Making Ott an Equal Part of the Stb Experience

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WWW.V-NET.TV Making OTT an equal part of t he STB experience

New use-cases for OTT to the STB Integrating OTT into the Pay TV UEX Middleware and STB considerations Unifying the delivery infrastructure

VIDEONET Sponsored by ISSUE 32 INTRODUCTION It is clear that the integration of popular OTT services like Netflix into Pay TV set- top box offerings is one of the big stories for 2015 but this is part of a wider trend for operators to take the hybridisation of television to new levels. In France, Canal+ has thrown away the constraints of the DTT network and is offering its pay terrestrial Videonet gives platform customers a full satellite bouquet OTT thanks to an STB upgrade and a 140 chan- operators, media groups and nel OTT headend. The streaming and broadcast channels are mixed together in the channel owners information programme guide and you can zap between them. It is one of the best examples and analysis that helps them transform themselves yet of how more HTTP streaming video is appearing in set-top boxes but there are for the connected era. We plenty more in this report. are focused on the push John Moulding, Editor-in-Chief, Videonet towards any-screen TV, virtualized operations, data-driven advertising, programmatic trading, more HTTP streaming, immersive CONTENTS: Making OTT an equal part of the STB experience television and more personalized TV experiences, highlighting trends and • Use-cases best practice in an era of unprecedented disruption New use-cases keep appearing for OTT via set-top boxes, like delivering and new opportunities. We a full satellite bouquet to DTT homes, extending satellite reach into IPTV deliver our insights through homes, offering 4K VOD, adding Netflix and even providing redundancy a regular newsletter, special for satellite rain-fade. reports and webcasts.

Cover photo: • Deployed examples AndreyPopov Canal+ upgraded its DTT boxes to OTT and built an OTT headend for 140 channels to get premium channels into more homes. Proximus has integrated Editor Netflix into its IPTV offer. John Moulding [email protected] • User experience How do you integrate OTT into the user experience? Backward EPGs, hybrid Publisher programme guides and standard linear channel slots that lead to a TV version Justin Lebbon [email protected] of an OTT service portal are all used. The gap between OTT and broadcast QoE is eroding. Advertising and Marketing • Middleware challenges Katrina Coyne, Business DRM is the thorniest issue. Integrating several third-party OTT services could Development Director imply a software development burden. However, integration of OTT into legacy +44 (0)20 8425 0966 STBs does not appear to be a serious problem. Open-source middleware is [email protected] gaining popularity, too.

Websites • Unifying the delivery infrastructure www.v-net.tv RFQs from IPTV or small OTT providers talk about a single back-end solution to www.futuretvads.com www.connectedtvsummit.com address multiple devices. Traditional operators still see a need for hybrid solutions.

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Sponsored by Taking hybrid to the next level SPONSOR’S INTRO:

By Dominique Feral, Chief Marketing Officer, Wyplay

n early 2012, Wyplay organized a private workshop for However, most of the deployed technologies were one- Iour Tier-1 operator prospects entitled: “OTT: Threat way and didn’t meet the increasing needs of interactivity, or Opportunity? non-linear content consumption and the multiplication of mobile devices (multi-screens). Among the operators, analysts and consultants present, all unequivocally expressed views showing adoption of With the growing development of Internet bandwidth OTT technologies by traditional players as inevitable and and the democratization of CDN (Content Delivery Net- an essential solution to meet the new trends of non-linear works), OTT solutions have become technically and eco- and multiscreen viewing. nomically viable for operators and in terms of quality of experience for viewers. Fast-forward three years and this month, Canal + deployed its hybrid Terrestrial & OTT offering where over Thus, content producers or aggregators such as Netflix, 200 live TV channels are accessible via the Internet. Ear- HBO, Canal Play, Amazon, SlingTV, etc., have been able lier this year, Belgacom/Proximus already proposed Net- to use OTT technologies to directly target the end user. flix to its subscribers and Sky Italia have just launched And it has also been a significant opportunity for broad- together with Telecom Italia a hybrid OTT offering where casters to offer new services such as CatchupTV, Start- Telecom Italia broadband customers will have access to Over, Multiscreen delivery or Network DVR. the full Sky HD satellite TV lineup via the Internet. Well integrated by a pay-TV operator, theses OTT initia- Wyplay, with its open-source Frog By Wyplay offering, tives do not cannibalize their core offering; on the con- supported all these operators in the integration of OTT trary, they bring additional value to their subscribers. solutions within their service offerings. But all these operators will have to face several challenges: Whether it has been for a new deployment (Sky Ita- • DRM management in a multiscreen ecosystem lia) or for the legacy update of millions of already- • A flexible and scalable middleware on both sides: deployed STBs (Belgacom, Canal +), Frog By Wyplay client and server successfully addressed the operator’s challenges in an • The User Experience battle to keep control of the efficient manner. subscriber • And the capability to manage the legacy by add- But why are we experiencing this OTT wave? ing OTT services to an installed base.

Until recently, operators were distributing all their con- This report outlines details and opinions from industry tent only in a broadcast or multicast mode (one-to- leaders in the revolution brought by OTT technology to many). The technologies involved were IPTV, Cable, Ter- the TV industry, going through multiple deployed use restrial or Satellite. cases, the impact on the user experience and how it could reshuffle the delivery infrastructure.

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Pay TV and OTT used to be enemies. Making OTT But today a streaming service is an essential weapon in every Pay TV operator’s strategic armoury. an equal part There are many reasons for this change. One is just that the technology can now support it, suggests oF the STB Dominique Feral, French middleware provider Wyplay’s Chief Mar- keting Officer. “Clearly, this is some- experience thing that was not possible five years ago.” Pay TV providers are making even more use of OTT video, But Feral argues that the rapid whether integrating SVOD services like Netflix into their deployment of high-speed broad- STB offer or streaming entire satellite bouquets via the In- band, the increasing number of CDN ternet into DTT set-top boxes. BARRY FLYNN investigates solutions available, and the combina- the next steps in the hybridisation of television including tion of HTTP and Adaptive Bit-Rate the implementation and user experience challenges when (ABR) streaming – which allows con- you bring more OTT into a set-top box platform, and how sumers’ devices to adapt the bit-rate far you can unify service delivery. and the quality of the image depend- ing on the bandwidth they have access to – have together engineered a step-change in the QoS (Quality of Service) now possible over the In- ternet: “I think that now, the time is right.” Another driver is increased supply, argues Daniel Simmons, Di- rector and Head of Connected Home at IHS Technology. “There are many alternative content sources now pro- vided by online video, and Pay TV options from independent parties. Pay TV operators initially were perhaps slightly hesitant to include online video, but at the end of the day [they] don’t really mind what content you’re watching as long as you’re paying them to watch it.” For Stefano Groppetti, Direc- tor, Operator Marketing, at semi- conductor firm Broadcom, there is a ‘me too’ element: “The moment one operator offers it, the others in the same market tend to follow, just not to be left behind or for fear of losing subscribers,” he comments.

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broadcast delivery are increasingly Use-cases combined with start-over function- Strategic considerations determine ality (the ability to tune into a sched- the manner in which this new, OTT- uled linear channel that has already friendly stance is implemented. Pay begun and jump to the start). TV operator Canal+, for instance, This is now a trend on both wants its terrestrial Pay TV customers sides of the Atlantic, with DirecTV, to be able to access the same range of for instance, offering a ‘re-start’ fea- channels its satellite subscribers do. ture on its Internet-connected set- Italy’s Sky Italia, on the other top boxes, as does Canal+’s new hy- hand, is seeking to extend its cover- brid pay-DTT box offering in France. age beyond dish homes onto Tel- Network PVR is also becom- ecom Italia’s network. ing a more popular OTT format For Sweden’s pay-satellite op- – where national regulations allow. erator Viasat, its DTT/OTT hybrid The operator can choose to store a set-top box is aimed at subscribers viewer-triggered recording in the who want an alternative to the PC for cloud, and play it back on request watching its Viaplay OTT linear and as OTT to the set-top box – or alter- on-demand content. Dominique Feral, Wyplay natively pro-actively elect to make In the USA, satellite opera- recordings available in the cloud for tor DirecTV is addressing the lack several Wyplay satellite customers the most popular content. of broadcast Ultra-High Definition who sought an alternative deliv- Swiss telco Swisscom is a pio- (UHD) TV channels by offering a 4K ery channel when heavy rainstorms neer in this area, and has developed VOD service to its subscribers using drown out the satellite signals. “They a drive-less hybrid Android box HTTP progressive downloading to the set-top box. OTT is also being used to satellite operatorS ARE looking extend a Pay TV operator’s offer through the integration of a third- for an alternative delivery party SVOD provider such as Netflix, channel when rain-storms Amazon, HBO or Maxdome. drown out the satellite signal, DirecTV’s rival Dish Network became the first major US opera- using live channels through OTT tor to do this at the end of last year through a deal with Netflix, and now offers the movie service as a ‘channel’ need to deliver the live TV channels through which all recordings are ac- accessed in the ordinary way through through OTT when the weather con- cessed from the cloud by default. Di- its EPG. ditions are bad,” Feral reveals. recTV HD PVRs, meanwhile, offer a In Europe, that practice is ‘72 Hour Rewind’ feature over OTT spreading rapidly: cable operators that lets subscribers immediately Virgin Media in the UK and Com Content watch shows that aired in the past 72 Hem in Sweden already offer Netflix, hours, a facility available with over as do three out of four of France’s tel- formats 20 of its linear broadcast channels. cos (Bouygues, SFR and Orange), as Ismail Allalcha, Marketing well as Germany’s Deutsche Telekom. As the possible strategies for OTT de- Ecosystem Manager at semi-conduc- Belgian operator Proximus (the new livery to Pay TV set-top boxes multi- tor manufacturer STMicroelectron- brand for Belgacom services) joined ply, so do the content formats being ics, cites two more esoteric OTT for- the bandwagon in February this year. adopted. Catch-up TV and video- mats – ‘cloud gaming’, which French But perhaps the most unu- on-demand are the most established telco Orange launched through its sual OTT use-case so far is from modes, while both linear OTT and IPTV boxes in 2012, aiming to allow

VIDEONET | ISSUE 32 | WWW.V-NET.TV Sponsored by Taking hybrid to the next level customers to access high-end games on set-top boxes without requiring a Canal+ wanted to make its console – and ‘360-degree TV’, which YouTube has just enabled on its OTT full Canal+ premium channel service. The latter allows the user to line-up and Canalsat satellite ‘navigate’ through a ‘3D’ IP-delivered bouquet available to its pay-DTT video-stream – a feature Allalcha confirms is fully supported on ST- subscribers, so upgraded its powered boxes. DTT boxes to OTT

available to its pay-DTT subscribers. In order to provide the same Since there was insufficient user experience across broadcast and Deployed capacity on France’s DTT network, OTT, the hybrid EPG displays the Canal+ elected to upgrade its DTT streamed linear channels alongside examples boxes to OTT, and “to build an OTT the broadcast ‘DVB’ ones. These are The new Canal+ and Sky Italia set- headend with our full offer, which is both accessed in the conventional top boxes incorporate extremely so- around 140 channels.” way using the remote, with the IP phisticated recent implementations This new headend runs in ones distinguishable only by a dis- of broadcast/OTT hybridisation parallel with the one that supplies creet blue ident. (Wyplay integrated both boxes using Canal+ channels to IPTV operators, Other features include catch- its Frog by Wyplay middleware solu- and delivers an identical range of up TV and ‘start-over’. Catch-up pro- tion). channels to both the new DTT boxes grammes can be accessed via a pop- Philippe Rivas, Director of and to second-screen devices owned up as soon as a channel is selected, Technical Distribution at the French by its subscribers – whichever plat- or alternatively by navigating to the Pay TV operator, explains that Ca- form they subscribe over. Currently, Canal+ or Canalsat catch-up portals. nal+ wanted to make its full Ca- this serves around 300,000 French Meanwhile, regardless of nal+ premium channel line-up as DTT homes and another 800,000 whether the viewer has initially se- well as its Canalsat satellite bouquet second-screen devices. lected a ‘DVB’ or OTT-delivered

The Sky Italia service, as viewed over satellite today

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content-centric operators and net- Sky Italia will begin providing work-centric ones. “We have to draw a distinction between companies re- its entire satellite bouquet to ally involved in content production Telecom Italia IPTV subscribers and those using the network as a so- through a new STB. The OTT lution to deliver content,” he argues. Content-centric operators like product is designed to extend Canal+ will be more likely to regard Sky’s reach into non-dish homes. OTT SVOD services as competing with them while network-centric service-providers – such as France’s channel, opting to watch from the them using a development custom- telcos, all but one of which integrates beginning issues a request to the ised for the chipset’s Nexus API. Netflix – are simply looking for “con- catch-up TV server, which delivers Wyplay says the development tent to fill the pipe.” the programme in progressive down- now allows it to support any other Rivas certainly bears this out, load mode within five seconds. TV operators willing to deploy Net- noting that Canal+ was the first op- In the future, Rivas describes flix throughout their set-top boxes’ erator in France to launch an SVOD “cloud PVR” as Canal+’s “mid-term network, with “an unrivalled speed service, Canalplay, and regards itself goal.” of execution.” as Netflix’s competitor. It has no deal Meanwhile, Sky Italia is poised with Netflix. to begin providing its entire satellite But Simmons believes even bouquet to Telecom Italia IPTV sub- Who will content-centric Pay TV operators are scribers through a new set-top box missing a trick by failing to pursue scheduled for April. Netflix such deals. “I struggle to see the stra- Feral says that the Italian OTT tegic logic in not integrating services product is designed to extend Sky’s partner? like that,” he declares. “Pay TV opera- reach into non-dish homes. Sky will tors need to be the best conduit for provide the set-top boxes and Tele- Although a growing phenomenon, video consumption rather than in com Italia end-users could subscribe integration by Pay TV operators of any way a barrier to it. People want to the entire list of Sky TV channels. third-party services is by no means it, they want to watch it, and if you Wyplay was also involved in universal. make it easy for them to watch Netf- the integration of US SVOD service Feral differentiates between lix then that’s great. I would say that provider Netflix’s OTT service into the Proximus IPTV offer (from the Belgian telco that was previously branded Belgacom). This provides subscribers with direct access to Netflix through the Proximus EPG’s on-demand menu, accessed by press- ing the blue button on the Proximus remote. One of the challenges was Netflix’s requirement, for security- related reasons, that in ‘native’ implementations, the service needs to be pre-integrated on the set-top box chipsets. In this case, Proximus boxes used Broadcom chipsets, so Wyplay worked with Broadcom to upgrade The Eureka recommendation engine used by Canal+ customers

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“Pay TV operators need to be the best conduit for video consumption rather than in any way a barrier to it. If you make it easy for people to watch Netflix then that’s great”

minimising switching-times is criti- are complicated by contractual issues. cal in this type of environment: in Steve Hawley, contributing the case of Canal+’s new hybrid DTT analyst at SNL Kagan’s Multimedia box, the start-over solution Wyplay Research Group (MRG), says this inherited took between 18 and 20 is “much more of a challenge than seconds to trigger the IP version of meets the eye. You have to make a a DVB broadcast. Today, however, conscious decision about where the “we usually say that with a normal line of demarcation is – not only be- Daniel Simmons, IHS Technology bandwidth (3-4 Mbit/s), the zapping tween where your content leaves off time to a DVB or an OTT channel is and somebody else’s content takes the ones who have done it have a bet- equivalent (i.e. 2-3 seconds).” up, but also, where do you relinquish ter strategy going forward.” Equalising video quality might your user experience and then give it appear to represent an equally seri- over to somebody else’s user experi- ous challenge, but the consensus ence?” User seems to be that a combination of Each party may also have its ABR and faster, more reliable broad- own user interface guidelines, rais- experience band has caused the gap between ing the issue of how the keys on the broadcast and OTT Quality of Ex- operator’s remote drive navigation How to integrate OTT into a broad- perience (QoE) to be significantly within the third-party UI. caster user experience? One solution eroded. Finally, there is the question as has been the ‘backward EPG’ – as in Rivas points out that the blue to whether the operator’s search and the UK YouView platform, where icon on OTT-delivered linear chan- discovery system can locate content scrolling backwards in time across a nels was originally intended as a di- available on the far side of the third- horizontal programme guide shows agnostic tool for its call-centre in party service’s demarcation line, says you which programmes are available case of streaming issues, but Canal+ Hawley. as catch-up or on-demand. is now close to the point where it can Ultimately, the outcome of Another (the Canal+ approach be removed, with 80% of customers such negotiations depends on the mentioned above) puts streamed experiencing a “very good” quality of nature of the power relationship: “It and broadcast channels next to each service. other in the guide, selectable via the This is partly due to ensuring remote’s up-and-down arrow keys. good linkages with the main CDN In the US, meanwhile, Dish providers, but also to do with the Network has given Netflix a standard sophisticated use of ABR. For in- linear channel slot on its EPG. But stance, the Canal+ premium chan- when the Netflix ‘channel’ is selected, nels, of which there are around 22, the viewer is taken through to a TV use up to seven ABR profiles, rang- version of the Netflix portal where ing from 300 Kbit/s at one end to HD the navigation conventions and the 720p streams at the other running at UI become those of the SVOD pro- around 3.4 Mbit/s. vider. In the case of third-party OTT Feral points out that A powerful STB SoC services, user experience challenges from STMicroelectronics

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“It will usually be in the [OTT] third-party’s interests to share all their metadata [with a platform] to drive the user to their content” depends on who’s talking to who,” the project two years ago was that comments Allalcha at STMicroelec- “our goal was to have the same archi- tronics. tecture for the different streams, for While Feral agrees negotiation the different profiles, for the different is on a “case-by-case” basis, he be- devices, and for the full offer.” One lieves that as far as ‘global search’ is vendor might be able, for instance, to concerned, in general it will usually offer a packaging and origin solution be in the third-party’s interests to which supported Apple’s HLS but Steve Hawley, SNL Kagan MRG “share all their meta-data to drive the not one which supported Microsoft’s user to their content.” From a techni- Smooth Streaming. cal point of view this is not complex, Hawley illustrates the point operator might wish to integrate sev- he says, noting that Netflix already with a more recent example, refer- eral such third-party services. To the does this. “It’s just a way for Netflix ring to the fact that Google has de- list of possible SVOD OTT service- to expose the list of assets they have cided to discontinue support for providers like Netflix, Amazon and available: it’s a strategic decision.” Microsoft Silverlight in its Chrome Maxdome have recently been added browser as of September 15 this year. HBO, PlayStation Vue and, report- This potentially implies that edly, Apple. Middleware any box using a Chrome browser Allalcha (STMicroelectronics) “will not work with the Microsoft believes this could imply a software challenges Smooth Streaming player or Play- development burden for operators, Ready DRM,” he says. “because each service has its own “It’s always difficult to integrate mid- Such problems appear to raise constraints. Some of them are quite dleware,” declares Rivas, and the in- a difficulty in the case where a Pay TV straightforward, because you just go tegration of the new Canal+ hybrid box was no exception. He singles out DRM as the thorniest issue in this type of environment, particularly since the new OTT headend delivers IP streams to both the hybrid DTT box and second screens, which require different DRM solutions. “The integration of the DRM is a complex process on each device,” he says, pointing out that there’s a “very big difference” between integrating an application which does not require content security and one which does. “You cannot use the same tools to develop your application, for instance.” At the headend, the initial difficulty for Rivas at the inception of Canal+’s hybrid channel guide mixes broadcast and OTT channels together

VIDEONET | ISSUE 32 | WWW.V-NET.TV Sponsored by Taking hybrid to the next level through a browser; others require approaches to coding, encryption native applications, which imply that and playback. basically, it’s not straightforward at Moreover, operators fear that all.” being “locked-in” to particular ven- Surprisingly, perhaps, integra- dors’ solutions slows down the pace tion of OTT into legacy boxes does at which they can evolve their plat- not appear to be a serious problem. forms. Feral notes that the Canal+ OTT in- “Middleware has been a head- tegration related to DTT boxes with ache for many operators,” explains a processor that had been launched Broadcom’s Groppetti, “who have in 2008/9. “So it’s really an old solu- been frustrated with proprietary so- tion. For sure, there are some limits lutions that have not evolved at the for an entry-level processor launched pace that they were expecting.” in 2005 – but I would say that now, One response is to adopt a in 2015, we can really address 80% of non-proprietary, open approach, ex- the legacy [boxes].” emplified by the Frog by Wyplay platform. This relies on the use of open- source standards, and is supported Ismail Allalcha, STMicroelectronics Open-source by a large development community, an HTML-5 engine. similar in fashion to US cable MSO The existence of an HTML-5 One of the common threads running Comcast’s RDK initiative. development community means “it’s through these challenges is that, in Feral notes that although oth- easy to find a design house having technology terms, the OTT delivery er options are available, by default his this competency,” says Feral. This al- marketplace remains highly frag- middleware solution comes with a lowed Wyplay, for instance, to work mented – with multiple proprietary Reference User Interface powered by alongside local design companies in Italy, who developed the OTT inter- active applications for Sky Italia. “There are some limits for an Meanwhile, the use of open entry-level processor launched standards means that one Frog implementation can be deployed across in 2005, but we can really address different platforms. The use of 80% of the legacy set-top boxes HTML-5 for the UI is a case in point, to integrate OTT” says Feral. “This is what Canal+ is do- ing: the same user interface which is used on our box I can use on the PlayStation, and I can use on some connected TV solutions – so in terms of porting it has really reduced the time-to-market and deployment of new interfaces.” In effect, the HTML-5 based approach means you can do more UI innovation in a shorter time, he concludes. Allalcha argues that there are major advantages in using an open- source approach. For example, in the context of multiple integrations of third-party services, freely available User interface innovations including social integration, courtesy of Wyplay

VIDEONET | ISSUE 32 | WWW.V-NET.TV Sponsored by Taking hybrid to the next level code can be re-used, requiring only adaptation for each platform rather than re-writing the code from scratch each time. However, open-source will not accelerate DRM or CAS integration due to the fact that secret ele- ments cannot be openly shared and as integration and certification cycles will remain the same in this context. Unifying the STB and

multiscreen Telecom Italia today offers TV on demand over broadband with TIMVision experiences Unifying broadcast and OTT is just “The fundamental difference one of the current challenges Pay TV between a tablet and set-top operators face. A related issue is TV box is the level of security that Everywhere: is it becoming any easier for them to unify the set-top box and you have on the main processor” multiscreen experiences? indeed be easier to achieve. argues that, ultimately, “you cannot Feral’s comments about But even where the STB and address the same experience with a HTML-5 imply that if an open- multiscreen experience can be uni- TV set on one side and a touchscreen source approach is adopted, it can fied, as in the Canal+ case, Rivas on the other.” While search and discovery results delivered to a second screen or the box are identical, “the way you will put this information on the screen will not be the same.” Groppetti argues that security also remains an obstacle. “The fundamental difference between a tablet and set-top box in terms of video consumption is the level of security that you have on the main processor that is used.” He explains that the chipsets in tablets and other second-screen devices do not normally have to undergo the same rigorous content pro- tection certification procedures that a set-top box chipset has to undergo – “which is why the rights that the operators have to stream content to different devices are different.” This affects not just what content can be played on which device, but at what With Netflix available on Pay TV STBs, people might watch less on computers

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solutions.” The reasons for this are cost- related, explains Feral. Above a cer- tain level of subscribers, e.g. several million, “it’s really less expensive to use satellite or terrestrial for live broadcasting.” The same issues apply to the adoption of an OTT-based network PVR strategy. “It’s a question of cost, of CapEx and OpEx,” says Allalcha, “and it depends on the operator.” On the one hand, a conventional broadcast PVR set-up requires money to A multiscreen user interface (pic: Wyplay) be spent on boxes incorporating high-end chipsets. Whereas if “every- thing is in the cloud, that then means “Traditional broadcast-based the operator has to pay for a reliable network and would still need secured Pay TV operators still see a need chipsets on the end user’s side.” for hybrid solutions. It’s really Hawley agrees that, for the less expensive to use satellite or foreseeable future, hybrid approaches will persist. He cites the example terrestrial for live broadcasting” of Comcast streaming the Superbowl in OTT mode: “potentially you’ve resolution. matter any more,” observes Hawley. got 30 million consumers all trying The common (and more rig- to stream the same thing at the same orous) approach suggested by the time. As soon as you allow people us- MovieLabs’ enhanced content secu- Unifying ing trick-play to pause and rewind rity specifications – which Hawley then you end up with 30 million dif- believes is creating “a common goal the delivery ferent streams. No one can really do for the whole industry” – may help that.” to iron out these differences in the infrastructure Rivas is more sanguine: as far future. as Canal+ is concerned, “all the in- Meanwhile, Hawley points to An alternative strategy is to do the frastructure is available except the the adoption of multimedia home same thing further up the network, CDN – which just has to be upgrad- gateways as another potentially at the headend, delivering all content, ed to support the full Canal+ offer unifying strategy. Here, all content, linear and otherwise, as IP. through OTT. The question is, are broadcast or otherwise, operator- Feral certainly perceives this as there some consumers interested in owned or third-party, is ingested an industry trend, noting that many [this] because they cannot connect into a hub which re-encodes and re- of the Requests for Quotes (RFQs) to DTT?” encrypts the content as appropriate Wyplay is seeing “are talking about a He points out that a year ago, for each device, whether a broadcast single back-end solution to address Canal+ was delivering 180 GBit/s client or an IP one. multiple devices,” as well as a single at peak-time over OTT. “Today it’s “What it means is that where UI. more than 600 GBit/s – and in a few that content is coming from – wheth- But he points out that such months it will 900.” er it’s a broadcast channel or an IP RFQs “are mainly coming from IPTV So it will not be long before stream or something on-demand providers or small OTT providers.” Canal+ is delivering more than a Ter- from the DVR – is kind of a bit invis- Traditional broadcast-based Pay TV abit per second? “For sure. That’s our ible to the consumer: it doesn’t really operators “still see a need for hybrid plan,” says Rivas.

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