In Broadcast - September 2017 - 53

53

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 7 - Issue 9 | September 2017

InTech

Broadcast Connected IP

cont'd...

Zappware's newly designed
UI promises an even more
engaging user experience

The company has also upgraded its
AvediaStream transcoders and the
Origin server to provide users with
even more options and flexibility when
streaming content to a wide variety of
fixed and mobile devices.
Another category of products gaining
swift traction in the industry is the
Cloud-based TV channel. Billed often
as Television as a Service (Indeed,
Viaccess-Orca has dubbed its own
offering in the market as TVaaS) these
services keep all the components
of a TV channel in the cloud, from
content management to streaming to
recommendation and PVR services,
leaving operators able to launch new
channels and evolve their services with
a remarkably short time to market and
significantly lower expenditure than in
previous eras. This approach also lends
itself very much to advanced analytics,
as the data powering the service is
already passing through a central
point, with VO planning on showing a
souped up and more powerful version
of TVaaS' already impressive business

analytics at IBC.
Ooyala has also recently been
amping up the attention on its video
analytics, as what we used to refer to
as Big Data has become a mainstream
feature. It promises some eye-catching
breakthrough results, saying that
publishers can achieve 400% more
video plays year over year using the
techniques. It also exemplifies the
decreasing TTM of the sector, claiming
that its AppStudio enables operators
to launch and monetise a premium
OTT service in weeks.
Belgium's Zappware has even
coined ZaaS, standing for Zappware
as a Service. It too has a genuinely
end-to-end solution that runs from
ingest to distribution, as well as a new
TV Anywhere UI that concentrates on
the user experience and leverages
predictive analytics in a bid to reduce
churn.
Distribution
Amino has paired its Series 6
hybrid STBs with Steam Group's
interactive TV platform to produce
an off the-shelf cloud-based TV
platform. Coupled together the two
deliver live TV, catch-up and VOD
services alongside traditional DVB
linear broadcast channels, as well as
a range of premium OTT and HbbTV
applications. Stream Group CEO Pieter
Hey's comment is interesting: "The
number of vendors in the TV device
market has continued to increase
dramatically over the last five years.
Unfortunately, with so
much choice has come
a noticeable decline in
quality of products."
Kaltura saw its OTT TV product
supporting the launch of
Vodafone TV in Italy at the
start of the summer. Using
the same STB that Vodafone
had already deployed in Spain, it's an

interesting cross-device model that
uses the power of the telecom giant's
4G network on a light STB with cloud
DVR and a well thought our UI.
Cloud services are an important part
of the overall picture, especially given
the prevalence of video over the open
Internet (which Cisco reckons will
reach 82% of all consumer IP traffic by
2021). Hence some very big companies
are after operator's business, such
as Akami (200,000 servers in 130
countries) and Level 3, whose fibre
base network currently reaches over
45 DTH and cable-MSO platforms.
Axinom heads to IBC with the latest
launches in its product portfolio in
tow, namely Axinom CMS, Axinom
DRM, Axinom VIP, and Axinom CDS.

Together they make a powerful suite
for OTT and TV Everywhere solutions
and, as the DRM software lurking
behind the BBC's all-conquering
iPlayer, the company probably boasts
one of the best customer user stories
in the sector. A simple integration
model is built upon standards-based
JSON Web Tokens, keeping latency low.
As to the future, it's interesting to
see that SES-subsidiary MX1 has tied
together a huge range of industry
trends and developments in an
impressive manner with its MX1 360
end to end media service platform.
This essentially is a single-screen
production and distribution platform
that is capable of taking content
from ingest all the way through to
distribution, even including remote
editing, all within an open architecture
more than capable of interfacing with
third party applications and services.
Evolution in the space is constant
though, and there is a wealth of new
opportunities just over the horizon in
terms of the Internet of Things. With
the family television set rapidly assuming the role of main control centre,
so the set-top box can add further
functionality and assume a central
role itself as gateway. Units such as
ABOX42's M30 SmartSTB exemplify
this, allowing operators to combine
classical TV services with new SmartHome ones such as temperate monitoring, security sensors and more.

MX1's MX1 360 exemplifies
the hybrid cloud approach
to a truly end-to-end media
production platform

ABOX42 sees the
Internet of Things
opening up new revenue
streams for operators
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://zappware.com/ https://www.mx1.com/mx1-360 http://www.viaccess-orca.com/ https://www.abox42.com/smart-home-solutions/
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