Pay TV operators and the connected home

Transcription

April/May 2015
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Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
Contents
April/May 2015
12. Making the most of Things
With the Internet of Things ultimately expected to be worth up to US$7 trillion, operators need
to invest now to remain relevant, reports Adrian Pennington.
pOFC DTVE AprMay15.indd 1
16. Going over the top
20/04/2015 19:51
16
Over-the-top and direct-to-customer offerings are becoming increasingly common among pay
TV and channel operators alike. Andy McDonald looks at some of the most interesting recent
developments in this space.
22. Good behaviour
Applying user behaviour analytics to ensure quality of deliver and shape service offerings has
been a hot topic in the quality assurance world for some time. But can big data be too much
data? Stuart Thomson reports.
28. TV Connect 2015: the preview
With the TV Connect show due to kick off at London Excel exhibition centre on April 28, DTVE
highlights some of the innovations that will be on display.
22
32
32. ANGA COM 2015: the preview
German broadband trade fair ANGA COM gears up for its 2015 show in Cologne this June.
Regulars
2 This month 4 News digest 33 Technology 38 People 40 Final analysis
Visit us at www.digitaltveurope.net
p01 Contents DTVE AprMay15v2st.indd 1
1
20/04/2015 19:59
This month > Editor’s note
Issue no 318
Published By:
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
The shape of Things
Informa Telecoms & Media
Mortimer House
37-41 Mortimer Street
London W1T 3JH
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7017 5000
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7017 4953
Website: www.digitaltveurope.net
Editor Stuart Thomson
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7017 5314
Email: [email protected]
Deputy Editor Andy McDonald
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7017 5293
Contributing Editor
Stewart Clarke
Contributors
Kate Bulkley, Andy Fry, Adrian Pennington,
Adam Thomas, Anna Tobin, Jesse Whittock
Correspondents
France: Julien Alliot; Germany: Dieter
Brockmeyer; Italy: Branislav Pekic
Sales Director Patricia Arescy
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7017 5320
The
Internet of Things has been on the minds of multi-play service
providers of late. The impact and intersection of the Internet of
Things with the connected entertainment world has yet to be fully worked
out. How big is the opportunity for content companies and operators?
One of the big questions is whether consumer electronics vendors including Apple, Sony and Samsung – those with varied hardware in the connected
home ecosystem – or multi-platform service providers will best placed to
capitalise on the IoT opportunity.
What is the actual revenue generation opportunity for service providers? What practical strategies should they be adopting now for an IoT future? In this issue of Digital TV Europe we
look at the role pay TV operators and media companies could play as the connected world takes
shape.
While they have an eye on the long-term prospects of universal connectivity, the threats and
opportunities posed by OTT are perhaps of more immediate concern to pay TV operators. More
and more service providers are in fact using OTT technology to deliver service packages of
both live and on-demand channels – examples include Sky’s Now TV and Telefónica’s recently
launched smart TV app-based version of its Movistar TV service.
How far down the OTT route do operators feel they can go in delivering TV as part of a wider
offering? In this issue, we look at some of the considerations pay TV players face in addressing
the OTT opportunity.
Quality assurance has, until relatively recently, been a second-ranked priority for many service providers, who have relied on customer complaints to deal with problems as they occur
or, in the case of OTT service providers, have delivered best effort services without a guarantee
of quality. But the use of IP delivery now means that service providers have the opportunity to
delve in much greater depth into patterns of user behaviour and the responses of users to different experiences on different platforms.
Also in this issue of Digital TV Europe we look at the challenges and opportunities presented
by the wealth of data that is potentially available.
Finally, we look at some of the technologies that will be on show at TV Connect, now relocated to London’s Excel with new April dates, and look forward to some of the highlights of this
year’s ANGA COM in Cologne. l
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Publisher Tim Banham
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2
p02 Ed Note DTVE AprMay15v3am.indd 2
Stuart Thomson, Editor
[email protected]
20/04/2015 19:52
Take Center Stage with the AMOS Satellites
Spacecom’s AMOS satellite constellation, consisting of AMOS-2 and AMOS-3 co-located at 4°W,
AMOS-4 at 65°E and AMOS-5 at 17°E provides high-quality broadcast and communications
services across Europe, Africa, Russia, Asia and the Middle East.
With the upcoming launch of AMOS-6, Spacecom is expanding its coverage over Europe and Africa.
The result: greater capacity, high-throughput Ka multibeam capabilities and affordable end-to-end
satellite services. Spacecom. Expect More.
[email protected] • www.amos-spacecom.com
p03 Spacecom DTVE AprMay15.indd 1
20/04/2015 16:50
News > digest
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
News digest
> 4 Vivendi chief secures victory in double vote battle > 5 Internet to replace TV in
20 years, says Hastings > 6 Darroch: Sky setting sites on further innovation > 8 EBU
renews call for safeguarding DTT spectrum
Vivendi chief secures victory in double vote battle
By Stuart Thomson >
Vivendi chairman Vincent Bolloré has secured victory in his
battle with rebellious shareholders over the application of
France’s Florange law to give
him double voting rights.
Vivendi’s annual general
meeting voted down a resolution tabled by shareholder PhiTrust and supported by a number of other investors to prevent
the application of the law, which
gives double voting rights to
shareholders of more than two
years’ standing, in Vivendi’s
case. The resolution secured
402.5 million votes in favour,
with 401.6 million against. The
support of more than two thirds
of shareholders is required to
secure exemption from the law,
which the French government
designed to protect domestic investment and employment.
Bolloré has built up his po-
Belgium
CAB > Telenet buys BASE
Liberty Global-backed Belgian
cable operator Telenet has agreed
to buy domestic mobile operator
BASE Company for €1.325 billion
from Dutch telco KPN. Telenet
said that the definitive agreement
will provide it with long-term
mobile access to “effectively
compete for future growth opportunities in the mobile market.”
It said the acquisition will allow
it to meet rising demand from
4
p04-06,08,10 DTVE News Digest AprMayv5st.indd 4
Bolloré:
Dailymotion is
an example of
how synergies can be
realised.
sition in the company over the
last two months and now holds
14.5% of the company’s shares,
up from 5.15% at the beginning
of March.
Bolloré earlier neutralised
the opposition of hedge fund
P. Schoenfeld Asset Management to the double-vote application by promising to increase
the amount Vivendi pays out to
shareholders over the next two
years. Vivendi agreed to pay out
approximately €6.75 billion to
shareholders in the form of an
additional distribution of €2 per
share, with €1 to be paid out in
the fourth quarter of this year
and €1 to be paid out in the first
residential and business customers for the full range of fixed and
mobile services. Telenet launched
its ‘King’ and ‘Kong’ mobile offers
in the Belgian market in 2012
and more recently launched
‘Family Deal’ packages, offering
a monthly discount on multiple
SIMs in the home for existing
and new triple-play subscribers.
Telenet said that the combination
of Telenet and BASE Company
will create a “leading integrated
communications provider” in the
Belgian market, with a combined
2014 adjusted revenue of €2.4
quarter of 2016. This will be in
addition to Vivendi’s existing
proposed payout of €1 per share
for the 2016 and 2017 financial
years.
Schoenfeld for its part agreed
to accept Vivendi’s core media
strategy, abandoning its call
for the sale of Universal Music
Group, and acknowledged the
role played by Vivendi supervisory board chairman Vincent
Bolloré in creating value. The
hedge fund withdrew the draft
resolutions that were to be put to
Vivendi’s annual general meeting calling for an exceptional
payout of €9 billion, and said it
would vote against the PhiTrust
resolution.
At the shareholders meeting,
Bolloré hailed Vivendi’s proposed €217 million acquisition
of an 80% stake in Dailymotion,
Orange’s video sharing site, as
“a formidable opportunity” that
would one day generate a lot of
money. He said that it would
enable the delivery of synergies
across Vivendi’s properties by
providing a channel for the distribution of short-form content
generated by Canal+ and music
from Universal Music Group,
as well as opportunities for advertising sister company Havas,
in which Vivendi holds a 60%
stake and which is headed by
Bolloré’s son Yannick.
Vivendi development director Stéphane Roussel said that
Dailymotion would become “an
alternative to YouTube”.
Bolloré said that Vivendi
would not rest with the acquisition of Dailymotion this year.
Vivendi’s management is expected to identify potential targets next month.
Orange has held 100% of
Dailymotion since January 2013,
following its initial acquisition
of 49% of the company’s capital
in April 2011.
billion and Adjusted EBITDA of
€1.1 billion. The deal is subject to
the approval from the relevant
competition authorities.
year, neither the overall business
nor its main channels were on the
block. However, he added that the
disposition of CME’s non-broadcast assets was still ongoing: “We
sold [distribution company] Bontonfilm in the Czech Republic last
year. We have already disposed
and are still in the process of selling several of our non-core activities in Romania.” Asked whether
CME would consider investing in
new channels, Mainusch said: “We
constantly analyse the structure
of our channels’ portfolio and the
positioning of the individual chan-
Czech Republic
PROG > No sale for CME
The sale of any of CME’s core
assets is “not on our agenda”
according to company co-CEO
Christoph Mainusch. In an interview with Czech newspaper Mladá
fronta Dnes, Mainusch said that
despite sale speculation from last
20/04/2015 20:24
News > digest
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
nels in their respective market
environment. “This might lead to
further channel launches in the
future. It is, however, too early for
any announcement in that respect
as no final decision has been
made yet. First we will continue
to invest primarily in high quality
content within the group of our
existing channels.” Praising CME’s
recent performance, which has
seen it move back into the black,
Mainusch said: “The last year has
been a very successful one. We
managed to increase our advertising market share from 49%
in 2013 to 60% in 2014 and we
returned to significant operating
income.” However, he cautioned
that “the turnaround will need
more than one year,” predicting
that that CME will “regain some
additional advertising market
share we lost two years ago.”
France
IPTV > Orange fibre plan
Orange is aiming to reach 100%
fibre deployment in nine new
French cities by the end of 2016,
as part of its ambitious multi-billion high-speed broadband
plan. The French operator said
that Bayonne, Brest, Caen, Lyon,
greater Lille, Metz, Montpellier,
Nice and Paris will become “100%
fibre” cities. The plan is part of
a €4.5 billion fibre investment
scheme by Orange, of which €3
billion will be spent in France.
Orange said that the aim of this
programme is to go from four
million connectable households
in April 2015 to 12 million in 2018,
and 20 million in 2022 – the final
year of France’s very high-speed
broadband plan. Orange said it
plans to deploy fibre in 3,600
communities by 2022, covering
all of France’s large and medium-sized cities, or nearly 60% of
French households.
DTT > TDF acquisition
A group of investors comprising
Brookfield Infrastructure Group,
Public Sector Pension Investment
Board (PSP Investments), APG Asset Management and Arcus Infrastructure Partners have completed the acquisition of transmission
services provider TDF in France.
The closing follows an offer to
acquire the company in August
last year. CEO Olivier Huart said:
“TDF’s new shareholders are longterm investors, all with a solid
experience in infrastructure. With
these new investors, TDF begins a
new and very promising chapter
in its history.”
Internet to replace TV in 20 years, says Hastings
By Andy McDonald >
Over the next 20 years internet
TV is going to replace linear TV
as the way that people consume
video, according to Netflix president and CEO Reed Hastings.
Speaking on the firm’s first
quarter earnings call, Hastings said that after linear TV’s
“amazing 50-year run” the industry is now transitioning with
“everyone scrambling to figure
out how do they do great apps.”
For the quarter, Netflix revealed that it had surpassed 60
million global subscribers and
said that members streamed 10
billion hours of content – “evidence that consumers around
the world are embracing the internet TV revolution.”
Also speaking on the earnings call, Netflix’s chief financial
officer David Wells re-iterated
the firm’s ambition to launch
globally in 200 countries by the
Hastings: the
TV industry is
in transition.
end of 2016, claiming there will
be some “significant” launches
in the second half of this year.
Netflix also hinted at an upcoming Polish launch, with
Hastings twice referring to the
market during the call, noting
“Netflix is not yet in Poland.”
Discussing competition in
the online TV space, Hastings
and Wells said in a letter to
shareholders that the recently
launched HBO Now service
in the states is not a substitute
for Netflix given the different
content available. “We view ‘internet MVPD’ offerings like the
rumored Apple offering, Sony’s
Playstation Vue and DISH’s
Sling TV as more competitive to
the current pay TV bundle than
to Netflix which is lower cost,
has exclusive and original content, and is not focused on live
television,” said the pair.
The execs noted that piracy
remains a “considerable longterm threat, mostly outside
the US.” Discussing users accessing Netflix from countries
where it is not yet live using virtual private networks, Hastings
said: “Because we are focused
on getting global very quickly,
I think we will see this issue
disappear and it will disappear
because we will be able to meet
the demand directly in all the
countries.”
In the first three months of
the year, Netflix passed 40 million members in the US and
20 million internationally after
adding 4.9 million new users in
the quarter, beating its forecast
of 4.05 million new members.
Events
FT Digital Media Conference
Date: April 28-29 2015
Venue: King’s Place, London, UK
W: www.ft-live.com
TV Connect 2015
Date: April 28-30 2015
Venue: ExCel, London, UK
W: tvconnectevent.com
Broadband TV Connect Asia
(co-located with CDN Asia)
Date: May 12-13 2015
Venue: Suntec, Singapore
W: broadbandtvconnectasia.com
ANGA COM 2015
Date: June 9-11 2015
Venue: Köln Messe, Cologne,
Germany
W: www.angacom.de
NATPE Europe 2015
Date: June 22-25 2015
Venue: Hilton Hotel, Prague,
Czech Republic
W: www.natpe.com/europe
Digital Home World Summit
Date: June 23-24 2015
Venue: Royal Garden Hotel,
London, UK
W: smartworldhome2015.com
CTAM Europe EuroSummit
Date: August 27-28 2015
Venue: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
W: www.ctameurope.com
IBC 2015
Date: September 10-15 2015
Venue: Rai, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
W: www.ibc.org
MIPCOM 2015
Date: October 5-8 2015
Venue: Palais des Festivals,
Cannes, France
W: www.mipcom.com
5
20/04/2015 20:24
News > digest
Global Wrap
The total number of subscribers to online streaming services
will pass 100 million globally
this year, according to research
by Ovum. Describing a “new era
of streaming entertainment”, it
pointed to growing appetite for
emerging on-demand platforms
as evidence of the swing away
from downloads and pay TV.
Some 57% of consumers in
US broadband households
subscribe to an OTT service like
Netflix or Hulu Plus, according
to Parks Associates. The research claims that the average
US broadband household now
spends US$9 (e8) per month
on internet video, up from
US$7 in 2012. Illegal downloads
of episodes of Game of Thrones
increased more than 45% yearon-year in the weeks before its
season five premiere, according
to data collected by content security firm Irdeto. Episodes of
seasons one to four of the HBO
fantasy drama were illegally
downloaded more than seven
million times between February
5 and April 6, 2015 according to
the research, compared to 4.9
million times during the same
period a year earlier. Amazon
Prime subscribers in the US are
more likely to use Netflix than
Prime Instant Video, according
to new research by Strategy
Analytics. The report claims
that 63% of Amazon Prime
subscribers used Netflix in the
previous month compared to
59% who used Prime Instant
Video. YouTube has confirmed
plans to launch an advertising-free version of YouTube
that users will be able access
by paying a monthly fee. In a
letter sent to YouTube content
creators, the Google-owned site
said that the new offering will
supplement its ad revenues.
6
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
PROG > TF1 premium VoD
French commercial broadcaster
TF1 is launching a new premium
video-on-demand brand dedicated to movies not distributed
theatrically in France, eCinema.
TF1 Video aims to provide an
exclusive offering of films in line
with the premium VoD concept
it has already deployed for the
distribution of US series with
MYTF1VOD. eCinema will launch
on May 1 across the country’s
major VoD portals with an
offering of movies as close as
possible to their threatrical
release dates in their countries
of origin. Movies will be offered
in French or in their original
language with French subtitles.
The initial line-up will include,
from May, Julius Avery’s Son of a
Gun, starring Ewan McGregor and
Brenton Thwaites and Lee Toland
Krierger’s Adaline starring Blake
Lively and Harrison Ford, with
Joe Lynch’s Everly, with Salma
Hayek, to follow in July. Films will
be offered in HD, and will be available at launch both in SD and HD
from €6.99, with availability limited to 45 days. TF1 will also offer
a download-to-own option from
€12.99. Titles will be accompanied by DVD-like bonus features.
The service will be available via
ISPs’ TV boxes as well as via PCs,
tablets, smartphones, smart TVs
and game consoles. TF1 Video
president Régis Ravanas said
that eCinema would be complementary to the current system
of distribution, which limits the
VoD window to 36 months after
the theatrical release of movies,
and would provide an outlet for
movies that do not currently gain
a wide theatrical distribution.
Germany
DTT > OK for DVB-T2 pay
Competition regulator the Bundeskartellamt has given a green
light for transmission services
provider Media Broadcast to
build a pay platform for the
country’s new DVB-T2-based
digital-terrestrial infrastructure.
Media Broadcast plans to build a
pay TV platform for HD services
in particular as the country’s
DTT infrastructure transitions to
DVB-T2, probably from next year.
Commercial broadcasters RTL
Group and ProSiebenSat.1 are
expected to offer encrypted HD
services on the plartform, while
other broadcasters could offer
a range of encrypted SD and
HD services. Public services will
remain unencrypted.
Darroch: Sky setting sights on further innovation
By Andy McDonald >
Innovation will continue to be at
the heart of Sky’s business, with
the company constantly seeking to renew itself and embrace
change, according to company
CEO Jeremy Darroch.
Speaking at MIPTV in
Cannes, France, Darroch said
that while the whole experience
of in-home entertainment has
already got “so much better” in
the past 10 years, this trend is
only going to continue.
“There’s never been a better
time to be in the industry that
we’re in. The demand from customers for great content seems
to be insatiable. They want more
of it, and a broader range of that
content, I think, than ever before,” said Darroch.
Citing previous developments like Sky+, Sky HD and
Sky 3D, the Sky boss said that
“innovation in the viewing ex-
Darroch: no
better time
to be in the
industry.
perience has always been at
the heart of what we’ve done as
a business,” and that this has
been driven by Sky’s appetite to
“raise the bar”.
“Just as we innovate on the
satellite platform, we’ve got lots
of plans to innovate over-the-top
in some of our new services like
Now TV or Sky Online or Sky
Mobile,” said Darroch when
asked about Sky’s future innovation plans. “I think the future
is less about any one singular
idea and about our ability to do
multiple things. And in doing
multiple things to really expand
the whole market in which we
compete and operate.”
Darroch claimed that Sky’s
aim is to reach as many customers as possible – be that directly
through its own retail services,
through its satellite service or
using OTT distribution.
He also failed to rule out more
investments in production companies, following Sky’s acquisition of a 60% stake in USbased Jupiter Entertainment in
March, and its purchase of 70%
of UK-based Love Productions
last July. However, he said doing
more of these deals was not an
imperative.
“Largely that will be driven,
I think, by Sky Vision and [the]
broadening out [of] our distribution arm. It’s something
that I’m open-minded to but
in terms of the content that we
actually want to acquire to put
on screen, we really want to be
very flexible and agile and work
right across the industry,” said
Darroch.
20/04/2015 20:24
Q&A: Charles Dawes,
Senior Director, Product Marketing, Rovi
Charles Dawes, Senior Director, Product Marketing, Rovi talks about the latest developments in content search and recommendation.
What are Rovi’s customers’ key priorities for the next year and how are
you responding to these?
Rovi operates across many different areas of the Media and
Entertainment Industry and each sector has slightly different priorities
depending on where they are in the value chain. However, some
common themes we see include the continued integration of OTT
services with more traditional forms of entertainment, new visually rich
discovery experiences and an increased interest in how ‘big data’ can be
used to help inform business decisions. Rovi is well positioned to help
our customers meet the challenges of launching new services with its
strong background in discovery and monetisation.
Is programme-related metadata being used to its full potential and
what types of revenue-earning services could it enable?
A rich set of programme metadata has become a minimum requirement
for anyone looking to build a strong discovery experience. This requires
excellent curation of content to make the most of the programme
information and metadata available, with full descriptions and links to
similar content, actors and genres being important. Many broadcasters
and TV operators are aware that if you want your content to be viewed
and generate revenue then it needs to have the right level of data. The
more progressive content owners are using full sets of metadata, such as
those provided by Rovi, to ensure that content is appropriately linked to
other content and is available to the end consumer.
What are the key components of a content search and recommendation
system and how can these boost TV platform operators’ businesses?
Many operators have launched basic Search and Recommendations
systems that could be termed v1.0. These typically provide content based
links and are limited to the content catalogue that is available from a
service. Rovi already offers next generation search and recommendation
technology and has invested over half a million hours of research and
development to build the Rovi Knowledge Graph – a key enabler of a
successful next generation search and recommendation offering. This
marries advanced machine learning and natural language understanding
to monitor over 100,000 information sources and continuously adjust the
relationship between over 100 million entities related to entertainment.
When this is combined with rich hand-curated metadata it delivers the
next level of search and recommendations that is no longer limited
to interactions based on prior purchase history in a limited catalogue.
Drawing on the real world and social media, next generation content
discovery will provide immediacy and accuracy on a personalised basis.
How useful a part of search and recommendation is voice control?
Rovi is leading the way with integrating voice control into advanced
discovery experiences. Using Rovi Conversation services we can step
pXX Rovi Q&A DTVE AprMay15v2st.indd 1
beyond the command-based voice control that we have seen up to now
and just speak to a service and it will understand the content and the
context of the sentence. Voice interaction, especially as part of a discovery
experience, makes something that was cumbersome incredibly simple.
Trying to do anything other than a very basic search is very difficult
using a remote control or even a keyboard. Imagine trying to find The Best
Exotic Marigold Hotel when all you can remember is that it’s about some
retired people in India and it stars ‘M’ from Skyfall. You don’t need to know
that M was played by Judi Dench, but the combined power of the Rovi
Knowledge Graph and our Conversation Services means you can literally
say “What’s that film about some retirees in India that stars M from Skyfall?”
and you will get the right result. Likewise you can ask when ‘The Gunners’
next play, get the results for all Arsenal’s games and even hone in on the
crucial north London derby by following it up with “When do they play
Spurs?”. It is crucial that conversational services understand the context
of ambiguous words such as ‘they’ and ensure that the customer knows
when the match will be, even if it’s further than the 14 day TV schedule.
How far are TV operators and content owners currently tapping in to
the potential of user behaviour analytics to enhance their businesses?
The existence of advanced analytics for TV operators and content
owners is starting to take off, with many businesses having had their
expectations set by the levels of information and knowledge that is
available on the Internet. More and more services are connected and are
capable of providing a rich set of information about a customer that can
be analysed and used for various purposes to provide useful, actionable
information to businesses in the TV sector.
This could include helping them proactively identify who is likely to
churn from a service so they can prevent them from doing so or using the
information around viewership when negotiating content deals.
Data analytics can also be used to optimise and streamline advertising
to boost accuracy, something that Rovi has worked to address with our Ad
Optimiser, Subscriber Analytics and Operator Insights products that build
on some of the concepts mentioned above.
What in your view is the longer term potential of big data for
audiovisual media companies?
Rovi is a firm believer that ‘big data’ will continue to play an important
role in the development of both existing and new services in the Media
and Entertainment space. As more and more companies collect and
intelligently use various sources of data to enhance their business and
decision making, we will see more and more value attributed to ‘big data’
and the benefits that it can provide to both consumers and businesses.
As competition heats up in the content space, businesses will need to
ensure that they are making the most of every weapon available to stay
ahead. This will give ‘big data’ a central role in future strategy.
17/04/2015 16:57
News > digest
Italy
OTT > Sky deal with TI
Telecom Italia and Sky Italia are to
market a joint offering, whereby
Sky’s services will be made available online via Telecom Italia’s network as part of a quad-play deal.
Telecom Italia has committed to
distribute decoders to support the
service, to be called TIM Sky. The
move follows an agreement stuck
between the pair last October. The
full range of Sky’s services are to
be made available via the Telecom
Italia high-speed network, which
provides connections at speeds
of 30Mbps and above. Sky will use
the agreement to target homes
that are unable to receive its
offerings via satellite dishes. Telecom Italia is also likely to strike
a distribution deal with Sky’s rival
Mediaset. CEO Marco Patuano told
journalists at a festival in Perugia
that the telco is in advanced talks
with Mediaset over a TV deal and
that Telecom Italia’s network was
an open platform for content
providers. Patuano also said that
Telecom Italia is open to a deal
with Vivendi, which is set to become the operator’s largest single
shareholder, with an 8.3% stake,
as a result of its sale of Brazilian
operator GVT to Telecom Italia
shareholder Telefónica. Vivendi
expects to finalise its agreement
to join Telecom Italia’s shareholders early this summer.
Luxembourg
PROG > RKTV launches
Adult content provider Playboy
Plus is launching a new channel,
Reality Kings TV (RKTV) in Europe
and has struck a deal with pay TV
operator M7 Group, which sees
the continued carriage of Brazzers
TV Europe and the immediate
launch of RKTV in Benelux and
central and eastern Europe. To
Facilitate the launch, Playboy Plus
8
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
has partnered with M7 Platform
Services for satellite distribution,
monitoring and customer support
to third party operators. The
channel will be available 24-hours
a day via Astra 3B at 23.5° East.
Following an initial test phase,
RKTV will be rolled out alongside
the Brazzers TV Europe Channel to M7 Group subscribers in
Benelux, via Canal Digitaal, Online.
nl and TV Vlaanderen; and in CEE,
via Skylink. In addition, Brazzers
TV Europe will be available to
M7’s DTH subscribers in Wallonia,
via TéléSAT; and in Austria, via
AustriaSat.
The Netherlands
CAB > Horizon on Ziggo
Liberty Global has launched its
Horizon advanced TV service on
Ziggo’s network in The Netherlands. The company has also
adopted the Ziggo brand for all its
Dutch assets, with UPC Netherlands’ services rebranded as Ziggo
from today. Ziggo subscribers can
now view all Horizon services via
the Horizon Mediabox, including
catch-up TV, enabling them to
view content from a wide range
of channels for seven days after
their initial broadcast. Ziggo
Customers are also able to view
content on multiple screens thorugh the Horizon Go app and have
access to the MyPrime on-demand
service. Horizon is being rolled
out step-by-step across Ziggo’s
footprint and is being marketed
as part of a new series of Connect
and Play packages, with Connect
used as a catch-all for internet
and telephony services and Play
used for TV.
Romania
CAB > HBO Go on Digi
Premium programmer HBO’s TV
Everywhere service HBO Go has
extended its reach in Romania
with a launch on Digi Net and
Digi TV. HBO Go is available to
authenticated customers of the
RCS&RDS-owned Digi pay TV
services that have the Maxpak
package or pay for HBO as part
of their subscription. They will
get on-demand access to 2,000
hours of HBO fare, including its
regional original docs and dramas,
including In Deriva and Umbre
as well as the big US franchises
including Game of Thrones, Girls
and Veep. New episodes of the US
series will be available on HBO Go
from the time of their international premieres.
EBU renews call for safeguarding DTT spectrum
By Stuart Thomson >
The EBU has renewed its call for
the safeguarding of the interests
of digital-terrestrial TV viewers
as the European Commission
closed its public consultation on
the Lamy Report on the future
of the UHF band.
The EBU emphasised the
conclusion of the Lamy Report
that broadcast TV “will continue to play an essential role as
a...distribution platform for the
foreseeable future. Its sustainable development is dependent
on spectrum in the UHF band,
which gives it capacity to further
innovate and develop and...remain viable and competitive.”
The EBU is concerned that
recommendations have been
made to release the 700MHz
band currently used by broadcasters for mobile broadband
applications by around 2020,
arguing that this is too early.
“As the Commission is developing a long-term strategy
for the future use of the UHF
frequency band, we emphasise
that this band is the only globally harmonised spectrum for
DTT and is crucial for the provision of free-to-air TV services.
It is vital that the EU strategy
provides long-term certainty of
spectrum access for DTT in order to facilitate investment and
the future viability of the terrestrial broadcasting platform. This
certainty should be safeguarded
in the relevant EU legislation,
including the future Radio
Spectrum Policy Programme,
and the EU policy objectives
for the ITU WRC-15 and subse-
quent WRCs,” said EBU technical director Simon Fell. “The
EBU is concerned about recommendations that the 700MHz
band be released by 2020 with
the flexibility of +/- two years.
This is too early for a mandatory
EU deadline because the transition of DTT out of the 700MHz
band must take the situations of
individual member states into
account.” The Lamy Report and
the consultation will feed into
the EC’s position for the forthcoming WRC-15 conference,
where the future of the UHF
band is set to be a major topic.
Mobile operators association
the GSMA has meanwhile argued that the EC needs to show
“greater flexibility” in making
700MHz available for mobile
broadband and should support
the release of UHF spectrum
between 2018-2030 “and potentially earlier”, or risk falling
behind other advanced markets.
20/04/2015 20:24
Perfecting the
Media Experience
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VOD
DASH
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Software-defined video processing and delivery solutions from
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Pay TV operators, content programmers, broadcasters and enterprise customers around the world
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TV Connect Booth 121
p09 Elemental DTVE AprMay15.indd 1
elementaltechnologies.com
20/04/2015 16:48
News > digest
Slovenia
IPTV > Cinven bids for TS
Investment group Cinven has
confirmed that it has placed a
binding offer to acquire the Slovenian government’s stake in local
telco Telekom Slovenije. Cinven
said its intentions for Telekom
Slovenije are to invest significantly
to upgrade the network, to stop
the company’s revenue decline,
stabilise and then grow revenues
sustainably for the long term. The
company said it would invest in
the operator’s fibre networks to
deliver high-speed internet across
its footprint and would increase
its 4G coverage, with a target
to cover 90% of the Slovenian
population. Cinven did not reveal
any information about the value
of Telekom Slovenije implied by its
offer, in line with the rules of the
country’s privatisation process.
Spain
CAB > Vodafone One
Vodafone España has unveiled its
new converged offering with the
brand Vodafone One. The converged packages will be available
across all outlets from April 20.
The operator is offering four highspeed internet options – 200Mbps,
120Mbps, 60Mbps and 30Mbps,
including flat-rate calls to landline
phones and 60 minutes of calls to
mobiles, along with a range of mobile options ranging from 200 minutes of voice and data packages
ranging from 1GB to 4GB a month.
TV services will be available for
both fibre and VDSL customers,
using the Vodafone TV brand from
now on for fibre customers, and
Vodafone Box for VDSL customers. Vodafone has also confirmed
that the offering will be based on
Ono’s TiVo platform. In addition to
TiVo functionality, including the
ability to record up to three channels at a time, get personalised
10
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
recommendations, view internet
content including YouTube and
access VoD services, Vodafone is
offering three packages henceforth. These are Vodafone TV
Esencial, with 70 basic channels,
Vodafone TV Extra, with over 100
channels, and Vodafone TV Total
with 120 channels. Other premium
offerings, such as Canal+ Liga
are offered on top. Vodafone’s
multiscreen offering, Vodafone TV
Online, will be available on up to
five mobile devices for each customer. Customers who take Vodafone One will be given Vodafone
TV Escencial free of charge until
the end of December. Customers
who opt for the 4GB, mobile data
bundle will also receive Vodafone
TV extra until the end of the year.
The company is offering a single
mobile option, with the ability to
sign up for up to four additional
mobile lines for €9 per month per
line. Vodafone has also rebranded
its fibre services as Fibra Ono,
maintaining the Ono brand from
the cable operator it acquired last
year. The high-speed network is to
be extended to Gijón and Oviedo
in Asturias, and Badajoz, Cáceres
and Mérida in Extramadura
shortly. Later this year, coverage
will extended in Bilbao, Irun Vitoria
and San Sebastián in the Basque
Country and La Coruna, Ferrol,
Orense, Santiago de Compostela,
Pontevedra and Vigo in Galicia.
Sweden
SAT > Football deal for MTG
MTG has taken the rights to UEFA
Champions League football in Finland for the three years starting
from the 2015/2016 season, with
plans to broadcast matches on the
new Viasat Sport Finland channel.
MTG said it will show the key
matches live and provide local
commentary from every Tuesday
and Wednesday match day in the
group and knock-out rounds, as
well as the Saturday final.
Viasat Sport Finland will be the
“new flagship sports channel in
the country,” according to MTG,
available to all Finnish households
through Viasat’s DTH satellite platform, as well as third party cable,
IPTV and DTT providers. Subscribers to MTG’s online streaming
service Viaplay will also be able to
watch content from the channel
online and on web-connected
devices like smartphones, tablets,
Chromecast sticks and a range of
consoles and smart TVs.
UK
OTT > Buy & Keep for all
Turkey
Pay TV operator Sky has extended
its Buy & Keep service to all homes
in the UK and Ireland via the
launch of a new app and availability on a number of other devices.
The service, part of the Sky Store
offering, which launched in April
last year, was previously available
via the Sky+ HD box and to Sky
customers via mobile devices. Sky
Store enables customers to get a
movie straight to their TV, stream
or download it to their mobile, tablet and laptop and receive the DVD
direct to their home a few days
later. Sky and non-Sky customers
accessing the Sky Store website or
app will be able to buy and keep
movies to stream or download on
their mobile, tablet and laptop.
Non-Sky TV customers in the UK
will be able to watch movies on
their main TV via a Now TV, Roku
or YouView box, while those in
Ireland can watch via a Roku box.
Sky Store users can register up to
four devices and any movie can
be streamed to two devices at the
same time.
SAT > Digiturk acquisition
PROG > Earth rolls out
Qatar-based broadcaster Al
Jazeera’s BeIN Sport is expected
to acquire Turkish pay TV operator
Digiturk for between US$1-US$1.2
billion, according to local reports.
Local paper Star Gaztesi reported
that finalisation of the sale is
imminent, pending approval
by the Turkish Savings Deposit
Insurance Fund (TMSF), the body
that seized control of former
Çukurova Holding’s 47% stake in
the operator following a long-running dispute over taxes. Digiturk’s
other investor, Providence Equity
Partners, has reaportedly already
agreed to the sale. Digiturk has
about 3.3 million subscribers
and holds rights to first division
Turkish football until the end of
the 2016-17 season.
BBC Worldwide has launched BBC
Earth as a linear TV channel in a
number of European countries,
including Romania and Turkey.
The factual channel is now
accessible to Romanian audiences
via Telekom, RCS/RDS Digi and
Digital Cable Systems, and will be
available in the local language. In
Turkey BBC Earth is available via
TTNet and Tivibu. The rollouts
came as BBC Worldwide launched
BBC Earth and its new factual
entertainment brand BBC Brit
as linear channels in Denmark,
Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. BBC Worldwide announced it
would make the Nordic launches
in January, marking the second
rollout of Brit and Earth after their
debut in Poland in February.
Switzerland
IPTV > Swisscom HbbTV
Swisscom has launched HbbTV
services for pubcaster SRG’s channels as part of its TV 2.0 offering.
Swisscom has activated the new
service, which replaces former
Teletext offerings and includes
new features. HbbTV will be available in HD programmes shown on
SRG. HbbTV is also available on
the ARD, ZDF, ORF1 and ORF2 TV
channels via Swisscom TV 2.0.
20/04/2015 20:24
Q&A: Steve Christian,
SVP, marketing, Verimatrix
Verimatrix’s Steve Christian talks about the impact of cloud-based multiscreen delivery on revenue security for TV operators
What are the main ways in which cloud-based delivery, network
virtualisation and growing device connectivity are changing the way in
which video service providers address revenue security?
Because of our heritage in IPTV and IP-based networks, our revenue
security solutions have always been built on standard, software-centric
technologies (which have helped established Verimatrix as the global
number one in video revenue security for connected devices). We are
now seeing the benefits of more and more video delivery network
infrastructure components becoming virtualised.
We recently launched our Verspective Intelligence Center, an
innovative cloud-based engine that optimises solution performance and
reduces operational expenses through virtualised system deployment,
management, monitoring and analytics. Verspective interconnects
otherwise isolated operator security instances, capitalising on global
management of performance and integrity for a highly distributed world
of connected devices.
With video distribution channels proliferating, what challenges do
operators face in dealing with multiple content security formats and
how can this best be managed?
As consumers demand support for more devices to access their preferred
OTT services, complexity seems likely to increase further, with operators
required to support multiple streaming formats and DRMs native to
browsers and device families.
Outsourcing the management of multiple DRMs on an OTT service
to a “black box provider” will avoid diverting attention from these core
activities. Working with a security specialist will also ensure future-proofing
by staying ahead of emerging security and other relevant technologies.
We offer this black box service through our MultiRights branded solution
as part of the VCAS security platform, which arbitrates rights management
across device types and DRM formats.
MultiRights caters to the continuing existence of multiple DRMs,
enabling operators to address these complexities and provide their users
with a device and technology independent consumption experience,
without risks that they will experience any arbitrary restrictions.
How can the use of ‘big data’ help video service providers secure their
content and revenues more effectively?
More detailed subscriber behaviour and usage visibility is essential to
improving the quality of experience for their customers. The analytics
component increasingly relies on a “big data” approach with computing
resources and extra customer data that are required from outside the
operator’s network.
Security solutions typically have touch points at many of the critical
interfaces necessary to gather raw data. The next leap in analytics
capability will come from the aggregation of data across regions, which
would be achievable with globally interconnected systems.
pXX Verimatrix Q&A DTVE AprMay15v2st.indd 1
What additional revenue opportunities could the use of content
security technology unlock for service providers?
Verimatrix has always been in the business of securing revenues – and
providing the right layer of security to enable different business models.
Multiscreen services bring the challenges of catering to different device
display and security capabilities, quite apart from having to deliver over
multiple networks. The operator must satisfy content providers over
security, while ensuring that consumers get the best experience possible.
Verimatrix helps enable this through a harmonised and multi-layered
revenue security approach that optimises content monetisation for
different business objectives, networks and devices, within a single
platform. Effective multi-network revenue security that enables a good
user experience, while providing robust and effective content protection,
will be crucial to successful monetisation of multiscreen.
As Ultra HD video services begin to launch, including OTT services, what
content security challenges are raised and how can these be solved?
Fortunately the security challenges posed by UHD have been widely
recognised, at least among content producers. This was reflected in
a pivotal moment when MovieLabs announced a new set of security
guidelines specifically for UHD content for its members in distribution of
premium content over the Internet. Essentially these guidelines translate
into three pillars of UHD content security: hardware-based security;
trusted software security; and forensic watermarking. These each address
different threats. Verimatrix is uniquely placed to provide such protection
with a balanced, integrated approach to security that supports all three
of these elements. We have the right complementary technologies,
including encryption, authentication and device revocation, to establish
secure chains of custody. Equally importantly, Verimatrix has established
the right partnerships to deliver the whole secure ecosystem.
What is Verimatrix highlighting at the TV Connect show and why?
We will be focusing on the optimisation of multi-network, multi-screen
deployments for next-generation video service providers. Specifically, we
will be highlighting:
Verspective Intelligence Center – an innovative, cloud-based engine that
helps next-generation video service providers capitalise on a broader range
of global resources from their revenue security platforms to more optimally
manage the system and identify potential threats.
VCAS Ultra – introduced at IBC 2014, VCAS Ultra enables next-generation
video service providers to take full advantage of software and IP technologies,
while preparing for new premium service delivery for UHD/4K content.
MultiRights – an award-winning solution that has addressed multi-DRM
challenges for operators over the last several years. Our approach has
been proven as a practical way to unify delivery systems and customer
experiences around a common rights management framework.
To learn more, please visit us at TV Connect in booth #90.
20/04/2015 10:27
Technology focus > Internet of Things
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
THE MOST
With the Internet of Things ultimately expected to be worth up to US$7 trillion,
operators need to invest now to remain relevant, reports Adrian Pennington.
The
concept of the Internet of Things
(IoT), or a truly interconnected
world, where every device and system is
smart and can communicate with other
devices and systems without human
intervention, has been in development for
a number of years and is already present
12
p12-15 Internet of Things AprMay15v6AM.indd 12
in some industries. Analyst group IDC has
somewhat wildly forecast the IoT to be worth
over US$7 trillion (e6.6 trillion) by 2020.
The entertainment business is arguably
the first sector to push an IoT digital
ecosystem closer to consumers in the areas
of wearable technology, smart homes and
smart cities. While the context today is
narrow, the combination of these devices
with information gleaned from sensors in
cars, thermostats, lighting, or doorbell opens
a myriad of possibilities.
“For instance, with wearable technology
we can finally understand who an audience
20/04/2015 18:27
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
is and use the combination of their presence,
plus other environmental indicators that
the devices are communicating, to give
content recommendations,” says Charles
Dawes, senior director, product marketing
at TV technology provider Rovi. “Other
simple examples are already possible, such
as controlling your connected lights so the
ambience of your living room matches the
mood of the film you’re watching.”
To capitalise on the IoT opportunity,
the world needs there to be a base level of
ubiquitous connectivity ensuring that devices
are able to communicate no matter where
they are. Assuming this infrastructure is
in place, then the opportunity is one of
building products and services on top “so
that consumers can be provided with more
personalised, targeted and value-added
services than ever before,” says Dawes.
For Dawes, telecom and cable service
providers are among the players best placed
to deliver the applications that the IoT could
unleash.
“Service providers have the opportunity
to move outside of the areas they’ve been
traditionally bound to. For instance, as smart
metering and the connected home takes off,
the service provider can build new services
around it that integrate the existing voice,
data and video solutions with new ways to
grow their business,” he says.
Google competition
While the opportunities are there, MSOs
and other service providers will face stiff
competition from internet and consumer
Intelsat’s next-generation EPIC class of
satellite (left).
The Internet of Things can encompass outof-home applications.
electronics giants in targeting the IoT market.
First among these are the big internet
players. Through its connected home
division Next, Google has acquired Revolv (a
hardware hub packed with radios for syncing
various smart home devices with each other)
and security camera company, Dropcam.
These will be linked to the Android operating
system by Google.
Google’s rival Apple is making a similar
play with its Apple TV, iWatch and iPhone
devices, linked to IoT platform HomeKit.
Even Facebook is getting in on the act. Its
acquisition in January of voice-recognition
start-up Wit.Ai is considered to be the social
network’s first major foray into the IoT
world. Consumer electronics giant Samsung
meanwhile spent US$200 million in August
last year on SmartThings, a Washington
DC-based start-up which allows people to
synchronise connected gadgets using a single
smartphone app and hardware hub.
While the internet giants have the
resources to make the IoT their own, and
Google et al are spending billions of dollars
to acquire entry points into the home, cable
operators and telcos, and to some extent
consumer electronics companies, have the
immeasurable advantage of already being
there. They’ve amortised investment in
remote controls and set-top boxes and are
now extending their reach with other devices,
such as dongles and WiFi extenders, via
multi-service residential gateways. What’s
more, with their golden asset – their existing,
trusted, billing relationships with customers –
they are better placed than Apple or Samsung
to deliver many of these additional services
into the home. Nevertheless, capitalising
on the opportunity will mean a change of
mindset among service providers.
“This is not a natural evolution of TV
everywhere strategy,” says Guillaume de Saint
Marc, senior director, chief technology and
architecture office at Cisco. “They [MSOs]
have to continue to invest in the cloud since a
lot of the business intelligence for IoT will be
housed there. Security of the home gateway
is another significant issue and an elegant
and very powerful way for them to capitalise
on their already considerable investment in
security for set-top boxes.”
According to content security and TV
technology provider Irdeto, operators are
nevertheless also in a good position to play a
leading role in the connected home because
of their deep awareness of the subscriber base
and demographic/market data to determine
the ‘right’ or ‘killer’ IoT app for their market.
“Operators also have experience with multiservice offerings delivered through gateways
and complementary devices and an ongoing
desire to increase subscriber loyalty and
longevity through new and varied services,”
says Greg McKesey, VP of technology, Irdeto.
“The ‘screen,’ whether fixed big screen or
mobile, will be a focal point for virtualising –
and visualising – all kinds of consumer IoT
systems. The question each operator has to
ask themselves is: should they deploy and
offer these services; form partnerships to
allow third parties to use their subscriber base
as a channel of distribution or simply allow
third parties free reign over their subscribers?”
“[MSOs] have to continue to invest in the
cloud since a lot of the business intelligence
for IoT will be housed there.”
Guilaume de Saint Marc, Cisco
13
20/04/2015 18:27
Pay TV operators could even look to
integrate some basic home automation
functionality into their offerings, for example
by making the ‘smart home’ know what to do
when an on-demand movie is being played as
opposed to live TV, suggests Irdeto.
“Perhaps because the on-demand content
is available for a fixed time, the user may want
the house to be on complete ‘do not disturb’,
for example with phones automatically
forwarded to voice mail,” says McKesey. “For
live TV, perhaps when a call comes in the
show is paused, and once the call is complete,
the show could automatically rewind before
resuming.”
Cost value equation
According to TV technology provider
Arris, early security and home automation
systems have struggled to gain a hold
because the cost/value equation didn’t
add up. “Consumers might like a service
which enables them to tune home heating
ahead of arrival but they are not prepared
to pay US$30 a month for it,” says Charles
Cheevers, CTO, customer premises
equipment Arris.
A residential gateway up until now
has typically meant a device that provides
households with voice, video and internet
services, but new devices fitted with radios
are being created to support IoT protocols
from ZWave and ZigBee. This enables the
service provider to synchronise with other
devices in the home and to perform physical
installation and maintenance on third-party
connected devices with minimal capital
expenditure. In theory this could cut the cost
to the operator and enable it to pass the value
onto the customer. “The trick is to make sure
the MSO is always in the value chain,” says
Cheevers. “If they don’t do it, then the likes
of Google will go over the top and service
providers won’t be able to add value.”
Service providers including Comcast
are already employing product teams of
specialists in medical and assisted living
solutions and experts in smartgrid and
energy management to build its XFinity
Home platform.
“The bottom line is that operators’
subscribers are being approached by cable
providers, ISPs, telcos, utility companies
and others with IoT multi-service offerings,”
14
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
The IoT and content suppliers
While the opportunity to offer a range of new
IoT-related services – from home security
to remote healthcare – are clear in the case
of telcos and cable operators, there are also
opportunities for broadcasters and content
owners to capitalise on the Internet of Things.
These range from crowd-sourced weather
forecasts to building information from the
IoT into talent show formats to judge the
emotional response to a contestant.
“Some content owners may synchronise
the overall viewing experience with the home,
potentially controlling your lighting system
in sync with a movie, TV show or live event,”
suggests says Greg McKesey, VP of technology,
Irdeto. “There may be unique merchandising
opportunities where content owners may sell
branded IoT devices to enhance the watching
experience – for example lighting for any kind
of movie, vibrating seats for an action movie, a
device that releases aromas for a kids movie,
etc.” For example, lighting for any kind of
movie, vibrating seats for an action movie, a
device that releases aromas for kids content.
A toy Dalek in the living room could be
activated to move in familiar Dalek fashion by
an audio trigger embedded in an episode of
Dr Who. This spookily realistic interaction was
says McKesey. “Operators need to invest
in IoT to not just remain competitive; but
to remain relevant. The core focus for
monetisation for operators will be with
incremental subscriptions and a move away
from being a dumb pipe provider for the
customer.”
Technicolor’s Digital Life suite of apps
(IZE), for example, is an open-source IoT
platform that aggregates different services.
Benoit Joly, SVP, marketing, smart home
and solutions integration at the French
technology company, says: “Each of these
services is delivered by a ‘digital concierge’ –
the Nurse, the Doorman, the Caretaker, etc.
– as you know them in real life. So you know
exactly which service you are subscribing to,
and you can add services as you need [them].
You just pay for what you use, exactly like in
real life. Everyone knows about this way to
buy services, and everyone knows how to
use a TV. All of this is extremely simple to
understand, and hence to adopt.”
demonstrated by BBC Future Media in 2011
and suggests other possibilities where content
could take on a literal third dimension.
While
merchandising
opportunities
like that are likely to grab attention, the
wider opportunities around gathering and
monetising ever more data about individual
households have yet to be explored or
understood in depth. TV technology provider
Dawes: the Internet of
Things could help deliver
applications of value to
the advertising world.
Rovi observes that the opportunity to
understand who is actually watching based
on information from other IoT devices could
also be of crucial value to the advertising
world. “While privacy considerations should
remain at the top of the agenda, getting the
right advertising content around our favourite
shows offers a huge business opportunity,”
says Charles Dawes, product marketing senior
director.
Revenue potential
While there is value in providing a service
which, for example, displays and controls
a connected home’s internet devices on a
single dashboard on the large living room
screen, there is larger potential in markets
such as energy management and health.
In the US in particular, there is a trend
towards monitoring patients at home rather
than in the more expensive environment of
a hospital. Wider even than this is ‘ageing
at home’, a term for tending to the growing
ageing populace outside a residential care
environment. The idea is that connected
devices, from wristbands to fridges, could
assist in remote monitoring and diagnosing
a resident’s health, even prompting them
when to take medication. “An MSO could
even develop an app today to tell you if
someone had died at home,” says Cheevers.
“They could do this by taking usage data
20/04/2015 18:27
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
Nagra and Cisco among others have already
demonstrated IoT applications.
from the broadband router, the number of
connected devices and changes in traffic. Is
the STB on? If so have channel switching
habits changed? With this knowledge you
could tell if somebody different was in the
house, or if someone had died. I’d pay US$1
a month for a service that monitored my
parents’ home in that way and alerted me
“As is ever the case, owning the network
or the set-top box is no guarantee that
consumers will buy new types of services,
or actually buy these services from their
incumbent broadband or TV provider,”
cautions Simon Trudelle, senior product
marketing director at Nagra.
However, he says, the potential is there.
“You just pay for what you use, exactly like
in real life. All of this is extremely simple to
understand, and hence to adopt.”
Benoit Joly, Technicolor
of any significant usage change. And there
would be no capex for the service provider.”
The economics will take time to build on
but service providers and the technology
companies that traditionally service
them such as Rovi, Irdeto, Arris, Cisco,
Technicolor and Nagra – to name a few –
are working on relevant business cases.
Some observers have predicted that IoT
services could bring extra monthly ARPU
in the range of US$10-$35 for up to 30%
of a MSO’s subscriber base. Technologies
and services that enable ‘ageing in place’ –
independent living at home for an ageing
population – for instance, when someone
is sent home for monitoring after a hospital
visit, could add significant sums to an
MSO’s turnover, reckons Cheevers.
None of this means that operators have
an unencumbered opportunity to own the
IoT space for the foreseeable future.
“While ARPU may only add up to a
fraction of the media and network access
services revenues that incumbent operators
currently enjoy, there is definite potential
for accelerated growth at some point in the
next 18 to 24 months.”
Interoperability
For the IoT to become a significant revenue
stream, services have to be plug-and-play-easy.
Arris is working to push what it believes are
the relevant open standards into its devices.
These include specifications from the Open
Interconnect Consortium (OIC) with Intel
and Samsung as founder members, and the
AllSeen Alliance, which uses an open-source
implementation of Qualcomm’s AllJoyn
framework to connect devices to one another.
That Qualcomm is a competitor to Intel
is seen as one reason for the dual approach,
although the OIC wants to broaden the scope
of IoT from the connected home to include
in-car and workplace settings.
Technicolor, a member of the AllSeen
Alliance (with Microsoft, Sony, Panasonic, LG
and Cisco), contributes Qeo, an open source
software language for connected objects and
has designed IZE with Allseen in mind.
Other attempts at macro platform
provision include cloud-based networks Ayla
Networks and Arrayent. Groups below these
IoT frameworks include wireless protocol
ZigBee, Smart Things (now Samsung), and
Thread which includes Samsung, ARM and
Google. Their aim is to promote a single
networking standard for the connected
home.
Apple’s HomeKit probably falls somewhere
in between. Proprietary technologies are
likely to win market share in the absence of
standards. “High-level standards may evolve;
but this will take years to iron out and the
market won’t sit around idly,” says McKesey.
Cisco’s Sant Marc believes many of the
necessary technologies are already available
as standards. The challenge is to bring
everything together.
“We have a lot of perfectly mature standards
already,” he says. “It’s not happening as an
ecosystem but as a sum of independent,
quite successful applications at the device
level. How we get to the next stage is an order
of magnitude more complex. It will need to
connect everything together and yet be very
simple and secure for the end user. It’s simple
to say but the only way it’s going to happen
this decade is by open source momentum
and the wider development community.” l
15
20/04/2015 18:27
Technology focus > OTT
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
Going over the top
Over-the-top and direct-to-customer offerings are becoming increasingly common
among pay TV and channel operators alike. Andy McDonald looks at some of the
most interesting recent developments in this space.
As the
television
market
continues to evolve, more
and more service providers are turning to overthe-top (OTT) technology to deliver packages
of both live and on-demand channels.
In the UK, Sky first launched its IP-delivered
Now TV offering in 2012 as a standalone
service – a concept that appears to be gaining
momentum elsewhere in the TV industry.
In the US, pay TV operator DiSH recently
launched its over-the-top delivered Sling TV
offering, giving customers a US$20 (€18)
per-month cloud TV service that consists of 16
channels. Sony rolled out its new cloud-based
TV service, PlayStation Vue, in March with an
offering of 85 channels, while Apple is hotly
tipped to launch an online TV service later
this year in partnership with broadcasters
including ABC, CBS and Fox.
New cloud-based TV services increasingly
seem to make sense in a multi-device world,
but changes in viewer activity are also leading
pay TV providers to bundle up and deliver
their traditional TV offerings in new ways.
16
p16-18,20 OTT DTVE AprMay15v3st.indd 16
In Spain, Telefónica is a prime example,
with the launch of various Movistar-branded
online access options and the release of its full
Movistar IPTV service as an application on
Samsung smart TVs.
Innovation does not end with service
providers and pay TV operators. In a postNetflix world, channel operators and content
makers are keen to get in on the act. HBO
has been making headlines with the launch
of its US standalone premium streaming
service, HBO Now in April. And it is not the
only premium US TV network experimenting
with a direct-to-customer proposition.
Starz Play Arabia
On April 2, US channel operator and content
producer Starz launched Starz Play Arabia
– a direct-to-consumer online SVOD service
across 17 countries in the Middle East and
North Africa (MENA). Discussing the move,
Starz chief strategy officer John Penney says
that while the firm has traditionally been a
“North American and US-focused premium
subscription television business,” it saw
an opportunity to “deliver IP-distributed
premium TV series and movie content to
residents in the Middle East.”
In the US Starz claims a combined 57
million subscribers for its flagship Starz and
Encore linear channels. While Starz Play does
exist in its home market, here Starz uses the
online service as a TV everywhere offering
– an authenticated online channel for its
existing pay TV subscriber base.
Penney says Starz decided to take a
different approach in MENA because it had
the desire to work in markets that have “not
traditionally had broad penetration of pay TV”
or that, in terms of demographic, are “seeing
an increasing middle class.”
The ability to licence content was also an
important consideration, in order for Starz to
establish Starz Play Arabia as a “full-bodied
service.” Currently the offering includes some
3,000 hours of series and movies combined.
20/04/2015 20:29
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
Left, Roku plans more pay TV operator
deals through its ‘Roku Powered’ scheme.
While this includes core Starz original
programming like Black Sails, Power and
Outlander, Penney says the “vast majority” is
licensed rather than Starz-originated.
“We spent a lot of time looking at markets
around the world. What you want to see is a
combination of a consumer demand, so that
there are people who are interested in some
content service – in this case premium TV
series and movies – an evolving if not robust
distribution structure – LTE wireless, 4G
wireless, fixed broadband – and you also want
to see the availability of rights – TV series
rights and movies beyond Starz [content],”
says Penney.
Starz Play Arabia is live in markets including
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,
the UAE, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and
Lebanon. Although in many of these markets
fixed broadband penetration and internet
connection speeds are far behind the those
found in developed western markets, Penney
says the infrastructure is actually “better than
one often thinks”.
“The reason is that mobile has become a
dominant transmission means for higher
bandwidth services like video. So where you
have 4G or LTE video, you immediately have
a platform to deliver content services. Those
could be audio services, video services, and
that ends up covering large swathes of the
population,” says Penney. He also points out
that in countries like the UAE or Saudi Arabia
“you have fairly strong fixed broadband
penetration” with home connections expected
to rise in the coming years.
The accessibility of mobile video plays
well into Starz’s multiplatform strategy in
the region, with Starz Play Arabia available
at launch on iPhones, iPads, and Android
devices, as well as PCs and Macs. Penney
says that the firm has no plans to deliver a
Starz-branded linear channel in the region
today, but says “we do acknowledge that the
opportunity can still be there” in the future.
As for its web-powered, direct-to-customer
approach, Penney says Starz has no plans
to go down a similar route in the US. “We’d
rather take the course of partnering with
our current distributors – cable, satellite
and telco,” he says of Starz’s home market.
Similarly Penney says it’s not the preference
of Starz to look to go OTT in developed
markets such as western Europe.
“We actually feel that it’s more important
for us to look at the world and find places
where television hasn’t been brought to
consumers in a convenient low-cost and
hopefully engaging fashion,” says Penney.
While he claims that Starz is “not in talks
specifically” about launching Starz Play in
new markets, Penney concedes that the firm
does “like the dynamics” of countries that
can be found in regions like Latin America
or South East Asia. “Our focus is finding the
right demographics and the right countries,
with the right demand for US and local series
and movies to develop a full product set for a
market,” he says.
Telefónica’s Movistar
In Spain, Telefónica has used various OTT
methods to both broaden the reach and boost
the user experience of its Movistar IPTV
service. In summer 2013 it launched Movistar
TV Go, its TV everywhere offering, primarily
aimed at out-of-home and mobile viewing. In
December 2014 Telefónica added Movistar
Series – a Netflix-style service focused around
TV series, which it again offers to existing
Movistar customers. Then earlier this year, it
launched a full version of its Movistar IPTV
service through Samsung smart televisions.
Discussing the Samsung implementation,
Fernando Soto, commercial director for
Movistar TV, says that the idea behind the
launch was to provide a better customer
experience by dispensing with the set-top box
and delivering direct to television.
“The main point is simplicity at home,”
says Soto, who claims that having fewer wires
and only one remote control makes the TV
experience easier for the end-user. He also
says that using the core processing power of
the TV set also makes sense, as smart TVs
can now contain more memory and better
hardware than set-top boxes.
The Samsung deployment followed a sixmonth development process by a large team
from both Samsung and Telefónica in South
Korea and Spain, says Soto, who stresses that
the Samsung integration marked more than a
simple OTT app launch.
“It is absolutely integrated on the system.
For example, the number of features that we
have on the Samsung smart TV is exactly the
same as we have on our set-top boxes. The
application is fully operated and some of the
experience is exactly the same, but with much
more power in the sense that these TV sets are
more powerful,” says Soto. “The integration is
so deep and is so complex that we cannot put
this application in any device as an OTT app,”
he adds, claiming that the involved process
and the development expense means that
Telefónica has no immediate plans to extend
the service to other smart TV platforms.
“It’s like having another set-top box in our
customer base and as you may know, in
general terms, IPTV companies don’t want
to have very many set-top boxes, because the
operation is much more complex,” says Soto.
Though his aim over time is to “try to have
also as many customers connected through
their own devices,” Soto says that Movistar
cannot be so radical as to try and phase out
Starz Play Arabia offers series and
movies in 17 countries across MENA.
17
20/04/2015 20:29
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
Telefonica now offers its Movistar IPTV
service through Samsung smart TVs.
low-priced OTT offering on a standalone
basis. Asked whether Telefónica would ever
go down this route, Soto admits “there is a
deep divide about that in our organisation.
So far we have nothing [deployed]; this is
the main point. We are not sure there is a
market in Spain for that.”
the STB entirely – even though it would save
the firm money by not having to provide the
set-top hardware. “We will never stop selling
set-top boxes, it’s quite impossible,” he says.
However, at the same time Movistar’s
multiscreen offering Movistar TV Go is
gaining traction. The app, which is available on
Android, iOS and Windows mobile devices, is
used, or has at least been activated by, around
half of Movistar’s total TV customer base,
says Soto. Customers often use the service
on devices like iPads in the home, but Soto
says that peaks in use are overwhelmingly
“connected with football matches” with the
“most typical use-case when a customer is not
at home and there is a match on the TV.”
Movistar Series is an attempt by the firm
to offer a premium Netflix-style on-demand
service to its existing customers and the
service currently has around 100 series,
including the likes of Game of Thrones and
Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul. Soto
says that Movistar Series’ value proposition in
terms of its selection of shows is to not just
offer the first or last season, but to try and
provide “everything, all the content together.”
While Netflix has made clear its ambition
to be a global company by the end of 2016,
Soto believes Movistar is in a strong position
for when the SVoD rival does change its ‘yetto-launch’ status in Spain. “Netflix is coming
really late in the sense that today we have
more than two million customers with settop boxes. We are offering an SVoD solution
with good quality at a good price, and it’s
bundled. We have the invoice capability, the
billing capability, everything, and we have the
content,” says Soto.
Yet one thing that a company like Netflix
does provide is the opportunity to access a
Now TV
Unlike Telefónica, in the UK Sky has
embraced the standalone OTT approach
with Now TV. Having first launched in 2012,
Casper Atkinson, product director for Now
TV, explains that the service has evolved
from its first version as a movies-only service
where customers could buy a sports pass, to
its current iteration of three separate packages
of movies, sports and entertainment content.
Now TV Movies today offers more than
1,000 film titles and up to 16 premieres a
month for £9.99 (€13.80). Sports fans can
get access to all seven of Sky’s linear sports
channels through Now TV Sports, paying
£6.99 for a day pass or £10.99 for a week
pass. Through this viewers can watch live
sports including Premier League and UEFA
Champions League football, Formula 1
racing, cricket and rugby union.
Now TV Entertainment, at £6.99 permonth, is the latest addition to the service.
“About 18 months ago we launched our
entertainment pack, so it’s rounding out
the proposition,” says Atkinson. “With
entertainment we’re up to about 240 box
sets, and that’s across 13 live channels – so the
big-hitting Sky channels, Sky 1, Sky Atlantic,
Sky Living, but also third-party channels as
well. In amongst that, Game of Thrones does
extremely well for us. We’ve got seasons one
to four up at the moment, and we had the
season five premiere.”
Ahead of the launch of Now TV almost
three years ago, Sky said that the service would
sit alongside its current subscription pay TV
service and be aimed at “the 13 million UK
households who do not currently subscribe to
pay TV.” So far this seems to be working.
“The important thing is [that from] what
we’re seeing it’s not cannibalising the core
Sky base,” says Atkinson. “When we survey
our base, 90% of our customers have said
they’d never considered Sky at all. It’s a way of
reaching those households yet to take pay TV.
It’s giving customers the Sky content without
the commitment of a contract. It’s just a new
way of monetising our investment in content
as we grow our revenues.”
Though Sky won’t reveal user numbers for
Now TV, Atkinson says that its customer base
“has tripled in the last year or so”. Customer
satisfaction also appears to be high. “Over
the last year, the number of customers who
are buying multiple passes from us has
quadrupled. That, as an indicator, is I think
pretty good,” he says.
The launch of Now TV was a bold move
by Sky, but the concept seems to be winning
support elsewhere in the pay TV market, as
seen with Sling TV in the US. Sky itself also
Sky’s Now TV service has seen its customer
base triple in the last year.
18
20/04/2015 20:29
Q&A: Hans-Jürgen Désor,
Chief Executive Officer, iWedia
Hans-Jürgen Désor, Chief Executive Officer at iWedia, talks about the benefits of Android TV set-tops for pay TV service providers
Why should a pay TV operator choose Android TV as the technology
platform for their service?
The main reason is certainly a wish to rely on and benefit from an existing
open eco-system: an Open Source operating system which is very robust
and well maintained, a community of application developers, and a wide
range of apps (more and more of them being developed or adapted for the
main screen).
In that new context, introducing a new service simply means deploying a
new app which dramatically reduces the time-to-market and thus enhances
the flexibility of the operator’s value proposition.
How does Android TV differ from the previous Google TV platform?
From Android Lollipop, the TV features gathered in Android TV are part of the
Open Source distribution (which was not the case for the former Google TV).
Moreover, all the necessary features to support OTT TV have been added
(e.g., service list scanning, parental control management, etc.).
What is still missing, and this is where iWedia bridges the gap, is the
support for “legacy” broadcast and multicast TV as well as for Personal Video
Recorder (PVR) features.
Given that Android TV will be available on a range of retail devices
and could be used by multiple pay TV providers, how far can operators
differentiate the look and feel and functionality of services based on the
platform?
There is a lot of room for differentiation for a pay TV service provider within
the Android TV framework.
First of all, the native launcher can be customised by the operator to deliver
its brand and dynamically expose the apps it wants to promote.
Moreover the operator may develop its own live TV app (with its own look
and feel) as a launcher which coexists with the native launcher and makes
the device genuinely behave as a STB.
To what extent should operators be concerned about opening the door to
Google and enabling it to gain data about and ultimately make money
from their subscribers?
You actually put the finger on one of the main concerns for pay TV
operators with respect to Android. And it seems that this concern will not
be completely cleared by principle, but by dedicated arrangements with
Google (e.g. revenue sharing mechanisms). Most of them are multi-service
operators anyway, with strong links to Android and Google through their
mobile devices.
pXX iWedia Q&A DTVE AprMay15.indd 1
What about security? Can Android TV be now considered as a safe
environment with respect to premium content?
Security was the second main concern pay TV operators and content
providers had with respect to Android. But the effort undertaken
by both DRM and CAS providers to specify and implement security
techniques (relying on a hardware anchorage) specifically suited
to Android have convinced the stakeholders that it is now safe to
distribute premium content on Android TV STBs.
Why does it make sense for pay TV operators that adopt Android TV
to continue to use a set-top box rather than simply deliver services
to Android devices?
Most pay TV operators already have their OTT services available for
Android devices. Deploying a box running Android TV allows them to
easily have these services available for the main screen as well.
What is iWedia’s role in enabling operators to deploy Android TVbased platforms?
As a software editor, iWedia may provide its ANDROID4TV product
which is an extension of the Android TV framework enabling broadcast
TV, multicast TV as well as PVR features.
As a software engineering service provider, iWedia may additionally
play the role of principal integrator of the STB software, gathering
our ANDROID4TV with the software components coming from the
SoC maker (including the Android TV distribution), the STB OEM, the
security provider (CAS and DRM); we then perform the testing and
validation of the box in the end-to-end system to eventually deliver
the mass production software to be deployed.
What is your track record so far and how do you see the future of
Android TV?
So far, we have been successfully associated with the Android STB
deployments of Swisscom (Switzerland) and Bouygues Telecom
(France).
We see a lot of traction now from operators and service providers
globally, including Europe, US and Asia. iWedia is a key driver to
leverage this AndroidTV technology from broadband telco TV (OTT/
IPTV) to traditional broadcast operators (Terrestrial/Cable/Sat).
We have been a strong promoter of Android in the TV field from the
inception of Google TV. We are proud to have been an active player in
eventually making it happen…
17/04/2015 15:57
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
The future of the set-top box
With service providers starting to move to OTT
delivery, what does this spell for the future of
the set-top box? Will they remain an essential
piece of kit for many years to come or is the
STB becoming increasingly unnecessary?
Kristan Bullett, global head of software
architecture at OTT TV technology specialist
Piksel, claims that while operators are already
working on or updating their next-generation
set-top boxes, “I don’t think we’ll see the settop box go away, because it’s a powerful part of
the branding for these providers.”
Bullett says that the term ‘cord-cutter’ is
now widely used to describe viewers, mainly
of a younger demographic, turning away
from pay TV services, often in favour of OTT
alternatives. But he claims this behaviour
is primarily pushing young viewers towards
apps rather than specific new categories of
hardware – like new streaming sticks and boxes.
“Yes, Now TV provides a box for that
[streaming], and that’s another part of the
market, but there’s a huge part of the market
that’s not going to be moving towards that
for a long time. The set-top box is going to
remain and I think slowly we’ll then see [the
number of] other people [that] use OTT only
start to climb – I don’t think it’s going to rush
massively,” says Bullett.
Sachin Sathaye, vice-president, product
strategy and marketing at cloud TV specialist
ActiveVideo agrees that the set-top box is here
to stay, but predicts a shift in both the power
and the capabilities of these devices.
“We believe that there will be a set-top box,
or there will be a device that operators will
have – it’s just that the set-top box will not be as
powerful as today,” predicts Sathaye, claiming
that important functions currently carried out
by the STB will increasingly be delivered from
the cloud.
“Eventually the set-top box, which is
essentially a very high-powered PC sitting in
your home waiting for you to press a guide
button, is just sitting idle as an investment
either from a consumer or from the operator
perspective,” says Sathaye.
He predicts that in the future, operators
could shift towards using multi-function
gateway devices in the home – “one big device
that allows them to deliver additional services,
whether it’s home automation or home
20
security” in addition to pay TV.
“When it’s delivering that pay TV experience
to the television set, which is the end-screen,
we believe those will be much thinner clients
than current versions. So there’ll be much
lighter set-top boxes like HDMI dongles. Or
there could be integrated within the television
itself,” says Sathaye.
Looking ahead, Luke Gaydon, vice-president
of strategic initiatives, media at online video
specialist Brightcove says: “It would be fair to
say that the majority of the implementations
of the Brightcove technology don’t involve a
set-top box. So I do have a vested interest, if
not in a move away from STBs, then certainly
in other methods of delivery.” Gaydon admits
that “there are a lot of reasons why media
companies like set-top boxes.” Primarily,
through their own set-top box deployments,
operators get to control the network and
dictate the specifications of the device.
However, he claims that when it comes to
deploying an OTT, as opposed to a managed
IPTV service, it is a “lot easier” to do so on a
web streaming device like a Roku, Apple TV,
the Now TV box than it is on a traditional STB.
Sathaye: The set-top box
will become smaller and
thinner as functionality
shifts to the cloud.
Iddo Shai, director of product marketing,
media and OTT at video technology firm
Kaltura believes that “eventually the set-top
box as we know it today will look as bulky and
out of date as TV sets that you see on Mad
Men. It’s clear that this is where it’s going.”
However, while set-tops may be changing
– becoming smaller in size while at the same
time being capable of handling streamed video
in HD and even 4K formats – will they ever fully
disappear?
Shai is unsure: “I don’t think you will always
need to have a device connected to your TV
and I think eventually yes, in terms of size, it
[the set-top box] will get closer to the sizes
that we are seeing with the Chromecasts of
the world. But we are definitely not there yet.”
seems committed to its OTT experiment.
Speaking on Sky’s last earnings call, company
CEO Jeremy Darroch said it would launch a
“next generation” version of Sky’s Now TV
box later this year and roll out a similar box
in Italy, having already done so in Germany in
December. Sky first launched its £9.99 Rokupowered Now TV box in the UK back in 2013
in a bid to make the service easily accessible
on TV sets, and it is one of the many devices
that currently supports the service.
Asked whether pay TV operator launches
of standalone OTT services could now be a
wider industry trend, Atkinson says: “The
opportunities are there. The big advantage of
delivering content over the internet, over the
cloud, is that it lowers the barrier to entry.”
At Roku, vice-president of pay TV Andrew
Ferrone agrees. Following the release of Sky’s
Now TV box, Roku launched a programme
called ‘Roku Powered’ last September, aimed
at licensing the technology that powers its
streaming platform to other pay TV service
providers outside the US. “If I’m successful
in my job you’ll see more and more of these
partnerships being announced over time as
we continue our conversations around the
world,” says Ferrone. He claims that there are
deals to be done with pay TV providers, even
if they do not intend to launch standalone
OTT services. “The Time Warner pay TV
service is available as an app on Roku. What
that means is access to 300 linear channels
of TV [and] over 5,000 VoD titles. It quickly,
after its launch, became a top 10 app on Roku
and to access that app you need to be a Time
Warner Cable subscriber, so it’s very much a
complimentary way of accessing your existing
cable TV subscription with all the benefits of
Roku,” says Ferrone.
For Ferrone, there is a clear move towards
IP delivery. He says that in the future “we
believe that all content will be streamed”
and claims “we also believe how an operator
chooses to package and offer their content
over streaming – whether it’s geographically
limited, available broadly to anyone with
an internet access with any given territory –
largely depends on their specific strategy.”
Though traditional linear TV is not at risk of
disappearing overnight, the internet is already
having a profound effect on the broadcast
industry. Companies that are adapting now to
new viewing patterns and embracing online
delivery options look well placed to prosper in
the not-so-distant, internet-first future. l
20/04/2015 20:29
Q&A: Tiaan Schutte,
President EMEA, Alticast
Tiaan Schutte, President for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Alticast, talks about the impact of cloud technology on pay TV.
Virtualization and migration to the cloud have had major impact on
other industries. How do you think these technologies will change the
pay TV industry? Virtualization will enable core pay TV delivery functions such as
business operations and media handling to be moved into a cloud
infrastructure. The separation of the content distribution from the
network removes the requirement for dedicated infrastructure by
the Pay TV operator. It also allows content preparation functions
and delivery platforms that are currently repeated in various pay
TV operations to be consolidated into a single cloud function. New
content distribution models, where the content is transcoded and DRM
packaged prior to wholesale distribution, may emerge. Competition
will increase as cloud based infrastructures with OTT delivery enable
new market entrants, such as Netflix and cable companies will no
longer be tied to a geographic footprint allowing them to compete
with each other.
What are the advantages to pay TV operators and content providers
in moving to the cloud?
Moving to the Cloud will equip pay TV operators to rise to the
increased consumer demand for high quality video on all devices.
Costs optimization will be delivered through the migration from
dedicated hardware platforms to scalable software instances in the
Cloud. For example, pay TV operators can virtualize the STB to reduce
both the BoM STB and also lower the TCO through reduced overhead
in software release cycles, fault detection and resolution.
How will the adoption of cloud technologies by the pay TV industry
benefit consumers?
Consumers will benefit from more innovative, appealing and convenient
services being supplied in a more cost effective way. Cloud PVR, catchup, startover TV – are all features made possible through cloud storage
and intelligent software solutions for indexing, archiving and serving
the content to any device. Compare this with the old DVR STB model
in which a consumer had to plan ahead of schedule the content they
wanted to watch and was restricted to watching it back on a single
device. With the wealth of analytics being available through cloud
delivery, we will see more personalized solutions being delivered to
consumers with great improvements in the quality of the services. pXX Alticast Q&A DTVE AprMay15.indd 1
What products and services is Alticast offering in this space? Alticast’s AltiPlex Cloud Services Platform (CSP) provides an array of
solutions: back office integration, metadata delivery, user and device
management, as well as Cloud DVR and Cloud UI, where the UI is
executed in the Cloud as opposed to on the STB or other device. This
radically changes the UI delivery model as interfaces can be defined
on a per user per device basis, and the delivery and test cycle can
be shortened dramatically. This is win-win for both operators and
consumers as new innovative features can be introduced quickly and at
lower cost without any impact on quality. In addition, we offer a HDMI
stick, which can be used in conjunction with the AltiPlex Cloud Services
Platform (CSP) to enable content owners to directly deliver their services
using IP to end-consumers at attractive price points.
How reliable is the cloud? What are the risks of moving components of
a core service to the cloud, and is moving to a cloud-based architecture
going to put a heavy load on networks as more concurrent users are
added?
Multiple industries have laid the groundwork solving issues like
geographic redundancy and fail over for seamless quality of service. In
the pay TV industry, reservations around the reliability of the last-mile
networks can be allayed by guaranteeing core functions such as security
and UI, through caching in the device to enable a continuation of service,
[in the worst case of a network outage]. Clearly moving to a cloud-based
architecture will cause increased network traffic as well as server usage.
However, solutions need to be designed with this in mind, as with the
Alticast Plex Cloud Service Platform (CSP) which is highly scalable and
consumes low bandwidth even when delivering highly complex UIs.
How do you see the market evolving in the future and what other
products and services do you see emerging from the adoption of a
cloud based architecture? IoT services around the smart home will benefit greatly from the cloud
and the TV plays a critical role in this – it could be a control device for
IoT infrastructure and at the same time could be a ‘thing’ itself to be
controlled. There are many issues to consider around the security and
usability of collected IoT data: Pay TV operators with a secure network
and cloud platform have a great opportunity to be the central hub in IoT
infrastructures in the home.
17/04/2015 16:28
Technology focus > Quality assurance and data analytics
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
Good behaviour
Applying user behaviour analytics to ensure quality of delivery and shape service
offerings has been a hot topic in the quality assurance world for some time. But can
big data be too much data? Stuart Thomson reports.
Quality
assurance has until
relatively
recently
been a second-ranked priority for many
service providers, who have relied on
customer complaints to deal with problems
as they occur or, in the case of OTT service
providers, have delivered best effort services
without a guarantee of quality.
However, the use of IP delivery now
means that service providers have the
opportunity to delve in much greater depth
into patterns of user behaviour and the
responses of users to different experiences
on different platforms.
The adoption of OTT or semi-managed
delivery platforms by service providers
means that there is an ever greater array
of variable factors that could determine
22
p22-24,26 Quality DTVE AprMay15v4am.indd 22
how well video is delivered over different
networks to different platforms.
Client monitoring
Quality assurance specialist Agama has
been a strong supporter of the client
monitoring approach to quality assurance.
According to CEO Mikael Dahlgren, client
device monitoring emerged as particularly
important for OTT providers that relied on
multiple CDNs to deliver their content to end
users.
“The market has begun to understand
how to create value from data but not for the
whole chain,” says Dahlgren. “The quality of
the data is one thing but drawing the right
conclusions is another.” For Dahlgren, the
use of data to proactively prevent problems
emerging, rather than the reactive use of data
to analyse behaviour after the fact, promises
the greatest benefit to service providers.
“Proactive work holds out the larger
possibility of real gains. If you can reduce
trouble you will get more satisfied customers.
If you can eliminate the problem before the
customer calls in, it is better,” he says.
Dahlgren says that correlating user
behaviour with quality metrics is a useful
approach, giving operators data that can
be used at senior management level to
take informed decisions. More and more
operators, he says, are giving executives at
senior level direct responsibility for customer
relations management, bringing quality to
20/04/2015 20:12
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
Agama has been one of the companies at
the forefront of client monitoring.
the fore.
This approach, suggests Dahlgren,
allows operators to make incremental but
significant improvements in quality over
time and enables them, for example, to
manage changes and new software releases
better. “If you roll out a configuration change
on the network our customers can see in
minutes how it affects the whole population
of clients.” This, he says, enables them to
take steps to “lower the amount of customer
frustration straight away”.
Having data available will not help unless
all parts of the organisation are pulling in
the same direction however. “At the top level
it is important to have a parameter that both
technical departments and top managment
can agree on,” says Dahlgren. He suggest
that organisations benefit from starting out
looking at top-level data before drilling down
into areas such as analysing the impact of their
specific distribution infrastructure choices.
For Dahlgren, the ‘reactive’ side of data
use – responding to customer calls and
complaints – is a challenging area. It is
crucial for front-line support staff to make
the right decisions straight away for the
service provider to further its goals. Too many
frustrated customers will at the very least
have a negative impact on the organsiation’s
ability to upsell them to new products.
“Actionable insights are key but those
are different for different parts of the
organisation,” he says. “The first line
support staff have to be quick and efficient
in understanding what the problem is.
At management level they need to have a
broader understanding of whether they need
to swap something out or expand network
capacity in some area or other. The quality
solutions must be able to give each type of
user the right type of information.” Agama,
he says, tries to “understand this and deliver
pre-packaged solutions for different user
groups”.
While the use of quality assurance
technology to work out, for example,
whether problems are confined to a specific
geographic area or linked to a fault in a
specific server is well established, Dahlgren
says that deeper analysis of user behaviour is
now attracting interest.
“What is new now is that discussions
are going into various things such as when
customers leave a service and how much of
that is related to quality issues or to other
causes. One way of doing this is to ask the
customers themselves, but customers may
blame quality when in fact they want to leave
for other reasons, so it is good to test this,”
he says.
For Dahlgren, the use of data analytics to
inform decision-making still varies hugely
between service providers, but interest
is being driven by the OTT operators in
particular: “There is a wide spread in the
market. Some do almost no mapping of data
against behaviour and others do a lot. The
large new OTT players like Netflix have a
deep interest in this and have made big gains
in quality. That is pushing other operators to
take action to stay at the same level.”
service. This data gives the service providers
targets and benchmarks of quality to work
to – how much bandwidth they need, what
ISPs, CDNs to work with, what codecs –
before they even launch the service.”
Franklyn says that Conviva’s global reach
means that it has been able to note significant
differences, for example in tolerance of poor
quality video, between different markets.
This trend is feeding into changes in who
within an organisation uses the available data,
with a shift evident from technical operations
staff towards people who are dealing with
product development and content strategy
executives.
At the customer service level, there is also
a move towards a more proactive approach,
as identified by Agama’s Dahlgren. While
customer relations staff are still using data
“If you stream video to phones it goes across
multiple CDNs to the phone network or
roaming network and then to thousands of
types of phones.”
Stuart Newton, Ineoquest
Global data
Ian Franklyn, managing director, EMEA at
quality assurance and data specialist Conviva,
says that there is growing interest in clientlevel monitoring, despite earlier scepticism
about its value. “I think it used to be the
case that you would have to convince service
providers of the benefits of user-centric
real-time monitoring, but service providers
recognise they need to deliver a high quality of
service. Their job is to make sure customers
are happy and they can use data to predict
whether customers will be happy and form
a strategy to prevent them going elsewhere,”
he says.
Operators are also showing a lot of
interest in using data gathered from other
implementations to plan ahead of their own
service launches, he says. “We have global
data, and customers that are thinking about
launching a service in a particular territory
or launching a new service are interested in
what the expectations of quality are and how
to satisfy them. [Quality expectations] do
vary from country to country and service to
to react to problems called in by customers
themselves, he says that there is growng trend
towards teams “looking at trends” and using
analysis to pre-empt calls by, for example,
sending out emails offering to compensate
customers for problems they have suffered
even before those problems are reported.
In addition to providing real-time
dashboards, Conviva is increasingly therefore
being called on to deliver reports identifying
trends. “We have seen a huge surge in
demand for this level of data analysis and
consultancy – this is not for technical people
who are used to dealing with data but for
product people who are familiar with reports
and conclusions,” says Franklyn.
As well as allowing service providers to
tailor video quality to the needs of the market,
user data can also help them choose which
CDNs to use and gives them better control
over vendor agreements.
In addition to real-time dashboards and
reports, Conviva can also supply data via
APIs, allowing big service providers with
large data warehouses to aggregate Convivasupplied data with other data. When all the
data from multiple sources is aggregated,
23
20/04/2015 20:12
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
S3’s Warning Centre: the company says
that user data is not sufficient on its own.
it can then be poured over and analysed by
business intelligence teams. The company
can, says Franklyn, provide a monitoring
store that can be customised for different user
groups. “If you are in the delivery department
and you want to see the performance of
CDNs or see issues related to DRM then you
can access the bits relevant to you,” he says.
The key metrics are ultimately those related
to user engagement and satisfaction. “We use
engagement metrics that we can tie to quality
metrics to show links between the two, such
as tolerance of low-resolution delivery of
live content versus long-form content,” says
Franklyn.
Franklyn says that the barriers to entry to
client monitoring are in fact relatively low,
with Conviva providing a cloud-based system
that requires only “a bit of code in the player” at
the client side. “Increasingly service providers
recognise that every single customer is worth
a certain amount of money to them. That is
why they invest in premium content and it
stands to reason that they want to make sure
viewers are happy with the content,” he says.
“We are seeing an increase in investment
in monitoring and maintaining Quality of
Service. If you don’t do it you are wasting
the money you have invested in content in
the first place. Can you afford to ignore the
experience of even one of your customers, or
do you reach out and proactively try to keep
them as a customer. Launching a service,
marketing it and winning back customers
from competitors are all signficant costs, and
some service providers really get that.”
Franklyn says Conviva is also innovating in
the way it delivers its platform to customers,
by for example launching a software
development kit that allows them to adapt
more quickly to a constantly changing
environment. The results can in turn be
fed back into the core product. “Our SDK
project involves providing source code and
documentation to customers to allow them
to build the libraries [necessary to support
new devices] themselves. You might have [the
introduction of] a particular flavour of player
and DRM that previously created a bottleneck
before we could support it,” he says. “Now
we say ‘here is the code – go build your own
libraries’. It is a revolutionary approach that
allows customers to know how to support
24
devices and get consistent data. But it means
we also get more data across more devices
which can feed into our group data tool.”
Franklyn says that data gathered across
the 1.5 billion devices globally that are
supported by Conviva can be aggregated
and anonymised to benefit the company’s
customers collectively. “The more customers
we have with the more devices, the more data
we have,” he says.
Big problem
Not all industry participants are convinced
that user-generated data will have a significant
impact, at least in the near future.
For Simen Frostad, CEO of quality
assurance specialist Bridge Technologies, the
big problem with end user device monitoring
is “understanding what is significant and
what is not”.
“If you have huge amounts of data...but
you don’t know to correlate and process
that data, it is useless,” says Frostad. User
behaviour is so varied and unpredictable
that there is a huge challenge in filtering
out ‘false positives’ such as those caused by
people fast-forwarding content at the same
point in programmes. “For the first time,
with multiscreen we can get some simple
data from devices, and by correlating data
from different types of phone and OS, and
also location, you can get some interesting
insights. But it still has to be done with great
care,” says Frostad.
To get meaningful user data means getting
data back possibly from millions of devices
in the field. If households have multiple
playback devices, not only is there a lot of data
to correlate but getting it back to the headend
can itself put a strain on the network, says
Frostad. He says that operators have to “only
focus on the data that could be significant”.
Frostad also says that it is difficult to work
out a commercial model that makes sense
around user behaviour monitoring both for
the system vendor and for the operator.
He also says there is an issue around the
readiness of operators to cope with massive
amounts of user data. “Just knowing certain
things is not good enough if it just raises
questions rather than answers them. If you
have a million users on multiscreen devices,
then individual user behaviour means
nothing – you need group data. It is still
challenging,” he says.
Users respond differently to buffering
and other quality parameters in different
households, and it is very difficult to draw
clear conclusions, suggests Frostad.
“There are so many devices in the delivery
chain that monitoring everything can’t be
done,” he says.
20/04/2015 20:12
Q&A: Ian Franklyn,
Managing director, EMEA, Conviva
Conviva’s Ian Franklyn talks about the use of user behaviour data to improve video services and inform business decisions by operators.
How can service providers make use of user behavour data to deliver
services that satisfy the maximum number of their customers?
Service Providers are competing for an audience that has increasingly
high expectations. Conviva data indicates that 1% of interruptions
results in 14 minutes less engagement on long form content. A recent
survey showed that 75% of consumers abandon a sub-par experience
in less than four minutes and that 49% of viewers will abandon a service
after one instance of a video failing to meet expectations. Conversely,
viewers presented with a superior experience watch 66% more. Service
providers can make use of user data to establish KPIs driven by a real-time
read on expectations. Meeting those KPIs drives a process that optimises
the viewer experience, and will deliver optimised engagement.
Setting KPIs, then adjusting strategies to achieve them, has to be
repeated on a regular basis – as quickly as service providers update
their offering, the ecosystem evolves, as new devices release, and more
bandwidth becomes available. We call this virtuous feedback loop an
Iterative Publishing Process. The steps within that include Monitor –
tracking everything to establish patterns, opportunities and challenges;
Benchmark – use industry data to establish how one’s service compares
to that of industry peers; and Optimise – adjust one’s execution to ensure
the service maintains and increases its competitive position.
drop in viewer engagement caused by excessive interruptions could be
directly attributed to congestion on a delivery path. With the ability to
switch delivery paths, Service Providers could avoid congestion, lower
interruptions and witness a reduction in engagement loss as a result.
Similarly, applying the right picture resolution to deliver a high-quality
picture that streams smoothly, and avoiding resolution volatility (where
a local ABR algorithm swings wildly between bit-rates in an attempt to
deliver) can improve the viewing experience, and maximise audience
engagement. Many elements define the user experience so measuring
dimensionality over time is the only way to identify consumer
expectations and consistently meet them.
What user behaviour metrics are proving of most use to help service
providers make sense of the wealth of data available?
There are two keys to behaviour metrics: context and dimensionality.
Monitoring one’s own results is a necessary but insufficient step: one
always needs to know how well the strategy is executed, and how well
it is being received. However, to gain full insight into progress against
what is possible, one needs context – to understand how results stack
up against peers. Our Industry Benchmark reports empower customers
to find the context that not only reflects the results that have been
achieved, but also to identify areas that need more investment.
The OTT ecosystem is now so complex that dimensionality is crucial.
It’s not sufficient to set an encoding profile for ‘iPhone’ – to meet the
expectations of viewers across all the models of iPhone, on all the
networks, service providers need to be able to zero in at a much more
granular level. Beyond that, they are seeking to understand where to
focus their efforts: our Media Encoding Report, helps to clearly define the
encoding profiles that are necessary to deliver a satisfactory experience
across all the different experience permutations viewers bring to bear.
How useful to video service providers is measuring user behaviour
versus measuring technical video playback quality?
There is a direct correlation between core quality metrics – like
picture resolution (bit-rate) and interruptions (buffering) – and viewer
engagement, so it is critical to measure both. For example, a sudden
How can that data best be packaged and presented to help video
service providers make the most use of it?
Different groups have distinct needs, which means there are a number
of packaging considerations. Live monitoring with real time alerts
through a GUI is critical for operations teams responsible for service
delivery and customer service teams responsible for real time customer
response. By contrast, analyst teams may prefer to receive data in
streams from an API, or even daily session logs, so that this ‘raw’ data can
be integrated directly into a broader scheme. And we find that many
stakeholder groups prefer to see reports delivered as fairly sophisticated
spreadsheets, designed to be searched, sorted and analysed.
Are there any globally applicable lessons that can be learnt about the
way consumers behave in relation to online video?
The market, audience expectations, and network performance are
all in a state of constant change, so service providers that adapt in an
appropriate and timely manner gain competitive advantage. The lessons
are: constantly monitor market and viewer behaviour. The only constant
that can be relied upon is change. Constantly benchmark your service to
make sure KPIs are met. The best results come from investing in the areas
that will make the most business impact. Constantly adapt to optimise
the service to meet and exceed those KPIs. Automation is becoming
increasingly vital, as the complexity of delivering to expectations has
exceeded the boundaries of what can be executed manually.
pXX Conviva Q&A DTVE AprMay15v2st.indd 1
How is data being used to make commercial decisions, for example
about the kind of devices to support or content rights to acquire?
Constantly. This kind of data is at the core of the most effective strategic
plans. Service providers constantly strive for ‘Optimal Publishing’:
the ability to balance viewer demand and expectation with cost and
complexity. By analysing engagement across device, content, location,
time, CDN and ISP, service providers can identify where investment
should be made to optimise viewer engagement, and where savings
can be made on items that have no or very little impact on engagement.
20/04/2015 10:26
Frostad says that quality assurance in
the multiscreen world still suffers from the
chicken-and-egg dilemma of a lack of will to
prioritise quality for service that are still for
the most part free. But paid-for models are
unlikely to evolve without quality assurance
in place.
For pure OTT providers such as Netflix,
the story is different as they rely on OTT
multiscreen delivery as their principal
business activity. Netflix has itself invested
heavily in its own quality assurance solutions.
But free-to-air broadcasters and others that
One problem is that data gathered from end
devices may provide an incomplete picture, he
says, simply because it relies on monitoring
from within the device rather than what the
customer is actually seeing. The second issue
is that service providers may not want to wait
until customers are using the functionality
they deploy before they test that functionality.
“With an innovative app, you can’t afford for
people to start Tweeting that it doesn’t work,”
he says. Operators ultimately need to test
delivery in the real world rather than in the
lab, but not to rely on end users, he says.
“The market has begun to understand how
to create value from data but not for the
whole chain.”
Mikael Dahlgren, Agama
may have limited resources are not yet in
a position to make a signifiant investment
in end-point monitoring technology, says
Frostad.
Frostad also suggests there is still a lack of
strategic direction within organisations when
it comes to quality. While senior management
are interested in one or two Quality of
Experience metrics that can show relationships
between, for example, fluctuations in quality
and the length of time customers stay with
the service or sign up for new contracts,
approaches vary between organisations. More
traditional cable operators, for example, often
stick to the view that waiting for customers to
call before sending out technicians is the best
approach to quality. “The market is still quite
young. Some operators have invested a lot
and spend a lot of time in trying to eliminate
problems and have had good success. In the
early days IPTV operators found it difficult
to achieve a high quality of service, but now
they often have higher quality than cable
operators,” he says.
Also somewhat sceptical about the value
of user behaviour data is John Maguire,
chief strategy officer at quality assurance
specialist S3 Group. “We don’t think it is
sufficient,” he says. However, says Maguire,
the data is there and should not be ignored.
“It is available data. You would be mad not
to gather it because it gives good insight into
customer behaviour and quality,” he says.
26
Another problem identified by Maguire
related to end user monitoring is that it
requires “users to do interesting things” that
fully test the functionality the operator wants
to deploy.
More generally, says Maguire, operators are
still held back to some extent by silos within
organisations and by management issues as
much as by technology. Using data and QoS
monitoring effectively requires organisation
and resources. Maguire cites the example
of an OTT operator that selects a particular
problem to solve at a time rather than trying
to solve all problems identified by the software
in one go. “They gather a book of results at
the end of each week and send it out to collate
data and build a picture of what to improve
each week,” he says. “It is not very scientific.
For example, how do you know you are
tackling your biggest problem? If it is really
big someone will shout about it.”
Mobile video
For IneoQuest’s VP of corporate strategy,
Stuart Newton, much activity currently in the
quality assurance space is being driven for
example by the likely growing use of mobile
networks to view video. At the recent Mobile
World Congress in Barcelona the company
highlighted its partnership with deep packet
inspection specialist Qosmos integrating
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
deep packet inspection with its probes to
do advanced analytics in the mobile core
network. The company also demonstrated
user behaviour analytics for iOS and Android
devices.
“People are realising it is harder to do
multiscreen video than they thought,” he
says. “If you stream video to phones it goes
across multiple CDNs to the phone network
or roaming network and then to thousands
of types of phones. If you compare that to
TVs with a controlled edge network, it is a
completely different world.”
In this environment, operators are typically
looking for basic quality assurance before they
take the plunge into the bottomless depths of
user behaviour analysis. Similar conditions
apply, he says, in the fixed world. “Delivering
to multiscreens is just really complex,” he
says.
Newton says that end user analytics
ultimately has to be combined with network
monitoring via probes. “If you look at the
client side and correlate that with the network
you can see you have a packaging issue at
the headend, for example,” he says. The
combination of technologies can give video
providers “visibility and power” to manage
their relationship with customers in real time.
Newton says the addition to client
monitoring to more traditional quality
assurance techniques has delivered “a huge
amount of data” including behavioural data
that can, managed properly, be used to provide
tools for “proactive channel management”.
“We look at it from two aspects – the
customer journey as a whole and adding KPIs
on top of that, and the journey of a single
asset,” he says.
The wider use of data to inform business
decisions and create revenue-earning services
is still at an early stage. “Our objective with
this two years ago was real-time analysis
for the converged video landscape. You
have a lot of convergence going on at the
moment in video delivery, but there are
still lots of different silos and battles within
organisations,” says Newton. Nevertheless, he
says, operators have an ambition to go beyond
creating “a holistic view for a baseline service
assurance” to “demographic mapping for
targeting”, for example of advertising. While
user behaviour data can tell operators which
ads were watched and when, the ultimate
goal is to create a paltform to enable real-time
bidding for ad slots. l
20/04/2015 20:12
2015
9 -11 June 2015
✔
exhibition & congress
rEgistEr
now!
broadband
tElEvision
onlinE
17,000
Exhibition & congrEss for
broadband, cablE & satEllitE
• 9 -11 June 2015
• cologne / germany
• www.angacom.de
1,900
other
european
countries
france
businEss
visitors
50 % intErnational
450
congrEss
attEndEEs
Exhibitors
from 34 countriEs
150+ spEakErs
2005
800 ca
2014
1900 ca
2005–2014:
+ 56 %
germany
international
netherlands
Kindly supported by
pIBC ANGACOM DTVE FebMar15.indd 1
www.angacom.de
ANGA Services GmbH
Nibelungenweg 2 · 50996 Köln / Germany
Tel. +49 (0)221 / 99 80 81-0 · [email protected]
23/02/2015 17:56
TV Connect 2015 > Preview
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
TV Connect 2015: the preview
With the TV Connect show due to kick off at London Excel exhibition centre on April
28, DTVE highlights some of the innovations that will be on display.
Globecast
IneoQuest
Inview
STAND 40
STAND 130
STAND 158
WHAT’S NEW?
OTT services offering
WHAT’S NEW?
Advanced analytics platform;
operational analytics platform;
multiscreen and OTT solutions;
cloud-based video service
assurance
WHAT’S NEW?
Liberator
WHAT DOES IT DO?
Globecast will be highlighting
its OTT services and a range
of monetisation tools as a first
time exhibitor at the show.
Globecast will be illustrating how
its OTT solutions are provided
as both standalone services or
as an option within its media
management and distribution
offering. Globecast has used its
market and broadcast expertise
to develop three key OTT
services to ensure high-quality
deployment, cost-effectively,
the company says. These are:
content preparation, content
management and content
delivery for linear channels; on
demand content (catch up TV
for example); and live events.
The first, OTT Live, is for the
simulcast delivery of linear
channels while OTT VoD makes
content catalogues available
for streaming to any connected
screen. OTT Event is a packaged
occasional live streaming
service for content owners.
Globecast has also developed
a range of monetisation tools
including payment, subscriber
and advertising management
and complete analytic options.
The company provides either
end-to-end or modular solutions,
including players and CDN
services.
CONTACT
www.globecast.com
28
p28,30 TV Connect Preview DTVE AprMay15v4st.indd 28
WHAT DO THEY DO?
The advanced analytics platform
harvests behavioural and
operational data across adaptive
streaming networks allowing
comprehensive analysis of the
video assets, devices, protocols,
and end user behaviour. The
operational analytics platform
provides four-dimensional
analysis and reporting on years
of video quality and performance
data, giving providers insight
into performance over time by
programme, time, location and
error, according to IneoQuest. The
company describes its multiscreen
and OTT video solutions as endto-end video analytics and service
assurance solutions that provide
the real-time data and business
intelligence that providers need
to gain visibility into their services
throughout the entire network.
IneoQuest’s cloud-based video
service assurance provides multilocation validation of adaptive
video asset availability and quality
after a third party or operator CDN.
IneoQuest says it will also show
QoE & QoS monitoring solutions for
linear broadcast TV, HEVC-encoded
video and compliance validation
with local language capability.
CONTACT
www.ineoquest.com
WHAT DOES IT DO?
Inview’s Liberator software
platform gives operators and
broadcasters the tools they need
to rapidly launch broadcast,
OTT or hybrid services in one
seamless, custom branded
user interface, according to
the company. It includes a
feature rich EPG and value
added services such as VoD,
catch-up TV and nPVR services,
advertising, content discovery,
recommendations and more.
Inview’s solution can be used to
upgrade existing deployed set-top
boxes with new software and
services. Inview has upgraded
over nine million products with
a UI that it says can enhance the
user experience, provides revenue
generating services, promotes
the customer’s brand and creates
a unified look and feel across all
platforms.
Kaltura will showcase its new
HTML5 web app for Amazon
Fire TV. The app allows Kaltura
customers to publish video
content from within Kaltura
directly to Amazon Fire TV,
improving the distribution
process and streamlining the
multiscreen experience, according
to the company. Amazon recently
released the Web App Starter Kit
for Fire TV, which is intended to
help web developers get up to
speed quickly by creating a simple
media-oriented app. Building on
this model, Kaltura’s app brings
the Kaltura HTLM5 player to the
big screen, enabling publishers to
create turnkey apps for the Fire
TV platform, the company says.
In addition to Amazon Fire TV,
Kaltura’s Player Toolkit supports
Chromecast, native mobile
applications as well as desktop
and web browsers. The player also
runs natively within Twitter feeds
and Facebook news feeds.
CONTACT
www.kaltura.com
Metrological
STAND 30
CONTACT
www.inview.tv
Kaltura
STAND 77
WHAT’S NEW?
Amazon Fire TV implementation
WHAT DOES IT DO?
WHAT’S NEW?
App Store; UX, App Manager and
Dashboard
WHAT DO THEY DO?
Metrological will showcase its
device and software agnostic
20/04/2015 20:01
Q&A: Julie Austin,
CEO, Inview
Julie Austin, CEO of Inview, talks about the challenges and requirements for delivering a digital switchover solution in Nigeria
What are the challenges facing Nigeria as it prepares for digital
switchover?
The foremost challenge for everyone involved in launching DSO in Nigeria
is the sheer scale of the undertaking in such a large country with its vibrant
and diverse culture. Nigeria is the seventh most populous country in the
world, has a population of 170 million, 40 million households and over
20 million TV homes. As the largest economy in Africa, it is aware of the
need to set the bar high in the way it smoothly migrates the country from
analogue to digital and successfully implements its switchover strategy. It
is a challenge that we at Inview know only too well from our involvement
since the early days of digital terrestrial deployment in the UK 15 years
ago. We held a pivotal role in the UK and, over recent years, have provided
interactive and OTT services to low cost digital set top boxes in a wide
range of territories. When NBC announced the partnership with Inview last
month, they made it clear that one of the key factors in selecting Inview
was our operational expertise, which they recognise will be so invaluable
in making DSO successful in Nigeria.
What are Nigeria’s main requirements for set-top boxes to enable
switchover and how challenging will it be to meet these requirements?
The fundamental requirement is that the set top box is a reliable product
from a quality manufacturer that is competitively priced. It must also
enable a secure encryption system (to reduce piracy) and deliver a great
user experience. The NBC are wisely specifying a common set top box
platform that will be used to deliver this user experience and promote the
best of Nigerian and international content. For Inview specifically, we are
delighted that NBC were impressed sufficiently to select our intuitive user
interface, our compelling Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) and adopt
our simple to use services. From an economic viewpoint, the ability of our
software to facilitate the successful monetizing of services via the set top
box in the future will also enable a substantial return on investment over
each set top box’s lifetime.
What level of advanced functionality is it possible to deliver to massmarket set-tops in the context of markets such as Nigeria where many
consumers’ choices will be restrained by cost?
Even in low cost set top boxes, Inview’s client software enables a high level
of functionality. In addition to linear channels, this will include the ability
to view a wide range of linear interactive services including advertising,
push video on demand and a range of broadcasting applications such as
news, public service information and audience measurement services.
This is an area with which Inview has significant expertise, having already
served the UK over the past 15 years and more recently on a global basis.
All the set top boxes will be future proofed and upgradeable in the field
to add connected services when the Nigerian infrastructure can support
them.
pXX Inview Q&A DTVE AprMay15.indd 1
What mechanisms are available for interactive services in Nigeria and
how much use is likely to be made of these?
From the start, we realised (when working with NBC and all the partners
involved) that there was a desire to facilitate a very smooth switchover
to digital terrestrial and satellite broadcasting in the briefest possible
time. We were impressed by the vision, organisation, passion and drive
to create what will be the biggest TV platform in the African continent.
Central to this has been NBC’s commitment to deliver a wide range of
new digital services for the viewers in Nigeria. Inview brings a wealth of
experience and know-how to this process and has a great track record in
providing advertising, push VOD, interactive news services and audience
measurement that will benefit the viewer and the Nigerian market.
These services are provided as an integral part of the viewing experience
ensuring maximum usability for the viewer.
To what extent do you think lessons from the Nigerian switchover
process could be applicable to other African markets?
Inview have already invested heavily, especially over the past few years,
in understanding how other countries in Africa are approaching DSO. It
is clear from our own market studies that there is an opportunity for key
countries in Africa facing the same challenges that Nigeria is addressing
to replicate the business model. There is plenty of scope to build upon
what Nigeria is doing with the added bonus of economies of scale if
these countries in particular choose to mirror NBC’s approach. A partner
ecosystem around NBC’s clearly defined set top box technology could
be easily deployed and it may make sense for other countries to replicate
what Nigeria is doing if they wish to keep set top box prices down and
deploy quickly.
What technology developments is Inview Technology currently working
on and what are your main priorities for the year ahead?
We are continuously seeking to offer the best solutions to broadcasters and
operators for digital switchover worldwide, with Nigeria a clear example of
this activity. At the same time, Inview is attracting a growing interest from
operators keen to learn more about what we can offer to support their
legacy set top boxes that are already deployed in the field. Inview’s software
enables operators to unify and re-brand even very low end set top boxes
and add new revenue generating services, thereby extending the life of the
set top boxes and deferring the capital cost of replacement.
In addition, there is also a growing demand for our software from
operators who want to quickly deploy solutions and services on new
hybrid set top boxes and HDMI dongles, fully utilising our capabilities
to offer a broad range of connected services on both set top boxes and
second screens. Inview’s priority for this year is to deliver a first class
service to its existing customers and to establish itself globally as the ‘go to’
company for DSO markets and legacy upgrades.
16/04/2015 17:26
TV Connect 2015 > Preview
Application Platform, including
its App Store, UX, App Manager
and Dashboard, which allow
operators to configure,
operate and manage their
own App Store across devices
in real-time with access to all
relevant business intelligence
data. Demonstrations will
feature Social Media Integration
and Instant Mobile Pairing,
which enables viewers to link
TV viewing to mobile devices by
scanning a unique QR code. This
authenticates viewers to connect
through social media to enable:
interactive voting, real time
buying, using a mobile phone as
a TV remote or game control,
multiplayer gaming, or picture
and video sharing. Metrological
will also demo Contextual App
Experiences, merging live TV
and OTT content, enabling
operators to present a unified
app experience that merges
all content in one screen.
For example, while watching
sports, contextual apps can
show related content like the
latest scores integrated in the
live TV experience. Red button
functionality can become an
app offering playing or voting
along with a live broadcasting
show enriching the viewer’s
experience. Other demos include
its Real time App Dashboard,
which it says provides realtime insights on operations
and app usage that operators
can use to refine app content
strategies, and its App Manager,
which Metrological says enables
operators to manage, in real
time, the App Store content and
the user interface (UX) in an
easy way.
CONTACT
www.metrological.com
Viaccess-Orca
STAND 87
30
p28,30 TV Connect Preview DTVE AprMay15v4st.indd 30
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
WHAT’S NEW?
Voyage Console; Voyage
applications for cross-screen
engagement, Connected Sentinel
Player; Eye on Piracy
WHAT DO THEY DO?
Voyage Console is a new
backend management console
for TV Everywhere, enabling
service providers to manage
multiple users, device types
(e.g., smartphone, Android
tablet, iPad, PC, TV with STB),
and content rights and offers
(e.g., VOD, SVOD, live TV, nPVR,
movie cards) through a single
unified system that supports
all delivery networks, according
to Viaccess-Orca. The console
includes advanced search and
filtering capabilities that enable
operators to track issues and
perform bulk actions. For example,
if content preparation of media
files starts failing, the console
can be used to filter through the
content library and locate assets
whose preparation has failed.
After identifying such files, the
console simultaneously retries the
content preparation, allowing a
resolution. Through the console,
operators’ marketing teams can
send inbox and online messages
to the devices of a group of end
users in order to engage with
them in a more targeted way. For
example, all accounts registered
to an SVoD service, with a tablet
registered to the service, can
be sent a message about a new
series that has been added
to the service library. Voyage
applications for cross-screen
engagement are front-end
applications, powered by ViaccessOrca and Zenterio, on a variety
of devices. The apps offer a
personalised viewing experience
for every screen, according
to Viaccess-Orca. Leveraging
Voyage converged service
platform, Voyage apps enable
synchronisation between devices,
extending the personal experience
from a mobile device to the TV.
Through the apps end users can
interact with content, switching
between a second-screen device
to the TV screen, in addition to
viewing advertisements on second
screens. Viaccess-Orca will also
showcase how Voyage is being
used in the by customers. Voyage
has been deployed by a variety
of service providers, including
Telekom Romania, Orange Spain,
and Boxer TV in Sweden. On the
security front, Viaccess-Orca will
demonstrate how Israeli satellite
provider Yes, Turkish operator
D-Smart, and Norwegian operator
TV2 are using its Connected
Sentinel Player for TV Everywhere
apps. The downloadable, secure
player protects VoD and live
TV content on Android and iOS
devices. Connected Sentinel
Player supports Microsoft
PlayReady as well as ViaccessOrca’s proprietary DRM, approved
by all major Hollywood studios,
integrated with media playback
technology by VisualOn’s
OnStream MediaPlayer+. Finally,
Eye on Piracy Viaccess-Orca’s
anti-piracy solution helps content
service providers protect their
TV services against new forms
of piracy, such as web streaming
and peer-to-peer content
redistribution. Recently deployed
by content service providers
in Europe and the Middle East,
Eye on Piracy includes a suite of
services targeting TV content
on illegal sites and the illegal
redistribution of live events,
such as major sports matches,
providing smart analysis of
pirated content and helping
service providers and content
owners in the fight against piracy,
according to the company.
CONTACT
www.viacess-orca.com
Zenterio
STAND 107
Interactive
The futureTV
of
Monetisation:
TV
advertising
The Big Picture
Produced by
In association with
WHAT’S NEW?
VAS offering
WHAT DOES IT DO?
TV technology company Zenterio
provides an independent
operating system for Interactive
TV service providers. According to
the Sweden-based company, it is
the first platform that separates
software from hardware, giving TV
operators the ability to seamlessly
combine live and on-demand
content together with a broad
range of interactive services.
By using the Zenterio operating
system, TV operators can offer
their customers new applications
and features faster and easier and
strengthen their customer loyalty,
according to Zenterio. In addition
to its operating system, Zenterio
has developed a VAS (value added
service) offering, which aims at
creating additional revenue for
pay TV operators by leveraging
the wealth of user information
that they have at their disposal,
according to Zenterio. At TV
Connect Zenterio will, among
other things, showcase its new
VAS offering. It will also present
the newly released report
The Future of TV Advertising,
published in conjunction with
DTVE, which is a survey among
200 TV industry players on
advanced advertising. Zenterio
will also be able to show and talk
about client implementations. CONTACT
www.zenterio.com
20/04/2015 20:01
Q&A: Tor Helge Kristiansen,
EVP, Principal Architect, Conax
Tor Helge Kristiansen, EVP, Principal Architect at Conax talks about the security challenges of delivering video to multiple screens.
What challenges does distribution to multiple devices bring to
securing pay TV services?
Distribution to multiple devices involves a high degree of fragmentation
in technologies, both with regards to adaptive streaming protocols
and to an even higher degree DRMs. Historically, an operator would
have to use a combination of streaming protocols, including HLS and
Smooth Streaming, to reach all relevant devices. This is now moving in
the right direction with the emergence of MPEG-DASH which promises
to become a unified standard for adaptive streaming, backed by most
of the big players in the industry. In the DRM space however, it seems
we are moving in the opposite direction towards fragmentation. Device
manufacturers are increasingly embedding their own DRM solution
into the clients, and creating obstacles for use of other DRMs on these
devices. We see for instance that Microsoft is embedding PlayReady
into all Windows-based devices and the Internet Explorer, while Google
is doing the same by embedding Widevine into the Android OS and
the Chrome browser. Of course Apple is doing the same with their iOS
devices. The pre-embedded DRM clients comes at no extra cost for the
operator, and represent a golden opportunity for the operator to launch
OTT services without high investment in DRM clients. We also see
examples of device manufacturers creating obstacles for use of 3rd party
DRM on their platform, favoring use of their own DRM. The best known
example is the discontinuation of the NPAPI in the Chrome browser that
effectively blocks use of Silverlight. All of these trends are pushing the
operator into use of multiple DRMs in order to reach all relevant devices.
What infrastructure do operators need to put in place to address
multiple DRMs? How can the complexity best be managed?
In Conax we believe that the best approach for an operator is to embrace
the pre-embedded DRMs in the clients and build a solution around a
multi-DRM security back-end. A multi-DRM back-end handling the
complexity of using different DRMs for different devices, while providing
a single management API towards the operator’s business system,
enables the operator to securely deliver OTT services cost-efficiently.
Such a back-end should be capable of handling all relevant DRMs, as well
as content preparation for adaptive streaming protocols. This enables
the operator to focus on the optimal customer experience and leave the
complexity of security to specialist providers. Conax has worked hard on
these problems for some time now, and recently launched our Conax
Contego multi-DRM platform at the NAB show in Las Vegas.
Can the same level of security be provided across multiple devices,
and across closed pay TV networks and internet-based services?
Building good security solutions for open devices, such as tablets and
smartphones, is a completely different game than building security for
purpose-built devices such as set-top boxes and smart TVs. Purpose-
pXX Conax Q&A DTVE AprMay15v2st.indd 1
built devices typically have security features in the SoC, in the best
cases including a dedicated Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) that
enables protection of sensitive data and processing through hardware.
In open devices however, there is normally only a pure software
environment available to build security around. To protect sensitive data
and processing in such an environment involves various mechanisms
including obfuscation, key smearing techniques and encrypted
computation. While it is possible to build quite secure solutions for open
software environments, it can never reach the high security levels that is
achievable through the combination of software and hardware.
What security requirements are there for UHD to multiple screens?
UHD brings the potential of even higher value content, and Hollywood
studios have issued a set of security recommendations through
MovieLabs. The most important is the use of hardware security
mechanisms in the client, in particular Trusted Execution Environment
(TEE) and requirements for Hardware Root of Trust (HRoT). In addition,
there is a requirement for the ability to add Forensic Watermarking
to UHD content. These recommendations represent a significant
strengthening of security mechanisms for UHD compared to HD. The
requirements for TEE and HRoT will make it very complex to support
UHD on most open devices. But it remains to be seen if Hollywood will
actually put pressure behind these recommendations. In any case, it is a
clear message that content protection is still to be taken very seriously.
To what extent do operators need to achieve a certain scale to manage
multiscreen security cost-effectively?
Using a good, scalable multi-DRM security back-end, optionally
combined with pre-integrated OTT solutions, will enable operators to
deploy cost-efficient solutions at any scale. Conax’s multi-DRM Contego
back-end enables operators to introduce advanced multiscreen services
quickly and cost-effectively. Hence, they can quickly start an OTT service,
and grow their solution gradually over time with additional features.
Is the world of multiple DRMs here to stay or do you expect the video
delivery ecosystem to be simplified over time?
The trend is definitely towards multi-DRM in OTT, and it will likely be with
us for some time. There are initiatives that will make it less complex to
build complete solutions utilising multiple DRMs. The most prominent
are MPEG-DASH and HTML5. MPEG-DASH has support for Common
Encryption that enables embedding of multiple DRMs into the same
content stream, effectively reducing the number of streams that needs
to be prepared to reach multiple devices. Also HTML5, with support
for Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), will simplify development of
browser-based solutions independent of the DRM being used in each
browser. So there is definitely some light at the end of the tunnel.
17/04/2015 14:11
ANGA COM 2015 > Preview
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
ANGA COM 2015: the preview
German broadband trade fair ANGA COM gears up for its 2015 show in Cologne this
June.
ANGA
COM is preparing for
its return to Cologne’s
Messe exhibition centre in June, with the
2015 edition of the show set to feature 24
expert panels and more than 400 exhibitors
from 30 countries.
The event, which is organised by a
subsidiary of the Association of German
Cable Operators (ANGA) and supported by
the satellite and cable division of business
lobby group ZVEI, will open this year with a
speech by Hannelore Kraft, Prime Minister of
the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia. This will be followed by an opening
discussion that for the first time will be split
into two parts, with participants representing
both the network operators and the media
sector.
The first part of the panel discussion will
feature: Liberty Global president and CEO
Mike Fries; Kabel Deutschland CEO and
Vodafone Deutschland managing director
Manuel Cubero; ZDF chairman Thomas
Bellut; and Discovery Networks CEEMEA
president and managing director, Kasia Kieli.
The second part will include discussion
from: RTL Deutschland managing board
member, Marc Schröder; Unitymedia
CEO Lutz Schüler; Astra Deutschland
managing director, Wolfgang Elsäßer;
and ProSiebenSat.1 Media’s chief legal,
distribution and regulatory affairs officer,
Conrad Albert.
Day one of the three-day event will also
feature the English-language International
Broadband Summit track. This will include
contributions from: Michel Azibert, CCO
and deputy CEO, Eutelsat; Colin Buechner,
chief network officer, Liberty Global;
Wilhelm Dresselhaus, CEO, AlcatelLucent Deutschland; Bruce McClelland,
president, network and cloud and global
services, Arris Group; Yves Padrines, VP
and general manager cable, media and
video EMEAR, Cisco; and Dirk Woessner,
president consumer business, Rogers
Communications, Canada.
The rest of the congress programme will
be divided into strategy and technology
32
p32 ANGACOM Prev DTVE AprMay15v3st.indd 32
panels. Among the highlights of the strategy
programme is a panel looking at the
competition between video-on-demand and
pay TV, featuring speakers from Amazon
Instant Video, M7, ProSiebenSat.1, Sky, and
Tele Columbus.
Other strategy panels will focus on
topics such as media law and net neutrality
in Germany and the US, best practise
for IPTV and net PVR deployments
and device networking and energy
management. The latter is part of a special
connected home segment, organised in
collaboration with BITKOM, the Federal
Association for Information Technology,
Telecommunications and New Media.
The technology panels during the show will
include sessions on DOCSIS 3.1, innovative
solutions for optimising fibre networks,
DVB-T2 with HEVC for terrestrial television,
and a panel on the technical implications and
opportunities of RDK.
There will also be a panel looking into
multiscreen quality of service and content
protection, a session on TV cloud services and
a panel on the growth of WiFi connectivity and
bandwidth demand, looking at technologies
such as CCAP and LTE.
“The DNA of ANGA COM is and will
remain the close combination of broadband
and audiovisual media – practical,
international and strictly dedicated to
business,” says Peter Charissé, MD of ANGA
COM. “This year, we especially would like
to thank our diverse cooperation partners
bringing together all relevant market
participants of both industry sectors.”
As at last year’s event, ANGA COM
2015 will feature a forum called Speakers‘
Corner that will run in addition to the
regular congress panels. This is will consist
of 36 presentations and is designed to be a
“practical forum” where speakers can discuss
various products, projects and solutions.
The Speakers’ Corner will be located in the
exhibition hall and can be attended by all
exhibition visitors and congress attendees.
ANGA COM is organised in association
with 12 industry associations from the
broadband and media sector and the local
media congress Medienforum NRW.
Sponsoring partners of the event are AlcatelLucent, Astra Deutschland, AVM, Nagra,
QVC, Sky Deutschland and Unitymedia
KabelBW. l
ANGA COM 2015 will take place at the Köln
Messe in Cologne, Germany from June 9-11.
20/04/2015 19:54
Technology > in focus
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
Technology in focus
Infrastructure, equipment and product news for digital media distribution
BBC to increasingly look to web delivery, says CTO
In Brief
The BBC will increasingly use the
web to deliver programmes and
services to viewers in the future,
according to chief technology
officer, BBC Engineering, Matthew
Postgate.
Outlining his vision for the
future, Postgate said that BBC
Engineering’s priorities are to
“make sure we’re flexible, efficient
and can take advantage of all the
digital developments happening in
broadcasting.”
He claimed that the web and
new technology is “changing
broadcasting fast”, with people
already able to film broadcast-quality content using just a
smartphone. Postgate said this
is not only changing how people
watch and listen to programmes,
but how the BBC will make them.
“We will increasingly use the
internet to deliver programmes
and services to you in the future
– whether that’s to the big screen
in the living room or the smartphones and tablets scattered over
DISH taps Rovi voice
Postgate:
flexibility and
efficiency are
the BBC’s
priorities.
the house,” said Postgate in a BBC
blog post.
“This opens the door to entirely
new forms of content that are
much more data-intensive than
audio or video – things like
Ultra-HD or virtual reality for
example. I’m not saying these
technologies will take off overnight, or that they’ll take off at
all for that matter, and traditional
broadcast technology will continue to be critically important for
many years.”
Postgate said that the £1.1
billion (e1.5 billion) in savings that
the BBC has delivered across the
corporation since 2007 was in
large part due to innovation, and
that BBC Engineering is in the
process of transforming the way it
procures and manages its biggest
technology contracts. “We are moving away from one
monolithic, long term contract
with a single supplier, to multiple
shorter-term contracts with a
number of specialist companies.
We are saving £90m over the
next two years and we expect to
deliver similar savings once we’ve
completed the transition,” said
Postgate.
“Because of this tremendous
pace of change, our foundations
need to become more flexible
than we’ve ever needed them to
be in the past. It’s no use laying
the groundwork for a factory
when in three years’ time we find
we need an apartment block.”
BBC Engineering, formerly
known as BBC Technology, is the
division that keeps the BBC’s services on-air and covers everything
from transmission for TV and
radio to cameras, mixing desks,
email and business systems.
Kudelski and Google strike patent deal
Kudelski Group and Google have
struck a patent cross-licensing
agreement that the pair say will
provide both companies with a
patent licence for their respective
businesses, subject to certain
limitations.
Google will make a one-time
payment to The Kudelski Group
as part of the deal. “The Kudelski
Group is focused on developing
and licensing technology and intellectual property to the video mar-
p33-37 Tech DTVE AprMay15v3AMindd.indd 33
ket and we are pleased to license
our patent portfolio to Google
while also gaining access to Google patents. Operating companies
benefit when they respect each
other’s intellectual property rights
and cross license their patents in
a reasonable and collaborative
manner. This agreement further
validates the significant investment both companies have made
and will continue to make in innovation to the benefit of consumers
worldwide,” said Joe Chernesky,
SVP of intellectual property and
innovation at Kudelski.
“We are pleased to enter into
this agreement, which will allow
us to continue to focus on building
great products,” said Allen Lo,
Google’s deputy general counsel,
patents. “Google has a portfolio of
[over] 55,000 patents and applications worldwide and is actively
cross-licensing its patents in support of [its] product ecosystem.”
US pay TV provider DiSH has
partnered with Rovi to add the
latter’s Conversation Services’
spoken-voice interface to a
portfolio of it products. DiSH will
add the voice technology into
its DiSH Explorer second-screen
app for iPad, Hopper Voice
remote, and its DiSH Anywhere
mobile app, allowing subscribers
to use voice search to find live,
recorded or on-demand TV
shows and movies.
Ooyala adds support
Video publishing specialist
Ooyala says it is making it
simple to syndicate video to
Amazon’s Fire TV devices. By
using Amazon’s HTML5based Web App Starter Kit
to create an Amazon Fire TV
app, Ooyala customers can
create a syndication feed that
groups live or video-on-demand
assets into desired categories,
such as movies, sports or
documentaries, for the viewer.
PGA Tour golf is among the first
to syndicate to Amazon Fire TV
via Ooyala’s video platform.
TF1 taps SintecMedia
French broadcaster TF1 has
tapped SintecMedia’s OnRights
rights management software
for content and licensing
across linear and non-linear
TV platforms. SintecMedia will
track and manage rights and
inventory for TF1 across its
multi-platform business and
catalogue of content.
33
20/04/2015 18:58
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
In Brief
V-Nova promises ‘video at audio bit-rates’
Al Jazeera and Skyline
Video technology start-up
V-Nova, which has been operating in stealth mode for the last
five years, has unveiled a new
compression technology that it
claims will revolutionise video
distribution by permitting the
delivery of UHD quality at current
HD bitrates, HD at SD bitrates, and
SD video at audio bitrates.
V-Nova says its Perseus technology can provide compression
in the order of a factor of two or
three over existing MPEG technologies, including HEVC, H.264
and – for contribution applications
– JPEG2000. The technology has
been developed and tested over
the past five years within an Open
Innovation consortium of over 20
companies and organisations, including Broadcom, the European
Broadcasting Union, Hitachi Data
Systems (HDS), Intel and Sky.
“This is a new way to compress
video. The benefits are clear, it
shifts the entire bitrate-quality
curve…and it means we can offer
UHD quality at HD bitrates,” said
Eric Achtmann, executive chairman of the London-based outfit.
Achtmann said the technology
would enable the deployment of
mass-market video services in
emerging markets by enabling
the distribution of video over 4G,
Qatar-based broadcaster Al
Jazeera has partnered with
Skyline Communications in
a network management deal
that will see it use Skyline’s
DataMiner platform. Al Jazeera
will use DataMiner as the
network management and
OSS platform for its new global
media cloud network, allowing
it to transport media and data
across more than 80 offices
worldwide.
FTTH and DOCSIS gains
The global broadband consumer
premises market was worth
US$10.5 billion (€9.9 billion)
last year, up 9% on the 2013
figure, according to Infonetics
Research. According to IHSowned Infonetics Research’s
PON, FTTH, Cable, DSL and
Wireless Broadband CPE report,
the figures were boosted by
growth in the FTTH segment,
up 18%, with DOCSIS 3.0
equipment sales growing by
3%. The group said that growth
had been seen from GPON
and DOCSIS 3.0 sales in North
America, GPON sales in China,
Europe and Latin America,
and VDSL sales in Europe.
There was some sign of growth
tailing off towards the end of
the year, with fourth-quarter
revenue from broadband CPE
coming in at US$2.7 billion, flat
quarter-on-quarter. Infonetics
Research predicts that DSL will
take a smaller share of sales
as telcos migrate to FTTH or,
in some cases, forego fixed
infrastructure altogether in
favour of LTE. Top broadband
CPE vendors in terms of market
share were Huawei with 17%,
ZTE and Arris with 11% each,
Alcatel-Lucent with 7% and
Technicolor with 7%.
34
Achtmann (left) and Meardi
outlined Perseus’s benefits at a
launch event in March.
3G or even 2G networks, with
standard definition video distributed at sub-audio bitrates. “For
the one third of the world that
still has insufficient bandwidth for
video…[this] means that if you can
receive a call you have the ability
to receive video,” he said.
V-Nova claims to use standard
off-the-shelf hardware and says
its technology can be overlaid
on MPEG, meaning that existing
video distribution players can use
it to provide services.
Guido Meardi, CEO and founder
of V-Nova said that V-Nova had
stepped outside the framework
of MPEG compression to use hierarchical compression techniques
and “massive parallelism”.
V-Nova has high-profile backers
and the company has been
working with Sky Italia on using its
technology, initially for contribution applications. Sky Italia’s head
of engineeing and innovation Massimo Bertolotti was on hand at the
V-Nova launch event to provide
details of what the company has
been working on. “Contribution
was the perfect ecosystem where
a new technology can be tested,”
he said. Sky previously used
JPEG2000 for contribution but is
switching to Perseus, with a target
date of June for the transition.
V-Nova demonstrated contribution output at 300Mbps at
the event, compared with 1Gbps
for JPEG2000, based on a live
uncompressed 12Gbps feed. It
also showed the same live feed
in UHD at 8Mbps compared with
a 21-27Mbps HEVC feed. Another
demo showed UHD recorded
content at 8Mbps, compared with
a HEVC feed at 21Mbps.
V-Nova believes that the stepchange in compression it offers
will be compelling to broadcasters
and video service providers.
“We have seen lots of incremental changes in codecs,” said
Achtmann. “The fundamentals
have not really changed. Where
the incremental benefits are
10-20%, the business case [for
change] is hard to justify. When
you show a five times improvement, this is no longer incremental change but a paradigm shift.”
Akamai buys cloud TV specialist Octoshape
Akamai has bought cloud OTT
and IPTV service provider
Octoshape, in a move that gives
Akamai access to streaming video
optimisation technology.
Octoshape’s services are
designed to optimise the quality
of video streams for over-thetop (OTT) content and to enable
internet protocol television (IPTV)
solutions.
“With the addition of Octoshape, Akamai intends to provide
customers with the most comprehensive suite of video delivery
and optimisation technologies,”
said Akamai CEO Tom Leighton.
“We believe this acquisition will
bolster our strategy to further the
deployment of Akamai software
into devices, carrier networks,
enterprises, and homes, and to
fulfil the promise of an internet
that is fast, reliable and secure on
any device, anywhere. As more
video gets consumed over the
internet, and on devices that can
display higher-quality resolution,
it is important for us to develop
new ways to acquire, transform
and distribute the highest-quality
media for broadcast-size audiences. We are working to continue to
extend our platform to accommodate video throughput increases
that come from the adoption of
4K, and to support a potential
100-1000X increase in network
traffic in the future.”
20/04/2015 18:58
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
Amazon to support HDR video this year
In Brief
Amazon is set to add High Dyamic
Range (HDR) support to its Prime
Instant Video service in the UK,
Germany and US later this year.
Announcing the move, the
e-retail giant said that Amazon
Originals will be the first content
to arrive in HDR video quality.
Amazon added that it is
working with Hollywood studios,
technology innovators and global
consumer electronics companies
to bring Prime members and
customers “an unmatched HDR
experience in 2015.”
“4K Ultra HD picture resolution
was just the beginning – we’re
excited that Prime members will
soon be able to view movies and
TV shows including Amazon Originals in HDR quality,” said Michael
Paull, vice-president of digital
video at Amazon.
“HDR is the natural next step
in our commitment to premium
entertainment, and we can’t wait
for customers to have even more
choice in how they watch their
Bonnier taps Ericsson
Amazon’s Fire Stick is now
avaialble in the UK & Germany.
favourite titles on Amazon Prime
Instant Video.”
Amazon first introduced Ultra
HD support for movies and TV
shows on Amazon Prime Instant
Video less than six months ago
and is growing its catalogue of
4K picture resolution titles. HDR
technology is designed to bring
greater contrast to the screen,
making colours appear richer,
brighter and more lifelike.
Separately, Amazon has
launched its Fire TV Stick streaming device in the UK and Germany,
seven months after it introduced
the larger Fire TV set-top box in
these markets.
The HDMI TV streaming device
began shipping in both countries
on April 15. The device is priced
at £35 in the UK and €39 in Ger-
many, but for two days Amazon
Prime customers were able to
order a Fire TV Stick for just £19
in the UK or €19 in Germany.
Services available on the device
in the UK include Prime Instant
Video, Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Sky
News, Curzon Home Cinema and
STV Player, with Amazon claiming
that the number of video services
and games available on Amazon
Fire TV in Europe has doubled in
the past seven months.
In Germany services available
include ARD Mediatek, ZDF Mediathek, Netflix, Spotify and Prime
Instant Video.
The e-retail giant started to
ship the Fire TV Stick to customers in the US in November,
claiming it to be the “fastest-selling Amazon device ever.”
The device competes against
rivals like Google’s Chromecast
and Roku’s Streaming Stick.
Arris and Charter buy ActiveVideo for US$135m
Arris and Charter Communications have established a joint
venture to buy cloud TV specialist
ActiveVideo for roughly US$135
million.
Arris will own 65% of the joint
venture company and will be the
sales channel for ActiveVideo’s
CloudTV software platform, with
Charter holding the other 35%.
ActiveVideo’s CloudTV platform
is designed to let service providers, content aggregators and
consumer electronics manufacturers quickly deploy new services
by virtualising consumer premises
equipment functions in the cloud.
CloudTV can be used to deliver
user interfaces, online content
and interactive advertising to settop boxes and connected devices
and already powers Charter’s new
cloud-based Spectrum Guide.
ActiveVideo’s other partners include Cablevision, Liberty Global,
Deutsche Telekom, Time Warner
Cable, J:COM and Roku.
“This joint venture signifies
Arris’ continued investment in
advanced software solutions that
will create value across the entire
video ecosystem,” said Bob Stanzione, Arris chairman and CEO.
“Arris and Charter are paving
the way for an all IP network
migration and enabling the software-defined TV experience that
will deliver the unified, next-gen
content experiences that today’s
consumers demand.”
“ActiveVideo’s CloudTV platform is one of the enabling tech-
nologies behind Spectrum Guide.
We have worked very closely with
ActiveVideo on the development
of this technology, and now, as a
35% shareholder, are uniquely positioned to support the continued
innovation and marketplace adoption of ActiveVideo’s solutions,”
said Tom Rutledge, president and
CEO of Charter Communications.
“Today’s announcement
extends Charter’s long-standing
relationship with Arris, which
continues to be a key provider of
both infrastructure and consumer
premises equipment.”
The ActiveVideo deal is expected to close in the second quarter
of this year, subject to customary
closing conditions and regulatory
approval.
Bonnier Broadcasting has
tapped Ericsson to provide
the online platform for its C
More over-the-top service. The
Nordic SVoD service, which will
include live TV delivered over
the web, is due to launch later
this year online and on iOS and
Android devices. The service
will include a mix of sports,
local and international drama
series, sitcoms and Swedish and
international films. Ericsson will
provide content management
and preparation, digital rights
management, subscriber
management and billing and ad
insertion for multiple devices
and platforms.
24i raises US$2 million
Technology provider 24i has
raised US$2 million in funding,
which it will use to expand its TV
everywhere and OTT technology
to new partners. Newion
Investments invested in i24, with
cash also coming from Dutch
government guarantees on
loans for innovation. i24, which
has worked on multiplatform TV
apps in Europe for Fox Sports,
Videoland, RTL, Pathé and HBO,
is interested in expanding in the
US, having recently opened a
Los Angeles office.
Saffron and Verimatrix
Video platform provider
Saffron Digital has partnered
with content security
specialist Verimatrix to offer
“advanced revenue security
and monetisation tools” to
broadcasters and operators. The
new partnership will enhance
Saffron Digital’s premium
OTT platform, MainStage, by
combining it with Verimatrix’s
revenue security solution, VCAS
for Internet TV.
35
20/04/2015 18:58
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
In Brief
HDMI Forum adds HDR support
PeerTV integrates DVB-T2
The HDMI Forum has unveiled the
latest version of the HDMI specification, enabling the transmission
of High Dynamic Range (HDR) formats. HDMI 2.0a will be available
to current HDMI 2.0 users via the
DMI Adopter Extranet.
HDR is designed to enable
better picture quality by enabling
greater detail in both the dark and
bright parts of an image, enabling
greater luminosity and richness in
contrast. Samsung announced at
this year’s CES that it planned to
launch TVs that could handle HDR
early this year.
OTT technology provider
PeerTV has integrated DVB-T2
connectivity to its standard
set-top box, following its recent
addition of voice control to its
HEVC-compatible boxes. PeerTV
said its DVB-T2 products are
currently being tested by a
number of potential customers
interested in enabling their
users to enjoy both OTT and
terrestrial services from the
same device.
NOS launches Iris app
Portuguese cable and pay TV
operator NOS has revamped
its Iris advanced TV user
interface and launched an
application allowing users to
take control of their TV service
via tablets, currently available
on Android and iOS devices.
The new interface includes a
recommendation engine that
presents content to users based
on previous consumption, while
the tablet application enables
them to browse the TV schedule
and control the TV and access
additional content. The app is
only available via Android and
iOS tablets.
QuickPlay investment
Multiscreen and OTT video
specialist QuickPlay has secured
a C$57 million (e43 million)
investment from private equity
owner Madison Dearborn
Partners, financing partner Orix
Ventures and Difference Capital
Financial. The round means that
QuickPlay has benefited from
over C$150 million in investment
capital to date. The company
recently acquired LTE Broadcast
specialist Roundbox to enable it
to tap into delivery of video over
mobile networks via the eMBMS
multicast technology.
36
“We recognised that HDR
would be a critical feature as the
industry evolves. Our support for
HDR enables our 800+ HDMI 2.0
Adopters to develop market-leading products that include HDR
and will maintain interoperability
across the entire HDMI ecosystem.
Along with the publication of the
CEA extensions, the HDMI Forum
continues to update the HDMI
Specification and remain closely
aligned with leading CE standards organizations,” said Robert
Blanchard, president of the HDMI
Forum.
Thomson launches 4K encoder
Technology company Thomson
Video Networks has launched a
new encoding platform, the ViBE
4K, which it says is designed for
real-time 4K HEVC 10-bit encoding.
Built on the company’s ViBE
EM4000 premium encoder
chassis, the ViBE 4K enables live
compression of UHD sources at up
to 60 frames per second and in 10bit colour, according to Thomson.
Housed in a 1RU chassis, the ViBE
4K features multiple GbE interfaces
and 3G-SDI interfaces that receive
live UHD feeds for encoding.
Configurable from a standard web
browser, the ViBE 4K encodes both
audio and UHD video in real time
and delivers an MPEG transport
stream signal for broadcast over
IP, according to Thomson. UHD
video is encoded in HEVC 4:2:0 at a
maximum of 60fps in 10-bit.
“Although live UHD broadcasting
is not yet in the mainstream,
the market is evolving rapidly as
consumers demand ever-higher
resolutions and image quality.
One big driver is the emergence
of affordable UHD TV displays;
in fact, we expect all screens
larger than 50-inches will be UHD
by 2018,” said Eric Gallier, vice
president of marketing, Thomson
Video Networks. “We designed
the ViBE 4K for forward-thinking
broadcasters that are already
expanding their infrastructures
to provide a premium viewing
experience to their customers.
The ViBE 4K’s state-of-the-art
HEVC compression delivers
frame rates and precision at bit
rates comparable with satellite,
cable, terrestrial, and fibre
delivery networks. As a result, our
customers are able to deliver a truly
immersive live UHD experience.”
Separately, Thomson Video
Networks has launched MediaFlex
Suite, a platform to enable digital
TV operators to process content
from many sources for delivery on
a variety of platforms, including
satellite, terrestrial, cable, IPTV,
and OTT. Capabilities include
monitoring, configuring, and
dynamically changing their channel
lineups for both broadcast and
multi-screen services.
Humax to add
Freeview Play
set-top box
Set-top box supplier Humax has
said it will be the first manufacturer
to deliver the new Freeview Play
connected TV service later this
year. The Humax Freeview Play
boxes will support HD content and
feature built-in WiFi for wireless
broadband connectivity to access
Freeview Play’s range of catch-up
services, which includes BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4oD and Demand 5. Three built-in tuners will provide
advanced recording functionality alongside the catch-up and
on-demand services, according to
Humax, with the option of 500GB
and 1TB built-in hard drives for up
to 300 hours and 600 hours of
storage space, respectively.
Further details on the price,
features and specifications of the
Humax Freeview Play boxes will
be made available in the coming
months.
Freeview unveiled Freeview Play,
its new connected TV platform,
in March. It said that the service
would be available in a range of
new TVs and set-top boxes, while
individual manufacturers will be
responsible for any deals to bring
additional catch-up and online
services such as Netflix to the
platform. Panasonic has already
announced that it will incorporate
Freeview Play in its new 2015 line of
smart TVs. Freeview has also said
that Vestel will launch a range of
Freeview Play products.
Ilse Howling, managing director,
connected TV at Digital UK, said:
“Humax is an exciting addition to
the line-up of leading manufacturers supporting the launch of
Freeview Play. Its new range of settops will offer the perfect way for
viewers to bring all of the benefits
of connected TV to their existing
set, free from subscription.”
20/04/2015 18:58
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
DTG adds Freeview Play support with D-Book 8
In Brief
UK TV technical standards body
the DTG has introduced support
for the forthcoming Freeview Play
connected TV service in the latest
edition of the D-Book, the official
document for digital-terrestrial TV
technology guidelines in the UK.
D-Book 8 includes a set of
technology foundations for the
new service, according to the DTG.
Freeview Play is to be based
on a technical specification that
combines Freeview HD with the
pan-European HbbTV standard
for hybrid broadband-broadcast
services. Elements include a
consolidated cross-platform,
enhanced metadata stream,
rules and guidelines on the UI
and presentation of content and
players, navigation principles
including one-click access to
live TV and the prominent
display of core content across
both linear and non-linear
environments and simple onscreen branding. According to
Digital UK’s guidelines, it should
also provide opportunities for
Freeview broadcasters to launch
UPC chooses CoralTree
LindsayDavies: a
milestone for
DTT in the UK.
on-demand services alongside
those provided by public service
broadcasters.
The technology platform for
the first profile of the platform
is based on a common HTML5
application environment, a
broadcast profile based on
D-Book 7, including MHEG, the
incorporation of DVB-DASH
adaptive bit-rate streaming, an
aggregated source of metadata
providing forwards and backwards
EPG with links to player content
and a search API across both ondemand and broadcast content.
The second profile is based on
D-Book 8, includes HbbTV 2.0,
Microsoft PlayReady DRM and
other functionality.
“The D-Book 8 is a milestone
for digital terrestrial TV in the UK,
laying the groundwork for a new
generation of connected TVs and
set-top boxes,” said DTG chief
executive Richard Lindsay-Davies.
D-Book 8 also includes
measures to protect user settings
when scanning for channel
and service changes and adds
support for the evolution of digital
terrestrial TV alongside many
other minor updates, according
to the DTG. Smart retuning in
products compliant with D-Book 8
ensures that products will retain
favourite channel lists, region
selection and recording schedules
when they carry out a retune.
D-Book 8 also includes support
for over the air signalling of
software updates via broadband
so manufacturers can instruct
set-tops and TVs to get connected
for large update files, or tell
users to connect their products.
There is also a requirement
for manufacturers to provide a
standard method for displaying
signal strength and quality, so that
customer services can respond
more effectively to reliable data.
Beamly tops 10 million subscribers
Beamly has seen an 11-fold increase in growth since launch.
Social TV service Beamly has
passed the 10 million subscriber
mark, one year after it was
rebranded from Zeebox.
Announcing the milestone,
Beamly said that it has seen an
eleven-fold lift in growth to 10.4m
unique users since its relaunch in
April 2014.
At the same time, Beamly has
launched a new set of ‘Frictionless
Fun’ features, designed to offer
a ‘one-click’ experience for users
to engage with polls, quizzes and
animated stickers, with sharing
enabled across social networks.
“More than 90% of people on
Twitter don’t tweet. Frictionless
Fun is the result of intense testing
with millennial and other TV fan
segments to amplify the level of
audience participation around the
clock,” said Beamly CEO Jason
Forbes.
“For one primetime-show
experience we saw over two million
votes in less than 48 hours. This
also gives TV networks another
set of capabilities that can be
embedded in minutes on their site
to drive audiences, engagement
and monetisation.”
Beamly was created last year
in an effort to establish Zeebox as
a destination for news and gossip
about TV shows and a place for
people to chat about programmes
with other passionate fans and
celebrities – “instead of just a TV
guide.”
At the time Beamly said it aimed
to “capture the zeitgeist” of its core
target audience of 16 to 24 year-old
millennials and to break away from
its “geeky male audience”.
Business support systems
specialist CoralTree is providing
customer relationship and
inventory management systems
for Liberty Global’s satellite
arm UPC DTH, supporting its
operations across Hungary,
the Czech Republic, and
Slovakia. UPC DTH partnered
with CoralTree to implement
its CRM, product catalogue,
and inventory management
solutions to simplify customer
sales order processing, reduce
agent training time, and
enhance the management
and control of warehouse and
logistics operations, according
to CoralTree. With a subscriber
base of more than 780,000, UPC
DTH offers up to 100 channels
of programming, including HD
and premium channel content.
“Our customers are at the heart
of our business. We identified
that improvements to our CRM
and inventory management
capability could further our goal
to deliver outstanding customer
experience,” said Tunde Hubina,
vice-president of customer care,
customer experience and billing
and collection at UPC DTH.
StarTimes taps Conax, ALi
Digital TV service provider
StarTimes has adopted a range
of Conax certified set-top boxes
based on ALi chipset solutions
to further expand in Africa. ALi
Corporation is a set-top box
chipset solution provider, while
StarTimes now has branches in
26 African countries, operations
in 14 countries and almost five
million subscribers across Africa.
In addition to being a network
operator, StarTimes is also a
digital TV system integrator,
technology provider and media
content producer.
37
20/04/2015 18:58
People > Places
Digital TV Europe
April/May 2015
On the move
Viacom International Media
Networks (VIMN) has appointed
Jose Tolosa as COO. Tolosa
replaces Pierluigi Gazzolo who
shifted from COO to head of Latin
America at VIMN last year. Tolosa
will report to VIMN’s President
and CEO, Bob Bakish. VIMN has
also appointed Ilya HellertRozanov as head of comedy and
entertainment channels in Russia,
Ukraine, the CIS and Baltic States.
Based in Moscow. Hellert-Rozanov
previously worked as head of
Russian TV channel Telecoms TV
and as chief editor of 24 Techno.
Spanishlanguage MCN
2btube has
named former
Fox Europe and
Africa president
Jesus
Perezagua (pictured), Zee
Entertainment Enterprises
managing director Punit Goenka
and A+E Networks international
vice-president Sean Cohan as
board members. Perezagua is
currently based in Tokyo, advising
Fox International Channels Asia.
Liberty Global-owned cable
operator UPC Poland has
promoted Konrad Skórczyński
to director of customer services.
Skórczyński, who was previously
senior manager of the technical
support department for the
operator, will be responsible for
UPC Poland’s customer service
strategy, including identifying
customers’ needs and creating
and implementing solutions as
well as working closely with other
departments in the company
to optimise customer service.
Skórczynski will work with Jakub
Kłoczewiak, recently named as
VP for customer care and the
38
p38 People DTVE AprMay15v4st.indd 38
customer experience for Liberty
Global throughout central and
eastern Europe, who is also
ultimately responsible for UPC
Poland’s customer services.
A+E Networks
has hired BBC
Worldwide’s
Amanda Hill to
become its chief
creative officer,
international.
She will be responsible for
overseeing A+E’s programming,
marketing and communications
teams across its global portfolio,
which includes the A&E channel,
History and FYI. She will report to
executive VP, international Sean
Cohan. Her hire comes after A+E
added former RHI Entertainment
exec Joel Denton to oversee its
international sales business.
TV technology provider Zenterio
has named Jörgen Nilsson as
its new CEO as it prepares for
a IPO. Nilsson has worked at
companies including Ericsson,
Hewlett Packard and Acision.
More recently, he held several
non-executive advisory roles
for technology companies. He
replaces Robin Rutili, who will
continue in the company as chief
business development officer.
Satellite operator SES has named
Christophe de Hauwer as
chief development officer and a
member of its board. He will also
join SES’s executive committee,
effective August 1. De Hauwer
succeeds Gerson Souto, the
company’s current CDO, who
has decided to step down from
his position for personal reasons
and relocate to Brazil, his home
country. De Hauwer has served
with SES for over 10 years, most
recently as senior vice-president,
fleet development and yield
management.
Former Disney-ABC Television
president Anne Sweeney has
joined the board of streaming
service Netflix. Sweeney was
in charge of The Walt Disney
Company’s television operations
when it scored a major original
production deal with Netflix in
October 2013, and now joins
the SVoD platform’s board.
Sweeney exited Disney in January
after 11 years running its cable,
broadcaster and international
channels.
Swedish free
and pay TV
commercial
broadcaster
TV4 Group has
named Anton
Glanzelius as
the new channel manager for
on-demand service TV4 Play.
Glanzelius has worked alongside
TV4 channel director Mathias
Berg on developing an ad-funded
digital video offering for TV4
since last autumn.
Scripps Networks Interactive has
recruited former Disney and Sony
exec Ross Hair to run its affiliate
sales and ad sales across its UK
and Europe operations. Hair
becomes senior VP, commercial,
for Scripps Networks UK & EMEA,
working across the company’s
portfolio of pay TV channels.
SNI has also brought in Filippo
Ubaldini as its country manager
for Italy. Both report to Phillip
Luff, SNI’s new managing director,
Scripps Networks UK & EMEA.
Luff replaced Jon Sichel, who
returns to the US to take a newlycreated commercial role. Hair has
been consulting since setting up
ESPN’s EMEA operations. Ubaldini
is the founder of Filmedia, the
Italian channels consultancy.
Russia’s Gazprom Media has
appointed Aleksander Vronsky
as the new CEO of its satellite
pay TV unit, NTV+, replacing
Stanislav Rodionov, who has left
the company. Vronsky was the
vice-president of technology for
the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.
Another former Sochi 2014
official, former media relations
director Mikhail Demin, has been
named as deputy CEO.
OTT video-on-demand provider
Wuaki.tv has hired former Apple
iTunes executive Sébastien
Janin to head international
business development. Janin has
worked for iTunes, where he was
responsible for managing the
rollout of the iTunes film service in
Europe and Latin America, for the
last eight years.
Brian Sullivan
(pictured) is to
step down as
CEO of Sky’s
German arm
on June 24 to
return to the
US. Sky Deutschland’s supervisory
board has named Carsten
Schmidt, currently the pay TV
operator’s chief officer for sports,
advertising sales and the internet,
as his successor. Schmidt will work
alongside Sullivan ahead of taking
over fully when the latter departs.
Schmidt has been a member of
the Sky Deutschland management
board since 2006, having joined
the company in 1999.
Please email contributions to:
[email protected]
20/04/2015 19:04
IBC2015 RAI Amsterdam
Conference 10 - 14 September 2015
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DELIVERY WORLD
Connected Delivery World
6th – 7th October 2015, Radisson Blu Portman Hotel, London
Digital TV Central and Eastern Europe
27th - 28th October 2015, Warsaw, Poland
TV Xperience
6th - 7th October 2015, Hilton Time Square, New York
TV Connect MENA
2nd – 3rd November 2015, Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Dubai
16-19 November 2015
TV Connect Africa
17th – 19th November 2015, Cape Town Convention Centre, South Africa
Millennium Gloucester Hotel, London, UK
OTTtv World Summit
16th – 19th November 2015, Millennium Gloucester Hotel, London
WWW.TVCONNECTGLOBALEVENTS.COM
pOBC TV Connect Series AprMay15.indd 1
20/04/2015 17:54

Pay TV operators and the connected home

Transcription

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