might be related to television. That’s
why there is no real money at the moment
because you can’t engage that audience, there’s
not enough of them.
Mark Christie (MC): So it’s a multi-tasking
model. There is an argument to say that having
lots of interactivity when watching a programme
takes the value off it because you’re not
concentrating. That’s different depending on
genre, eg live shows like X-Factor and movies.
PR: A great example of a programme that did try
to design itself that you could have a second
Social TV roundtable
screen experience is Channel 4’s Million Pound
Drop, where the engagement was around 25% of
the total viewing audience which I think is the
highest percentage of any programme in the UK.
They actually built in pauses so you had time to
answer questions on the second screen without
missing what was happening on the main screen.
They even took feedback from online players to
determine the order. That’s an example where live
allows you to really add value and integrate the
social experience.
MC: That’s a great innovative example of what
you can do with the medium. I think the tablet
has created this idea about this ability to create an
app which has social features but opens up this
second screen space to additional or enhanced
content about what you are watching or
monetisation opportunities with interactive
adverts. It’s about that call to action you can do
on a personalised basis within the broadcast
medium. I’m seeing people commissioning things
on a one off basis to see what works. We’re still in
the learning phase. But even now production
companies are looking for that interactive
experience. From our side we are interested in the
technology you need to build that ecosystem. For
example what kind of metadata can we help
create to drive the interactive elements of the
second screen to make it a more compelling
viewing experience?
AE: That is the reality today. All of these are
disconnected islands of technology connected by
the consumer and they are in their infancy.
Million Pound Drop is not without its hiccups.
AH: One of the things that we are seeing is the
infancy is definitely there in terms of programme
data it gets delivered to service providers, it
doesn’t have the richness of connective
information the hyperlinks if you like between the
programme metadata and the actual apps that
exist on the devices. What it will facilitate when it
matures is a much more immersive experience
and one which doesn’t have that cliff you almost
have to climb over as a consumer. That points to
the direction in which we will go. At some point
as we resolve the platforms, there is enough scale
to make it easy to use and frictionless. It becomes
quite incredible from an advertising
perspective too.
Chair: You need to give people a compelling reason
to connect their products, which will then create a
mass market for advertisers to monetise.
KH: It’s quite complex still just to try make your
devices hooked up.
AH: Ultimately today, what’s the aggregation
point? You generally need to install an app per
TV programme. You can get app fatigue quite
quickly. So is it at the level of the service provider
or national set of standards? That’s a level of
infancy too we are nowhere near to
underst5anding how that plays out. Though there
will be vast and varied commercial interests that
will drive that.
KH: It will be driven by commercial intention as
well. The other thing that is missing that will
come in the next year or two, on the social side
you see brands saying we have to build social in
from the ground up. I wonder whether or not
content wise there is an appetite for that.
PR: We are doing a new show with the creator of
Spiderman, Stan Lee, his first animated feature.
He’s set up a YouTube site to build his brand
around that hub. He believes that will differentiate
him from other content creators.
MC: There’s also an extension to that in being
able to have apps that add another dimension on
how you interact with those movies. It creates a
new medium in some ways, where users drive the
story through feedback.
PR: I think going forward genuine alternative
endings is exactly where we will go.
KH: It plays on something else, which is the
marketing and brand industry has moved on in
social to the point where you can’t but miss that
brands will try be broadcasters and media is
playing large part in way they work in social. One
issue that worries me from a marketing point of
view about STV and monetisation point of view is
that it just relies on advertising with a little
interactive thing in the middle. I think you will
see marketers and the monetisation of this
coming from brands wanting to create content
that’s episodal and plays out in the social space,
that continues what’s been on TV, almost brand
owned content layed on top of this. That might
create some friction.
As broadcasters look to monetise STV they will
find themselves against a wall when it comes to
social because there is only so much they can play
the advertising sponsorship card. Righst issues
come into play here.
AE: The broadcaster has been the gatekeeper, as
has been the set-top box manufactures. They’ve
bee the gatekeeper in getting to the living room.
When actually the content owner really wants to
get out to the world, you own the rights. And
make them as simple as possible. But you have to
48 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
Social TV roundtable
go through artificial silos of country based
broadcasters that is expensive for content owners.
This will change with the internet, which is a huge
disruptor.
PR: You’re totally right about gatekeepers and
right that the whole gatekeeper model will change.
FTA broadcasters and payTV providers are
challenges by OTT players like Netlfix. I think the
other side of that coin is to what extend will
consumers want somebody to help them guide
them through all this as a trusted destination. Will
there be gatekeepers of a different sort? Will it be
Google maybe? Zero gatekeepers is not realistic
abut there will be a different relationship,
economics and new players coming in.
Chair: Is that where the social media community
would then come in?
KH: Curated communities; you can see around
various programmes or content channels and I
suspect Google will make a massive play for it.
AE: IPTV will fundamentally change how we
interact with our TV and how we do that socially.
TV has been social from day 1 but it will change
how we connect devices.
AH: One of the things that concerns me as a user
of these services, when you think about the layers,
whosever app you are using, it comes down to
identity too. Who are am I trusting with my
identity, the permissions I’m granting to that
entity or organisation I’m allowing to make use of
my data? Will I allow it to know anything
personal about me before it suggests and
recommends to me? Who are the big
organisations you trust with your identity? Is it
Facebook and Google? The owners we trust to
curate our identity for us, potentially they are the
ones who win longer term here.
PR: I think you’re right but I would cite examples
of connections to FB that have had a dramatic
impact of the volumes of use to a particular
application. Spotify’s usage almost doubled when
they linked to FB. We have to understand that is
the reality. We have to accept that TV is not the
only route to market and TV is not the panacea
now. It’s not the only way to build a brand.
KH: If you can tap into the passions and interests
of your community that you create something that
will resonate with the community. I think the
biggest killer of social is the fickleness of the
consumer and the privacy issues. Things like
having to ‘Like’ something become barriers to
entry just like filling in forms.
PR: Communications have become a lot less
formal and FB, Twitter and text are all acceptable
ways of talking business as well as personal, so
you’re right.
Chair: If part of the social is about getting more
engagement in content, how do people monetise
that?
AE: There’s a whole lot of ways of monetising.
The world of mobile has taught us that you can
offer apps for free to get people engaged and then
give them a premium version with no disruptions.
You can deliver apps to TV with no pre roll, mid
roll and post roll ads for example. Or you can
deliver first part of content for free and expect
them to pay for subsequent programmes. This is a
lot more than just advertising but it is a huge
bucket, especially for TV. You then also think of
all the retail opportunities, in-app purchases, and
the monetisation is incredible.
MC: It seems to me that content owners like the
fragmented market of rights based geographies
because they are selling the same thing over and
over again with different rights and there must be
a tipping point. Take the Simpsons, when would it
make commercial sense to go direct to consumer
as opposed to the rights negotiations they do at
the moment? Or would this just be another
opportunity for content distribution alongside
existing models?
PR: Multiple organisations selling content is great
for us because it drives up prices but it also
creates different economic windows which you
want to try take your content through, including
Netlfix and YouTube which is incidentally
fantastic for building a brand. You now have all
these different platforms which is a positive
attribute but the complexity is the rights issues
and there is a lot of legacy here.
AE: The whole new world of social TV is about
going direct to consumer.
PR: Communities is a fantastic model but the
challenge is there is an expectation on the web
that people won’t pay for stuff, which you have to
manage because at the end of the day good
content takes money.
AH: I would argue against that. The FB games
market is growing and there is money in that.
PR: You are giving away a huge amount of that
pie to FB though for that scale.
MC: You can almost imagine a single app which
Social TV roundtable
www.csimagazine.com September-Octover 2012 49
is a social EPG and any interactivity on the
broadcast is delivered to the single app and then
shown and loaded on the app. Zeebox have gone
over the top of any value chains in terms of the
broadcast to monetise the second screen by doing
that and that’s an interesting business model.
Broadcasters are stuck with a limited inventory in
terms of a number of ads they can show within an
hour of TV and the only way they can increase
their revenues is by doing that interactive app and
taking it to the advertisers to push up the price
and volumes. Zeebox is a great service but will
ad-funded broadcasters see them encroaching on
their territory?
AH: Zeebox have other distribution and
partnership deals launching in other countries. In
terms of their route to market for their social
experience is to launch as an app first, get some
traction and usage. Almost to show the TV
companies and ad agencies and aggregators they
have an audience of their own OTT and then go
back to broadcasters and say “You should partner
with us and bring our own social audience.” It’s
amazing the amount of small cable and telcos
we’ve talked to who didn’t think they could
launch a social experience into the marketplace
and Zeebox has changed this perception.
AE: it’s hard to call with technologies like Zeebox
and Shazam. Technologies get successful often
because there are solving a particular pain point.
FB and Twitter got a groundswell of being really
cool and caught on. It’s very hard to build a
successful business case from the start. There’s a
whole load of other companies that haven’t made
it to ride the tide.
PR: Let’s not forget also that sometimes Twitter
and other social media can damage reputations
and ruin programmes, companies and so on.
What worries me about that will a new gatekeeper
come along that can moderate that discussion?
We will see.
Chair: To round up, what’s the future going to be
and where would you put your money?
KH: This is a young and immature market,
however I think the big opportunity for everyone
in the TV industry is that social has already
accelerated the monetisation of brands. Brands
will be much more receptive to the idea of
funding content because the volumes are already
out there. STV is here and the future is bright.
MC: Is it really about STV or about technologies
like tablets that improve the viewing experience
and social is just a sub-component of that? Is it
just an element of an enhanced viewing
experience and are the gatekeepers of the future
those that get that right in terms of taking
Zeebox, social EPGs, FB and Twitter functions
with great content and packaging that?
AE: TV has kind of disappeared off the map as
new devices have appeared and we have gotten
distracted by other things. Now the opportunity is
there for TV to be social again because you can
stream content to it. Broadcasters as gatekeepers
have stopped it from advancing as much as it
could have. The internet has disrupted many
industries and it’s now simple to connect TVs. It’s
bringing all this content to where it’s best shown.
This whole fragmentation will exist for some time
because it’s not in everyone’s interest to
consolidate on one platform and where we bet
our money is on solving the issue of getting
content across multiple devices.
PR: STV is an opportunity to keep video
entertainment salient. Eventually I think all video
will be consumed by the internet and broadcast
will cease to exist – that’s the end game I think.
What it does do is change relatively positions of
different people in the value chain. While I do
think the gatekeepers will break down there will
still be gatekeepers, but ultimately there will be
more power moving to content owners.
AH: What’s been quite telling for me is that we
have spent a lot of time talking about what might
not be directly related to what we might put in the
box of STV because it’s one facet of a very fast
evolving area of entertainment and
communications industry, which goes back to the
original topic of discussion. Every brand is a
media channel now which is the key to what STV
is enabling; it’s enabling people to reach
consumers in new ways. Privacy will be hugely
telling in how things evolve and where the power
shift and balance of power will lie.
Social TV roundtable
50 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
This roundtable took place at the DTG’s
headquarters in London. Situated on the banks
of the Thames with views of Parliament and the
London Eye, the DTG’s modern conference
centre, meeting facilities and state-of-the-art
digital TV demonstration room are available free
of charge to DTG members and can be hired by
non-members for corporate events.
The need for set-top-boxes has
been called into question by
some commentators as more
and more over-the-top
streaming and on-demand
content is made available
direct on connected TVs.
There is little doubt the TV landscape will change
with the adoption of very high speed broadband
infrastructure. However, the global average broad-
band speed is still only 2.7 Mbps so this is only
starting to have an impact in the most developed
markets, this means the move to a pure Cloud
approach is a much longer term prospect.
Pure Cloud TV services place huge demands
on bandwidth and won’t be practical in most
countries for some time; being pragmatic this
could range from anything between five to 20
years depending on the particular market.
Although the vision for a pure Cloud infrastruc-
ture is sound, it will be too
limited by technological and
cost constraints to become a
mass market reality in the
short term.
The client-centric alterna-
tive reduces the total cost of operations for opera-
tors because it requires less upfront investment in
data centres and maintenance and no reinvest-
ment in broadcast infrastructure. However, it is
the ongoing OpEx savings for provisioning multi-
screen services that makes the case for this model
most convincing and highlights why the set top
box has a place at the centre of the connected
home for the foreseeable future. The costs of run-
ning a multi-screen headend are significant in
themselves and grow dramatically when you factor
in re-distribution costs for multiple streams over
the broadband infrastructure. For these reasons it
is much more cost-effective to use an intelligent
STB as a mini “server” within the home to con-
nect to all the user’s devices.
Using a media hub STB to serve the content
and standard user interface as HTML5 pages to a
client browser app on any connected device works
to the same principle as the Cloud - but in the
home. This approach uses less WAN bandwidth
since distribution is provisioned through the
user’s own wired or wireless home network, a cost
saving that is particularly attractive to operator
customers in developing markets.
LAN-based distribution also offers clear bene-
fits to the end user; local storage reduces the
latency issues that are often associated with net-
work PVR systems to offer the simplicity of a
Cloud type environment with a faster and smooth-
er multi-screen performance. It also greatly
improves security, consumers can access their
own stored content across devices without having
to upload it to the wider Cloud to reduce the
threat of it being compromised in external data
breaches.
A key consideration for payTV operators is
being able to offer their customers a fully branded
user experience that is compelling enough to mini-
mise churn. A true next generation payTV experi-
ence must offer consistency of look and usability
by offering a standard UI across devices, regard-
less of manufacturer. From this, perspective a
major factor holding back the STB-free future is
the limitations of the current generation of con-
nected TVs and other CE technologies.
Despite the moniker connected TVs simply
aren’t particularly “smart” and operators are wak-
ing up to the fact that it’s incredibly inefficient to
have to provision for each and every TV platform.
Equally the siloed approach to connected services
offered by most CE vendors makes for a fragment-
ed and ultimately unsatisfying user experience.
This will improve over subsequent iterations but
to date there has been little incentive for consum-
ers to upgrade to expensive new flat-screens so
soon after the HD upgrade cycle.
The ways in which users consume TV content
is evolving rapidly and operators need to keep up
with user demands for next generation TV servic-
es. However, very few are able to afford the huge
investment needed to move their services to the
Cloud. This means that for most operators, partic-
ularly those in developing markets, this will be an
incremental process that will take place over
many years. Although the market for basic “zap-
per” boxes will contract over the next decade,
Netgem believes its established media hub model
will ensure the set-top-box will continue to have a
place within next generation TV experience.
Yann Courqueux is VP of marketing &
business development at Netgem
The future of the set-top-box The STB is not quite dead and will have its uses for some time yet, argues Yann Courqueux
Cloud special
www.csimagazine.com September-October 2012 51
Amsterdam in early
autumn will be cloudy -
but these clouds will be
inside the RAI and adorn
many of the exhibition
stands at this year’s IBC.
The use of cloud comput-
ing in broadcast and video production is slowly gain-
ing momentum – certainly on the supply side – but
is there real value to the broadcast and media indus-
tries in the cloud, or is it just vapour up there?
The Cloud or cloud computing means different
things to different people and is largely dependent
on perspective – technologist or user. Broadly,
cloud computing is the provision of computing as a
service rather than as a product and is usually
accessed directly through an internet browser or
internet-enabled applications through web services.
The cloud is commonly subdivided into three vari-
ants: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as
a Service (PaaS) or Software as a Service (SaaS)
but in broad terms it allows for ad-hoc access to
computing and software services provisioned by a
specialist service provider.
Cloud computing has allowed a pay-per-use/ pay-
as-you-go model to be employed for many comput-
ing functions and has acted as an enabler – particu-
larly in these difficult economic times – for many
businesses to tightly control budgets and incremen-
tally scale computing resources based on business
activity. Using the example of a technology imple-
mentation project, such as the build of a broadcast
facility, cloud-provisioned software and systems can
be particularly helpful. Software and services such
as document management, and technical and finan-
cial approval workflows are provisioned from web-
based providers on a per user basis and are ‘stood-
up’ only for the duration of the project.
The cloud, by its nature, is omnipresent, mean-
ing that disparate teams, perhaps working in dif-
ferent countries, can easily collaborate. When a
project is complete, the relevant final project doc-
uments are archived, interme-
diaries or work in progress
documents purged, and access
to services closed down.
Software and hardware cost
savings are significant if com-
pared to purchasing these systems outright and
deploying them at the project office(s). All ser-
vice costs are also directly attributable to a specif-
ic project, thereby allowing for accurate recharg-
ing if appropriate. The cloud model works very
well in this context by simplifying daily work func-
tions and speeding up tasks - particularly the shar-
ing of material. The necessary ‘up front’ capital
investment in equipment and software is greatly
reduced and when the project is complete, demo-
bilisation is low cost, tidy and rapid.
A technology implementation project is a piece of
work with a defined set of deliverable outcomes over
a finite period. A comparison between a technology
project and television production may be loose but
there are similarities. Productions are temporary
pieces of work, requiring many contributors at differ-
ent times during the process. These contributors
may be disparately located but require shared and
possibly simultaneous access to material such as
scripts or rushes. There is an inherent requirement
for the ability to review and approve material as it
makes its way through the workflow. When the fin-
ished program is ready, unimportant material is
purged, the useful rushes or intermediary content
archived, and the project is wound up. The cloud is
almost a natural place for production to ‘live’, partic-
ularly in respect of the collaborative working require-
ments of geographically separate contributors.
Is it all just ‘Cloud-Wash’?Is the activity in cloud broadcast over-hyped, which may be occluding the real benefits to be had by exploiting cloud computing for media production, asks Julian Wright
“It is a brave producer indeed who will cross the chasm to an entirely (or partially) cloud-based production workflow.”
52 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
Cloud special
Cloud special
Why the slow adoption in broadcast?
The utilisation of cloud-based computing services
in the broadcast and video production industries
has failed to take off in the same way that it has in
other sectors such as print media. The reasons
behind this are many, but of particular significance
is that research has shown that producers fail to see
the benefits right now. The term ‘cloud’ is simply
too nebulous to sufficiently describe its benefits.
Clearly, the proponents are failing to make a
compelling case.
Content is extremely valuable and production
schedules are usually tight. That being the case it is
a brave producer indeed who will cross the chasm
to an entirely (or partially) cloud-based production
workflow with the option of a more predictable, if
inefficient and expensive, alternative already in
place. This is particularly the case if a producer has
been wrestling with a poorly implemented tapeless
workflow that promised a more streamlined
operation yet delivered the all-too-frequent shock of
‘Media Offline’ or frozen interface followed by a
panicked rush to a (soon-to-be-decommissioned)
linear suite.
Broadcast systems manufacturers must take
some responsibility for the overly cautious nature
of their customers and position cloud-based
offerings on the basis the business and operational
needs of the producer/broadcaster or content
owner. In design and implementation, the overall
offering should also focus on the business and
operational benefits rather than the
implementation fashionable technology or else
cloud is in danger of being characterised as an IT
(supplier side) driven fad.
To date there have been relatively few cloud pro-
visioned production platforms brought to market
and, as we have already discussed, user take up has
been extremely cautious. We are certainly still in
the ‘innovators phase’ of the adoption lifecycle.
Some very early offerings were over-engineered (by
engineers, for engineers of course) which in turn
made them inflexible. It also made adaptations
required to ‘fix’ the situation prohibitively expen-
sive. Some of these offerings have already been,
rather unceremoniously, retired.
Cloud provisioning can transform
video production
The cloud has the potential to be a truly transform-
ative innovation in video production, but there are
barriers. Most obvious is the bandwidth require-
ment and related costs. Transporting video content
from a production office or location to the cloud
for processing (eg, editing or transcoding), or stor-
age and back again, is cost prohibitive even with
UDP based accelerators. The bandwidth require-
ment, particularly for HD content, is so large that
the cloud model begins to become unattractive in
internet connection costs alone.
Another likely benefit of the cloud is
on-demand, pay-per-use storage but, again, what
works well for storing a large number of
documents/drawing doesn’t really work for a
production in which the content that needs storing
is long form video. A fairly modest 100 hours of
DVCPRO HD content is close to 5TB. Within a
few months the cost of storage would become
prohibitive for a single production budget and
would be near parity with purchasing the storage
outright and deploying at the facility. Certainly for
long-term archive storage the cloud model makes
little sense for large amounts of content when
compared to an in-house storage solution with an
LTO or disk-based deep archive.
The answer probably resides in hybrid imple-
mentations in which light-weight functions such as
asset management and browse editing are provi-
sioned in the cloud, with the more cumbersome
tasks such as long term storage and rendering per-
formed on the ground at the production facility.
My advice is that when considering cloud
provisioned services for your next production,
take an approach as you would with any other
cloud service. Upfront set-up costs should be low;
there shouldn’t be an unreasonable minimum
term or early termination fees; and all costs
should be based on usage. Any software deployed
at a facility as part of the provision should follow
a similar pay-per-use or lease licence basis as the
access to the cloud. Value-add services should be
incrementally priced and not bundled. In terms of
video technologies, these should be entirely non-
proprietary. At the end of a production it should
be possible to archive and transport projects so
that they can be used in other systems, be they
cloud-based or deployed.
As broadcast systems manufacturers race to con-
quer the cloud, users (finally) have the advantage.
It is a low risk venture to trial a given cloud offer-
ing, and the focus is now very much on needs of
the user rather than the underlying technology.
As the production industry inexorably (if
slowly) moves to service provision of whatever
flavour, the providers to watch are likely to be
those who have experience of working at the
sharp end of television production (not in a
technology development lab). These offerings will
use open technology standards and be
operationally focused in the broadest sense. The
implementation of technology is no longer a
barrier to broadcast video processing or control
and as such the industry is (at last) seeing
technology as the supplier to the business needs
rather than the other way around.
The real value in the cloud is for the content
producers. At the end of the day, it is the
suppliers’ responsibility to convincingly
demonstrate its capability to an increasingly
discerning, savvy customer.
Julian Wright is the co-founder and CEO of
Blue Lucy Media
www.csimagazine.com September-October 2012 53
Proprietary clouds at IBC?I expect that IBC 2012 will see a significant increase in the use of ‘cloud’ in presentations and marketing. It may even be one of the key themes. In my view, this is a supply side focus rather than one derived from the genuine needs of production companies and broadcasters.
I also suspect that many will be ‘cloud-wash’, ie, cloud in name (and possibly architecture) only that do not deliver the economic benefits seen in other industries. An even more sceptical view may be that the cloud is simply a convenient buzzword that provides cover for the sale of more proprietary hardware at the back end. Vendor lock-in remains a very big issue in the industry, and established manufacturers will do all they can to hold onto their corner market for as long as possible. Proprietary clouds? Don’t bet against them in broadcast and media tech. This will occlude the genuine advantages of cloud-based production and stymie adoption in the same way the integration issues have plagued IT-based workflows since the early 2000s.
As I write this, the big
countdown clock at the
top of IBC’s home page
says 20 days 20 hours
and 20 minutes until the
start of this year’s show,
Europe’s largest – and
most fun – broadcast trade fair. Over 50,000
visitors and 1,300+ exhibitors will descend on
Amsterdam between 6 - 11 September to see
and be seen.
As usual, some heavy hitters from the likes of
BSkyB, the newly launched YouView platform,
BBC, NBC and the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting
Union will assemble to share their thoughts on
key trends impacting the television space.
But most refreshing perhaps is a surprise
keynote from pop star and entrepreneur will.i.am.
In this respect, IBC lags behind more consumer
facing shows such as Mobile World Congress
(MWC) which has for years now been attracting
big showbiz names from film and music to add a
touch of glamour to proceedings. IBC has never
needed this side to it, but it will nevertheless be
interesting to hear the thoughts of a trend-setter
outside the broadcast space. Even at MWC,
celebs usually had a good story to tell and a
technology viewpoint that is different from the
usual industry mindset.
will, best know for Black Eyed Peas fame, will
use the IBC conference to examine the role of
technology in the creative process. “Illustrated
with personal stories and illustrations from their
careers, it will show how the application of new
technology can be a catalyst for new thinking and
positive change and be key to surmounting
barriers,” according to the marketing blurb.
It is co-hosted by Intel’s Johan Jervøe, and the
chip giant, in fact, appointed will as director of
creative innovation in January 2011, to innovate
and promote inspiring content, technology and
hardware strategies.
For those looking for something a little more
mainstream, The IBC Leaders’ Summit is an
invitation-only day-long event that will investigate
how connected TV is shifting value, changing
business models and creating new opportunities.
C-Level delegates from a number of the leading
broadcasters and content owners will be in
attendance.
At IBC overall, conference
themes range from the more
glamorous – second screen,
connected TV, OTT, voice
interaction etc - to the less glitzy but essential
topics of workflows, archiving and metadata.
On the exhibition front, expect the new HEVC
compression scheme (set to be standardised early
next year) to feature highly among some of the
demos, especially as ultra HDTV begins to loom
on the horizon. Early press material also suggests
social EPGs, companion app synchronisation and
other multi-screen advancements to sit prominent-
ly on the show floor of numerous booths.
Future Zone
Concepts and prototypes from R&D labs
demonstrated this year include project FINE (led
by Spain’s Mediapro and co-funded by the EC)
with the aim of speeding up all the algorithms
and fine-tuning all workflow items.
LSO 3D VIVANT (advances in the 3D holo-
scopic imaging technology) and a ‘Throwable
Panoramic Ball Camera’, which takes a full spher-
ical panorama when thrown into the air by 36
mobile phone camera modules, are among some
of the proof-of-concepts at the stands in this area.
There are also more Super Hi-Vision advances
from NHK, which is exhibiting a new
33-megapixel CMOS image sensor operating at
double the frame frequency of the current system,
and an experimental colour camera system using
the sensors.
Visitors are encouraged to see the other stands
in the zone as well, offering as they do a thought
provoking glimpse into the future.
Let’s get it started*Goran Nastic looks forward to another IBC, which this time features celebrities from outside the industry
IBC preview
54 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
(* W
ith a
polo
gies
to t
he B
lack
Eye
d Pe
as fo
r pl
agia
risi
ng o
ne o
f th
eir
bigg
est
hits
.)
Prometheus on the Big ScreenA regular venue for hosting presentations, the Big Screen has traditionally also shown big budget blockbusters, such as Avatar. This year, it is the turn of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi epic Prometheus. Although met with critically mixed reviews, the Alien prequel should look pretty good in a location that sits 1,700 people and boasts facilities for 4K and stereoscopic 3D digital projection, with audio presented in Dolby 7.1 surround sound. Doors open at 18:15 for an 18.30 showing on the Saturday.
Once upon a time,
broadcast asset
management was a room
with a large amount of
shelving, a card index
and – almost always – a
librarian with a
comprehensive knowledge of what was in the
archive. When “file transfer” meant taking a tape
off the shelf and getting a production assistant to
sign for it, the system worked reasonably well.
Digital workflows meant that content was
capable of being simultaneously stored in multiple
places and accessed by different devices and
people, so a structured and integrated asset
management system was required. The first asset
management systems grew out of playout
automation, and their requirements were relatively
simple.
The database needed to know what sort of
content it was – programme, trailer or
commercial – and its precise timings. It also
needed to know where it was, which might be on
a tape in a robot or on a server. Armed with this
information, the playout automation could
convert a schedule into seamless transmission.
Linear channel playout today is often
outsourced to a specialist centre, but the
requirements of asset management have scarcely
changed. There might be a need to set a flag for
surround sound or graphics, but otherwise
transmission automation still requires just the
basics. Indeed, the asset management databases at
outsourcing playout centres generally only include
that core information in their metadata schemas.
But content owners today
want to make their assets work
much harder. They see new
revenue opportunities in video
on demand services, and in
sell-through platforms like
iTunes and Amazon. For some content there is
the prospect of selling clips to other productions.
The dilemma, then, for content owners, is
between what metadata is needed for traditional
broadcast and the greatly expanded data set
required for expanded distribution.
This need for bigger data models is the
elephant in the room. Clearly without better
metadata and asset management content owners
cannot maximise their potential revenues, but
implementing such a system is dauntingly
complex. The temptation is to ignore the problem.
The data model
So what does a data model look like today? The
answer is that there is no answer to that: each
user will need to tailor the data model to their
own requirements. There are standardised data
models, like the BBC SMEF (standard metadata
exchange framework) and the Dublin Core, and
these have their advantages (and disadvantages).
Good asset management systems, like TMD’s
Mediaflex, will provide support for them through
their inherent flexibility. They may provide a
foundation, but slavishly replicating them is
unlikely to meet specific needs.
I believe that, before you even sit down to
The elephant in the roomTony Taylor of TMD argues there is a need for much more metadata, and flexibility in the way that media tagging is used
Archiving
56 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com
“The dilemma for content owners is between what metadata is needed for traditional broadcast and the greatly expanded data set required for expa-nded distribution.”
Archiving
develop the data model, you need to take a
radically fresh look at information flows within
the whole business. In the traditional broadcast or
production company there have been technical
systems – including asset management – which
dealt with media, and there have been business
systems – from a couple of spreadsheets to a full-
blown SAP network – to handle commercial
decision-making. The two eco-systems are almost
always separated by a gulf of understanding and
motivation.
While it may not happen immediately, I think it
is vital that you plan for information to be shared
across all the processing systems in an enterprise.
A successful media business in the future will be
one which best manages its costs and maximises
its revenues. The media technology has to support
that goal.
That is not to say these businesses should rip
out all their IT and start again. Even if it was a
viable option, the risks in designing and
implementing such a system would be too great to
contemplate.
The answer is to provide for links and
interoperability between legacy systems and the
asset management network to ensure that the
right information is available, or can be entered,
at the right time. When we started working with
one client, we discovered that the old way of
working involved typing the title of an acquired
programme into 34 separate computer systems.
You do not need me to explain the danger of error
and sheer inefficiency.
Integrating systems is less of a technical
challenge than it used to be, thanks to the
development of techniques like the service-
oriented architecture (SOA). This avoids the need
to design, write and maintain point to point
interfaces between all systems involved, with the
consequent exponential rise in complexity as
systems are added and the risk of it all grinding to
a halt if just one element is upgraded.
The service-oriented architecture is based on
simple adaptors on each system which allow it to
talk to a common bus, and thus all the other
systems. Open standards for web services make
these adaptors simple to write and interface.
Should an individual system be upgraded it is
only that system’s adaptor that needs to be
checked for continuing compatibility.
While this integration of legacy and business
systems minimises the need for new
developments, it must be recognised that there is
a need for much more metadata, and flexibility in
the way that it is used.
Amazon, iTunes and
CableLabs all require
different sets of data
alongside content to be
distributed by them, and as
is probably well known by
now the biggest source of
rejections by iTunes is not
for any failings in the
content but because of
metadata errors.
The asset management
system, therefore, needs to
be constructed carefully
from the beginning, to at
least ensure it is flexible enough to store,
manipulate and manage the data set which you
are likely to require in the future.
Tagging and asset management
Having set out a comprehensive and flexible
metadata schema which suits the current and
future needs of your media business, the next
challenge you face is populating the database with
all that information. The fear is that this will
involve teams of people copy-typing information
before the system can be of any use.
This is the wrong way to think about it. My
best advice, as someone who has overseen a lot of
huge asset management projects is not to even
consider batch entry. Plan to add metadata at the
most appropriate point, and by the most
appropriate person, as the content moves through
the workflow.
Because of the integration between business
systems and asset management, when a tape or a
file arrives in the building the essential
information – title, category, maybe transmission
dates and rights – will already exist. The first
stage is simply to confirm that the content has
arrived, and maybe that it has been transcoded
into the house format.
Later other operators will add technical QC
information, precise timings, the presence of
subtitle files, notes for conformance editing and
more. Where you want content tagging and other
intellectual metadata that can be added as the
content gets to that part of the workflow.
The system should not be designed to allow
this, it should be designed to encourage it.
Screens should be tailored for each operator, with
only the relevant fields presented, and checks to
ensure that they are complete before the file is
handed on. Presenting the whole schema to every
operator would be deeply disheartening for people
who had to search screens full of boxes to find
the one field that needs to be completed, a sure-
fire recipe for mistakes.
Because the asset management is linked to
other systems, it can also be linked to external
sources via the web. Rather than laboriously copy-
typing the cast and synopsis of a film or
programme part, go to external systems or web
sites and download it. We have simple tools that
allow the information to be parsed and inserted
into the right fields. If you need to tag the content
by script pointers, pull in the subtitle file which is
already timecode-linked.
In summary, then, do not put off thinking
about comprehensive asset management because
it is critical to business efficiency as well as
maximising revenues. But do choose a system
which has a solid foundation you can then build
on to create a structure that does what you need it
to do. The National Film & Sound Archive in
Australia chose TMD for its archive management
because of this flexibility: it added more than 500
fields to match its very specific intellectual and
preservation metadata requirements.
Ensure the asset management system is
integrated with the rest of your operations.
Minimise repetition by pulling in data from
elsewhere; maximise effectiveness by reporting
from asset management to other systems.
Finally, think of entering metadata as enriching
the content not a chore to be overcome. Make it
easy for people who care about specific pieces of
the data to find and enter the information quickly
and accurately. The result will be a powerful and
flexible business tool which will enhance your
capability to deliver content profitably.
www.csimagazine.com September-October 2012 57
“The biggest source of rejections by iTunes is not for any failings in the content but because of meta-data errors.”
58 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com58 September-October 2012 www.csimagazine.com50 January-February 2012 www.csimagazine.com www.csimagazine.com January-February 2012 51
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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.
NDS creates the security and enabling technologies as well as the applications that allow operators to generate revenues by delivering digital content to TVs, STBs, DVRs, PCs, PMPs, mobile phones, and removable security over one or more networks. Headquartered in the UK, NDS employs more than 3,950 people and continues to make a major commitment to R&D with over 85% of our employees dedicated to pioneering development work at centers worldwide
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]
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]
Corneliusstr. 22, 60325 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
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To advertise contact Tiro Bestonso +44 (0)20 7562 2427 [email protected]
Business DirecTory
Intelsat is the leading provider of fi xed 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 fi ber complements a global satel-lite fl eet 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 defi nition (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 inno-vative 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 fl exible 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 af-fi liated 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 Offi ce Switchboard Tel: +47 22 38 51 01 Offi ce 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
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Unlock the full potential for your content.When it comes to reaching new audiences, there’s no better partner than Intelsat.
Our exclusive Video Neighborhoods and MCPC platforms launch your channels on
the dedicated media satellites that are most in demand among top international
programmers worldwide. Intelsat has leading neighborhoods service in every region,
for a truly global solution. You’ll cost-effectively increase your visibility among cable
systems and DTH platforms while reaching the greatest number of homes.
Meet with Intelsat during IBC 2012 at Hall 1, Stand 1.C71.
Visit www.intelsat.com or contact us at [email protected] for details.
Your Key to the Best Video Neighborhoods
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