BCA Show Daily - Day 1 - 8

8

SUNTEC SINGAPORE

A part of

Show Daily | Tuesday 26 June 2018

MARINA BAY SANDS * SUNTEC SINGAPORE

Harmonic Shows the Latest
Video Delivery Technologies
Key demonstrations including OTT and SaaS solutions are just two highlights from Harmonic,
stand 4S2-01, says Tony Berthaud, Vice President of Sales, APAC...
BroadcastAsia: Has BroadcastAsia come
at a good time for the media industry?
Why?
Tony Berthaud: Yes, the industry is
simultaneously going through multiple
technological and marketing transformations.
The media and entertainment market is
being reshaped and, in particular, the content
delivery platforms are upgraded to convergent
platforms based on IT infrastructures, end-toend IP, software and cloud technologies.
BroadcastAsia is a good opportunity for
us as a solutions provider to present our
innovations, show how we embrace these
transformations, and how we can help
our customers turn these transformations
into real business opportunities. It's also
a chance for our customers to identify the
new and innovative solutions, including SaaS
solutions, that will define their service and
platforms in the future.
BCA: What do you think are the key
developments in, or threats to, your market
sector at the current time?
TB: There are several key transformations
underway in the industry, including the
acceleration of video streaming businesses
with OTT 2.0 adding more linear channels,
more direct distribution from the content
providers and an objective to provide better
quality of experience for the end-users.
Other major developments include the
infrastructure migration to IT and end-to-end
IP workflows, the move to software solutions
for increased flexibility and cloud for elasticity,
and the upgrading of networks to manage
higher resolutions, from SD to HD and
from HD to UHD. We're also seeing Gigabit
transformations on cable networks.
BCA: Do the latest technological advances
and standards bring further challenges
when it comes to working with content?
TB: The latest technological advances
are helping customers deliver a better
quality of experience. For example,
innovative compression technologies
for OTT, such as Harmonic's EyeQ
content-aware compression, will allow a
much better user experience with higher
picture quality, lower buffering time, less
rebuffering and profile changes.

CMAF technology allows OTT operators
to deliver live content with
a latency that
is
comparable
to
broadcast
networks, enabling
new applications, such
as sports.
There's also a transformation
to IT infrastructure, software and cloud,
which provide video content and service
providers with better operational efficiency.
Using off-the-shelf servers or IT appliances,
operators can optimise CAPEX and OPEX.
Using software brings more flexibility in the
deployment models in addition to speeding
up time-to-market for new technologies and
services. Using cloud technologies brings
more elasticity and, in particular, it helps for
event-based applications or applications
where the customers need to regularly scale
up and scale down.
Regarding the new standards, a perfect
example is SMPTE ST 2110 for video over IP.
It simplifies the development of end-to-end
workflows by making the different solutions
and vendors interoperable. This consequently
optimises the way operators work with
content.

BCA: Are more companies turning to
hybrid solutions or platforms for their
needs?
TB: Certainly yes, more and more
customers are upgrading their platforms to
build unified and convergent platforms that
are capable of delivering content across
multiple networks and to multiple screens.
This helps operators be more agile and more
efficient in the way they operate.
We also foresee a move to "functional

Demos will include Harmonic's EyeQ solution

VOS 360 media
processing SaaS

collapse." The same platform will now handle
multiple functions, typically production,
playout and content delivery. This makes
the workflows much easier to handle and
simplifies the overall operations.
Many customers who operate services on a
traditional platform realise there is significant
business agility to be gained by using SaaS
for certain applications. Combining a media
processing and delivery SaaS, such as VOS
360, with their existing infrastructure can
enable their operations team to deploy new
or temporary services much faster than what
a typical on-premises platform would allow
them to do, for instance.
BCA: Are organisations still unsure
regarding the full potential of OTT services
or the cloud?
TB: For the past two years, the OTT market
has matured a lot and we are now entering
the OTT 2.0 phase where customers are
focused on monetising their services.
Some key evolutions for OTT in the APAC
region include more linear channels and
live events, including sports; better QoE,
leveraging recent breakthroughs
in compression technologies
(e.g., Harmonic's EyeQ™ contentaware compression), and new
protocols (e.g., CMAF for lowlatency applications, which is
critical for sports). We're also
seeing more instances of direct
distribution by content providers.
Pay-TV operators are enhancing
their services with multiscreen

applications while also leveraging OTT to go
beyond their original footprint and growing
their addressable market, typically with
international business instead of purely local
and national.
As for the cloud, we clearly see a very good
momentum in the Asia-Pacific region, with
many customers acting as early adopters
of cloud services using our VOS 360 SaaS.
Recent announcements with SuperSoccer,
Global Technology Group and Fuji TV prove
that the market is ready to adopt cloud SaaS
solutions.
BCA: Why should delegates visit your
stand at BroadcastAsia?
TB: Harmonic is showing its latest
innovations (booth 4S2-01) in video delivery
technologies and services, in particular,
highlighting how we can help operators go
through key technological transformations
to create new business opportunities and
improve their operational efficiency. Key
demonstrations include our OTT and SaaS
solutions, which provide superior QoE via
EyeQ content-aware encoding and low
latency with CMAF. We're also showing the
latest playout solutions with all-IP workflows
(SMPTE ST 2110), along with end-to-end
UHD solutions, including production, ingest,
playout,
channel-in-a-box,
contribution
and distribution. In addition, we're showing
convergent and unified headends that allow
operators to migrate to a unique platform
capable of delivering to broadcast networks
(i.e. cable, satellite, terrestrial), IPTV and OTT.
www.harmonicinc.com
http://www.harmonicinc.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BCA Show Daily - Day 1
