TV Wants in on the Esports Action

csi-cover-September2017-V3.indd 1 www.csimagazine.com September 2017 www.csimagazine.com the eSportsaction TV wantsinon 22/08/2017 12:12:11

Artiﬁ cial Intelligence (AI) Android TV Video Latency High Frame Rates NovelSat NS4

Untitled-1 1 24/08/2017 12:22:11 Contents 32 Android TV With ever more payTV providers jumping High Frame Rates High Frame www.csimagazine.com www.csimagazine.com

Video Latency on the Android TV bandwagon, we assess Android TVAndroid requirements and implications for operators TV wants in on the eSports action (AI) cial Intelligence Artiﬁ Editor 38 Artificial Intelligence Goran Nastic Described by Gartner as one of three key Commercial megatrends for the digital economy over the John Woods, Camilla Capece

September 2017

csi-cover-September2017-V3.indd 1 22/08/2017 12:12:11 next 10 years, what are its uses in video? Design and production 10 COVER STORY: eSports Matt Mills (Manager) eSports is big business, which broadcasters 42 Watermarking Jessica Harrington want to tap into. But how can pay-TV The rise of premium live sports streaming Matleena Lilja-Pelling differentiate itself and add value? on top of existing MovieLabs UHD requirements is finally giving the technology Regular contributors a much needed commercial push Adrian Pennington, Philip Hunter, 14 Analyst column: eSports David Adams, Stephen Cousins, Futuresource Consulting asks if eSports and Anna Tobin TV could be a natural fit 44 Q&A with Michael Crimp The IBC CEO gives his thoughts on this Circulation Joel Whitefoot 18 New security paradigms year’s show, as well as what lies in store for the future From cyber security and IoT to new Accounts European data regulations, we explore Marilou Tait, Lynta Kamaray changing security habits the broadcast 46 Technology corner: HFR industry needs to deal with DVB’s David Wood shares his expert view Editorial into high frame rates and their likely tel +44(0)20 7562 2401 [email protected] 24 Latency evolution Streaming latency is becoming a critical Advertising component of live OTT, so how can it be as 50 IBC preview tel +44(0)20 7562 2421 low as possible? An overview of some of the highlights [email protected] visitors can expect this year tel +44(0)20 7562 2438 [email protected]

Subscriptions tel +44 (0) 20 1635 588 861 Editor’s report: [email protected] Circulation manager: joel.whitefoot@ Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a fascinating, if complicated area. Its many manifesta- perspectivepublishing.com tions result in a perplexing set of intricacies to the casual eye. As IT, cloud, telecoms and other areas influence the evolution of broadcast more and more, so AI Subscription rates is beginning to permeate aspects of our industry. Developments are in their infan- Per year: Europe £88; UK £68; cy, but we can already identify a number of promising applications and services Rest of World £98. Cheques payable where the technology will be useful (see feature on p38). Will it also open a Pandora’s box? to Perspective Publishing Limited and addressed to the This is one of the main topics I will be talking to people at IBC about, in order to gauge their Circulation Department feelings on AI going forward. The responses should prove interesting and play a big part in our show review, with more editorial coverage to follow in 2018 as we explore new horizons. Printed by Buxton Press Goran Nastic, editor Managing Director John Woods

Perspective Publishing Publishing Director 3 London Wall Buildings London Mark Evans 2017 EC2M 5PD www.perspectivepublishing.com ISSN 1467-5935

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 03

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Disney, Netflix and iflix moves signal news in brief shift in future payTV dynamics Sky’s loyalty programme Sky is introducing a loyalty Traditional producers and distributors Other content suppliers are The relationship was always programme that rewards may be rethinking their relationship to expected to follow Disney’s lead or at slated to end in 2019, and partly to customers, as it becomes tougher Netflix after Disney decided to end the least drive a harder bargain demands counter such eventualities, Netflix to attract and retain subscribers. distribution of new movie releases on in negotiations. has been investing billions in Sky VIP is described as the the SVoD platform from 2019 and It comes as Disney announced a original content (it plans some first ‘tenure based’ loyalty then cozied up to rival iflix as the new global SVoD service from 2019 $7bn next year alone) and also programme in the TV and emerging markets streaming service and ESPN-branded OTT sports purchased comic book publisher broadband sector and the latest launches a channels feature, starting service in early 2018. To help achieve Millarworld, the company behind strategic attempt by the company with Disney. both aims, Disney is taking a Kick-Ass and Kingsman, to create to stand out in an increasingly Analysts at The Diffusion Group majority stake in BAMTech, the new titles for its 104m members. competitive landscape. The foresee the Netflix wholesale online video technology company iflix, meanwhile, is turning into rewards get better with time and licensing business dead in the water spun out of Major League Baseball. an even more serious player and the longer customers stay with as a consequence. “The media landscape is one to watch, now available in the payTV company. The loyalty “Disney’s decision to pull its increasingly defined by direct some 20 markets across Asia, programme divides into four tiers, content from Netflix is the right one relationships between content Africa and the Middle East. starting with Silver (0-3 years) and really can’t happen soon enough. creators and consumers, and our Espellien also argued that the and rising to Black (those who Netflix wants to produce originals. control of BAMTech’s full array of era of the ‘one stop shop’ for video have been a subscriber for 15 The rest of Hollywood needs to hold innovative technology will give us the entertainment is coming to an end. years or more). They include them to that, even if it means future power to forge those connections, As new direct-to-consumer exclusive preview screenings, consumers will have to stream Star along with the flexibility to quickly services become the norm, these sports events and the chance to Wars and Toy Story somewhere else,” adapt to shifts in the market,” said decisions will shape the future win trips to Game of Thrones thinks Joel Espelien. Disney CEO Bob Iger. landscape of content aggregation. film locations among others.

Discovery CEO hails the skinny bundle

David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery Zaslav noted that including PlayStation Vue and the new Communications, said the era of broadband costs, skinny bundles Hulu Live aren’t true skinny bundles cheaper, sports-free, skinny bundles could cost between $60 and $70 because they are laden with networks is coming to the US, much as per month, compared to the $8-$12 that are heavy with sports they already exists in Europe and monthly charge he sees in slimmed programming. Latin America. down video packages in Latin “I believe that will happen. Zaslav said that cheap monthly America and Eastern Europe. I think these overstuffed turkeys packages of programming, free of But eventually he sees the US are going to end up being a challenge sports and containing most of the market moving in that direction too. from a consumer perspective. In the networks viewers want, similar to In the sense, he said current end I think offerings in Europe, will eventually slimmed down offerings in the the market will be rationalized,” make their way to the US. US like DirecTV Now, Sony he said.

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 05

05news.indd 1 25/08/2017 15:07:50 News

news in brief OTT sports set for the big time in 2018

Discovery finally buys Scripps It has been a big summer for sports the US this Discovery Communications has streaming, with a number of season, alongside bought Scripps Networks landmark deals and announcements broadcasters NBC Interactive in a $14.6 billion deal, made by players old and new. and CBS. In May, ending its long pursuit of the The first involves Amazon, a it added 40 Food Network programmer. The company that is increasingly streaming TV combined company will produce flexing its muscles in terms of channels in the about 8,000 hours of original programming in general, including UK – including programming annually and be now sports. The tech company Eurosport, which home to about 300,00 hours of outbid payTV operator Sky to win a will enable it to library content. It will generate a five-year contract to show the ATP offer the US Open combined 7 billion short-form World Tour tennis in the UK. With and French Open tennis and EUR4.99 per month on the video streams monthly, creating the deal, Amazon Prime Video will Olympic coverage from next year. Amazon Prime app. opportunity for new digital be the exclusive destination for all “This is a real game changer. And In a further sign that the global distribution partners, including the biggest tournaments apart from lays down a marker for future sports sports broadcast landscape is mobile, OTT, and D2C. the four grand slams, starting in rights auctions. Amazon must be changing, Turner in August 2018. The contract covers the ATP considered as a serious threat to announced that it would launch its HbbTV updates test suite World Tour Masters 1000 and sports rights holders not only in the own streaming platform following a The HbbTV Association has Masters 500 events from around the UK but other markets as well,” said deal with UEFA from 2018. released version 9.2 of its test world, including tournaments in Paolo Pescatore of CCS Insight, a Turner Sports plans to launch the suite. The latest version contains Monte Carlo, Madrid, Paris, Miami, telecoms and media analyst firm. service on the back of acquiring 1909 HbbTV test cases, of which Indian Wells and Shanghai. “There is a new player in town and exclusive multi-platform rights to two 1492 are approved for testing It is Amazon’s first major live TV the likes of Sky and BT Sport need of the world’s biggest football conformance. The aim of this sports rights deal outside the US to watch out.” competitions, the UEFA Champions release is to support the and described by analysts as a Amazon then also signed a deal League and the UEFA Europa certification of devices coming “game changer”. Like fellow digital with Eurosport to live stream sports League. Those two competitions will to market in 2018 for all versions players Twitter and Facebook, it has in Germany and Austria via its be the foundation for Turner’s direct- of the HbbTV standard. been experimenting with streaming Amazon Channels service. Amazon to-consumer streaming service. live sports. In April, Amazon Germany will add coverage of Walt Disney’s premium sports Kantar incorporates signed an agreement with the Germany’s top football league to its network ESPN also recently Facebook measurement National Football League in to Prime Video offer with a deal to announced it will launch a streaming Kantar Media has integrated stream 10 Thursday-night carry the Eurosport Player. service in 2018 as OTT sports starts Facebook data into its newly American football games in The service will be available for to go mainstream next year. renamed Social TV Ratings, with Instagram set to follow. The Kantar Social TV Ratings tool EE TV claims Alexa first now enables clients to see counts of posts, likes, comments and EE TV has become the first UK set Alexa will respond to questions continually looking for ways to shares across the Facebook top box, and one of the first service with three recommendations further enhance the accessibility and platform as it pertains to TV providers worldwide, to offer a provided from the same source that usability of EE TV. The new skill will programmes. Clients can also hands-free control option via supplies Freeview Picks, according to allow users to discover new content drill down at a granular level to Amazon Alexa. the telco. Users can also ask about and help to enrich their TV view this data by demographics EE continues to innovate its TV shows on any Freeview channel for experience, so they can make the such as age and gender, for better service with its technology partner either now or the following day. most out of it.” engagement visibility. The Netgem, the latest being the The EE TV skill for Alexa is the “Alexa integration with EE TV original Kantar Twitter TV integration of Amazon’s digital first in a number of commands being creates a truly hands-free TV Ratings tool (KTTR) launched in assistant. The support of Alexa reviewed for the EE TV platform. experience,” said Fabrice Rousseau, 2014 since when it became the voice control through Amazon Echo This includes reviewing Amazon’s General Manager, Alexa Skills official industry metric in the UK or Echo Dot is available as of today, Alexa Video Skill APIs for Kit EU. “Customers can now ask and has since gone live in Spain, meaning customers can just ask for integration with the service. Alexa to find things to watch and the Philippines, Brazil, Argentina, information on what’s on, or to Max Taylor, Managing Director of record the shows they want — no Colombia and Turkey. record shows. Marketing, EE said: “We’re remote required.”

06 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

06_news_3.indd 1 25/08/2017 14:54:49 TM News

news in brief BBC and Microsoft test voiceprints and AI

Hrvatski Telekom deploys “The idea of being able to talk to Zenterio OS computers and for them to be able Croatian telco Hrvatski Telekom to understand who we are as is the latest Deutsche Telekom individuals has been a science subsidiary to deploy Zenterio’s fiction fascination for decades,” software on its set-top boxes and said Cyrus Saihan, Head of Digital a major milestone for the Partnerships, Distribution & partners. Having already installed Business Development, in a blog. the Zenterio OS on its boxes in “We wanted to explore how TV – Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, just by hearing the unique sound of Romania, and Greece, Deutsche The BBC and Microsoft are testing a computer will be the main way your voice – could give people a Telekom has now launched the voiceprints and artificial intelligence that people interact with many of more intuitive and more personal “independent STB middleware” for voice interfaces and to enable digital devices. service in the future.” in Croatia with incumbent even greater levels of personalisation. The BBC and Microsoft built a There could be scenarios in a Hrvatski Telekom, which serves The BBC has worked with proof of concept. In the experiment, typical family setting too; just by 408,000 IPTV customers. Microsoft to build an experimental by recognising the individual listening to the voices in the room, version of BBC iPlayer that uses characteristics of voice (tone, the TV could automatically detect US streaming media artificial intelligence to allow modulation, pitch etc), processing when there are multiple people in the player adoption individuals to sign in to BBC that information and then matching living room, and serve up a Roku has increased its market services using their unique it to a sample of the voice stored in personalised mix of content relevant share in the US among streaming voiceprint and to talk to their TV to the cloud, AI software checks that to all of you in the room. media players. According to new select what they want to watch. users are who they say they are and “If we look further into the future, research from Parks Associates, AI and voice interaction are fast- are then signed in, without the need when artificial intelligence and Roku is increasing its lead in the developing technologies that the for typing. machine learning have advanced streaming media player BBC believes could have interesting The internal prototype also gives sufficiently, you could end up in a landscape, with 37% of US use-cases in TV as these are early a user the option to select what conversation with your TV about households owning and using a days for voice interfaces. they want to watch by talking to what’s available to watch now, Roku device as of Q1 2017, up With voice controlled interfaces their device. whether you like the sound of it or from 30% in Q1 2016. The other such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s As the technology advances, not, whether there’s something major players in this market, only Siri, Google’s Assistant and voiceprints and artificial intelligence coming up that you’re interested Amazon’s Fire TV had an Microsoft’s Cortana starting to gain could enable even greater levels in, and what you like to watch increase in its share of installed popularity, there is a good chance of personalisation, according to when you’re in a certain mood,” base during the same timeframe. that in some situations, speaking to the BBC. said Saihan. Amazon increased its share from 16% to 24% of US broadband households. Google’s Chromecast Beaming bitcoin via satellite now holds an 18% share of installed base, while Apple’s Blockstream is using satellites to operate and maintain Bitcoin nodes, Satellite network currently consists of share fell to 15%. A third of US broadcast bitcoins via a global without the constraints of traditional three geosynchronous satellites at broadband homes now have teleport and GEO network. network connectivity. various positions over Earth that streaming players. The blockchain and financial Teleport ground stations uplink cover four continents - Africa, cryptography specialist has the public Bitcoin blockchain data to Europe, South America, and North Patents for AI-based security announced the availability of the satellites in the network, which America. By the end of 2017, Vectra has been issued five US Blockstream Satellite, a new service then broadcast the data to large areas additional satellites will be added to patents for artificial intelligence using leased satellite capacity that across the globe. Additional teleports the network enabling worldwide enhanced visibility into cyber broadcasts real-time Bitcoin are being built out in phases to coverage and reaching nearly every attacker behaviour. The five US blockchain data from a group of enable worldwide coverage. person on the planet. patents - numbers 9237164, communication satellites in space to The service is at launch available Blockstream Satellite makes 9407647, 9565208, 9602533 and almost everyone on the planet. across two thirds of the Earth’s extensive use of open source software 9628512 - for advanced cyber Blockstream Satellite is described landmass, and additional coverage such as GNU Radio and the security analytics capabilities the world’s first public satellite areas will soon come online to by the Fast Internet Bitcoin Relay automated by AI. service that allows anyone to end of the year. The Blockstream Engine (FIBRE).

08 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

08_news_3.indd 1 25/08/2017 14:55:18 News

4K TV drives global set-top box market news in brief

Despite persistent predictions of its putting pressure Children’s VoD market demise, the set-top box landscape on prices. The number of kids’ video remains in good health and a new The Asia on-demand services has more report forecasts robust growth ahead Pacific region, than doubled in the last five for the global market. While 4K will excluding Japan, years, according to IHS Markit. provide a new boost, HD boxes will is the largest The cumulative number grew continue to perform strongly too as single market, 136% from 74 services in 2012 to they maintain a role in payTV. estimated to be 175 in 2016. Notably, one-third The global STB market is worth over $6.5 of the services specialising in the projected to grow by 7.5% a year over billion in 2017 children’s audience are accessible the next decade. Estimated to be and forecast to rise to nearly $10 increasing interest in customised only via mobile devices. Western worth over $22 billion in 2017, it is billion in 2027. Western Europe is 4K Android set-top boxes. Europe accounts for the highest forecast to reach $46 billion in 2027, worth around $4.5 billion, with But growth will come from HD number of children’s VoD according to a report published by Eastern Europe approaching $1.5 and even SD boxes still. In 2017, services, with 65 in operation by Future Market Insights. billion and the Middle East and the SD set-top box segment is the end of 2016. The Asia Pacific Growth is expected in the Asia Africa at almost $2.5 billion. The estimated to be valued at $5.38 region sits in second place with Pacific region, with disposable North America market is valued at billion and is interestingly expected 52 services, having overtaken incomes rising in developing around $5.75 billion in 2017, and to register a CAGR of 5.1% during North America in 2012. economies, especially in India and forecast to reach nearly $10 billion in the assessment period. The HD set- According to IHS, 51% of the China. Production of set-top boxes by 2027, with increasing demand for top box segment is estimated to be services predominantly followed a local companies is leading to 4K. Indeed, the focus is increasingly valued at $16. 9 billion in the year subscription video on-demand increased competition with global on high definition video and high- 2017 and is forecasted to touch a model, followed by free-to-view set-top box manufacturers and quality user interfaces, with value of $18.5 billion in year 2018. video on-demand at 26%.

Discovery CEO hails the skinny bundle

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 05

9_News.indd 1 25/08/2017 15:08:36 eSports

sports (eSports) Cashing in on the crowds and events, the way people view them, whether in eSports boom physical stadiums, on TV or devices, and amount of time they PayTV has burst into the spend watching. Today’s eSports electronic sports arena, competitions attract eager to grab a slice of a vast global audiences. The 2016 League massive global fanbase and of Legends World Championship finals involved as sponsors, including Red Bull, Audi, experiment with new forms of were seen by 43 Coca Cola and also Gillette. content and delivery. Stephen million people, Broadcasters, too, want a piece of the action. according to Riot Seeing the writing on the wall, many TV Cousins reports Games. In March, broadcasters and operators are making moves ESL’s Intel Extreme to exploit this fast-growing market. Sky and n the face of it, the Masters tournament in Poland attracted 173,000 ITV joined forces with Ginx TV in October, to world of competitive fans to the arena and a further 55 million launch GINX, the UK’s only 24-hour eSports gaming hasn’t changed a followers on social media. TV channel. great deal since 1980, Increasing commercialisation has helped drive GINX Esports TV currently reaches eSports when Atari launched eSports further into the mainstream. International fans in 46 million payTV homes globally. The the first ever large tournaments now offer multi-million-dollar cash GINX Esports TV channel is available in the scale tournament, for prizes and the best players elevated to the status UK on SKY and Virgin Media and on DStv in Othe game Space Invaders. Back then, of stars, similar to ‘real’ sports stars. South Africa (Channel 240), as well as in many as today, crowds gathered to watch teams Football clubs like Ajax, VFL Wolfsburg, other territories around the globe. of teenagers hunched over computers, Manchester City, West Ham United, Roma, PSV Earlier this year, BT Sport won the rights to blowing away imaginary baddies with Eindhoven and Sporting Lisbon are among the broadcast the remaining four Electronic Arts imaginary guns. brands backing eSports and sponsoring individual FIFA video game majors, enabling fans to watch What has changed is the scale of electronic players and eSports teams. Big brands are also virtual football live on TV. Meanwhile, ESPN, Turner, Telefonica, Orange and a number of other US, Scandinavian and Asian operators have all made investments or launched dedicated eSports channels (see table, on next page). All in all, the burgeoning eSports and online gaming sector has seen investment from internet giants and telecoms operators exceed $2 billion in the past six years, according to Ampere research. Modern Times Group (MTG) went further than most, deciding to take a majority stake in Turtle Entertainment, the holding company for ESL, the world’s largest eSports company based out of Cologne, Germany. The acquisition has great strategic value, according to Arnd Benninghoff, CEO of MTGx (the media company’s digital arm). “Businesses such as ESL are both relevant and scalable, which is exactly what we look for in our digital investments. ESL’s content is appealing to an audience which becomes very hard to reach

Footage captured from an eSports tournament in Russia an eSports tournament from captured Footage elsewhere: the millennials,” says Benninghoff.

10 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

10-13_Esports.indd 2 29/08/2017 11:06:23 eSports

Ready, player one Media company/telco eSports tieup Analyst firm Newzoo has predicted that global audience figures will double to nearly 600 million BBC Showed coverage of the Gﬁ nity Elite Series by 2020, with revenues passing £1 billion. tournament in west London. Games such as Total hours viewed in the genre exceeded 6 Street Fighter V, Counter Strike: Global Offen- billion globally in 2016, up 19% from 2015, sive, and Rocket League, were broadcast every according to IHS Markit. Online viewing is weekend this summer on BBC Three online driving the eSports video market, accounting for more than 85 percent of time spent watching. Sky Invested in Ginx TV, following the launch of the channel on the Sky platform. Ginx TV own a 24- China is by far the largest market for eSports hour eSports TV channel in the UK and Ireland video, accounting for 57% of all viewing last year. “The rise of eSports provides some valuable lessons for channels and programmers more BT Partnership with eSports network Gﬁ nity to broadcast live matches from its upcoming Elite broadly,” said Dan Cryan. “In particular, it Series tournament. demonstrates the value of aggregating audiences globally, rather than the more country-specific approach that defined much of the traditional Telefonica, Orange and All feature dedicated eSports channels on their Vodafone respective TV services TV business. Esports video is a perfect example

Lions Gate Entertainment Invested in eSports outﬁ t Immortals, a profes- According to data sional eSports team that competes worldwide Amazon/Twitch Partnership with games developer Blizzard to from the Sport1 TV secure exclusive broadcast rights to 20 of its channel in Germany, tournaments 14-19 year olds Twitter Pledged to broadcast more than 1,500 hours of live eSports content this year make up three YouTube Teamed with FACEIT to be the exclusive home quarters of the of its tournaments. Along with Twitch, YouTube commands the biggest audiences for e-sports prime time audience Modern Times Group (MTG) The most active broadcaster in this area. Had for eSport content, dedicated 24/7 full-time eSports channel, called eSportsTV. Acquired US-based online compared to just gaming platform, Kongregate, as well as eSports events and leagues company, Dream- over a third for Hack. Also acquired MCNs Splay and Zoomin.TV which have large gaming communities. Owns regular prime time majority stake in Turtle Entertainment, which owns eSports league ESL. programming.

of younger viewers. According to data from the Curt Marvis, CEO and co-founder of short- of the increasingly complicated competitive Sport1 TV channel in Germany, 14-19 year olds form video content provider QYOU Media, told landscape in TV.” make up three quarters of the prime time CSI: “There’s a realisation that younger audiences In North America, the 2016 League Legends audience for eSport content, compared to just are cutting the cord not because they don’t final attracted an audience of seven million, over a third for regular prime time programming. want to pay for TV, but because the content in the US, which compares favourably to the Tapping into this demographic can help payTV they want to watch is not available to them via 15.8 million who watched 2016 NCAA college providers to address a growing exodus to online that particular service. By including eSports in basketball final. viewing. It can also help counter falling viewing their offerings, payTV operators can entice eSports continues to outperform many times for traditional live sport on TV and linear younger audiences back with content that traditional sports in terms of the percentage programming in general. they find relevant and engaging.”

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 11

10-13_Esports.indd 3 29/08/2017 11:06:34 eSports

That said, the eSports audience is more diverse become one of the “main protagonists” of with the likes of YouTube and Twitch, online than one might expect. According to MTG, eSports in Spain. mega-brands and innovators in the world of almost 30% of eSports viewers in the US are MTG chose to cut out the middleman, directly video where gaming audiences currently coalesce. female (and the number is rising rapidly), and acquiring the companies that run the tournaments Twitch alone has 9.7 million active daily users 20% are over 36 years old. “The appeal of eSports (Turtle Media and the Swedish digital festival and in the last six months Twitch users spent is getting broader all the time, which is a big Dreamhack) to take ownership of the content. almost 80 million hours watching eSports factor behind our view that it has the potential Ted Hall, Senior Principal Analyst at IHS content from ESL. Facebook also recently entered to become the sport of the 21st Century,” says Markit, told CSI: “They saw the huge growth the fray, signing a deal with ESL to broadcast MTGx’s Benninghoff. in eSports and determined that they stood to over 5,550 hours of eSports events and other The most common play for traditional TV generate the most value from it by investing in the original content. operators has been to launch and build channels content and the IP. This was partly informed by Unlike most payTV operators, the platforms around eSports content, striking country-specific the rights costs they had witnessed in relation to leverage at scale with a multi-region approach, distribution deals with content owners. Telefonica ‘real’ sports.” and deliver live online gaming in its native online has gone further than most, teaming up with ESL environment. Putting eSports content behind a to develop a platform, exclusive content and a Space invader paywall could deter a younger demographic used professional electronic sports club in a bid to Entering the eSports arena means doing battle to accessing it for free online (Twitch is free, but also has a premium service, Twitch Prime). How can payTV differentiate itself and add value? How can it attract players, fans and other eSports stakeholders onto its platforms? Other subscription services show that Millennials and other young viewers are not averse to paying for content. The younger generation is driving growth in Netflix subscriptions, expected to increase by 5.3 million by 2020. Dan Finch, Chief Commercial Officer at Simplestream, provider of live streaming and live-to-VoD services, comments: “Although the millennial generation are more savvy when it comes to streaming, there is no denying that effective monetisation of online video platforms,

Source: Leonel Calara / Shutterstock.com Leonel Calara Source: where viewers have to provide a monthly or annual cost, such as Netflix or Amazon, have been successful among younger generations.” Most people would not sign up to payTV purely to get an eSports channel, so the opportunity is perhaps more about diversifying content and making it more relevant in homes where teenagers have access to a TV service being paid for by their parents. Cord cutting could be seen as an opportunity for linear TV to play to its strengths when pushing eSports, by exploiting its long term experience with production, multi-camera, arena-style events, and the creation of formats that tap into the zeitgeist. The creation of peripheral programming and original content, perhaps using online personalities as hosts, in-depth player reviews, expert commentary etc, can help make eSports more mainstream and generate value through traditional television advertising. This is a tried

12 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

10-13_Esports.indd 4 29/08/2017 11:07:11 eSports

and tested strategy used for established ‘real’ sports that has helped deepen engagement with existing fans and attract new ones. ESL, the oldest professional eSports organisation still in operation, has seen the potential, having partnered with the award- winning production company Pilgrim Media Group to create and distribute original eSports content across TV, as well as online digital platforms. Watching on the big screen can provide a collective eSports viewing experience not possible on a smart phone or tablet. Emma Lloyd, Group Director of Business Development & Partnerships at Sky, comments: “With the quality of live streams continually improving and the strong visual nature of eSports, the content lends itself to the big screen. As with traditional experienced when it had just two weeks to deliver and maintain its identity. This is the only way pay- sport, the shared experience of fans can be live feeds for the 2017 Intel Extreme Masters TV will be able to profit from this entertainment,” powerful, and supporting digital and social tournament, run by ESL. The firm delivered Wilson thinks. content helps amplify the story around a live IP Network feeds, as a replacement for live event.” satellite, to 13 broadcasters in multiple regions, Smash TV Immersion could be a major ingredient for the plus OTT and digital cinema delivery to some eSports remains a nascent market, particularly in success of eSport on TV, together with the ability of them.” Europe, but figures indicate there is big money to for the viewer to easily switch camera and Tom Holmes, Sales and Marketing Director at be made. A report earlier this year from market viewpoints. An interesting point is made by Deluxe MediaCloud, told CSI: “The main intelligence firm Newzoo predicts the global Accedo, which sees future potential in immersive challenge was the tight timescale of two weeks eSports economy will grow to $696 million during VR, enabling fans to feel and follow the action for set-up, including at each of the sites. ESL 2017, a year-on- year growth of 41.3%. Of this more closely. was securing new rights deals with platforms figure, $95 million is related to media rights. A spokesperson for Accedo told CSI: “From right up until a few days before the start of At the same time, more mainstream bread-and- the tournament, so we had to coordinate kit butter TV sports audiences are falling, both in at global sites, install and test it, and go live Europe and North America. Audiences in the UK “We think VR in short turnaround times. It was a challenge, declined 10% season-over-season and 31% from but at the same time it was great fun to the peak in the 2011-2012 season. NBC carried technology has a lot deliver against.” 2016-2017 Premiere League games across several Holmes’ advice for payTV operators wanting channels and saw the average audience fall 18% to offer. Immersing to enter the eSports space is to make sure that from last season. One of the groups most affected rights and technical details are completed before by declining football ratings is the millennials. the viewer into the event starts. When delivering feeds to NFL ratings have been declining in 18-34-year- the competition multiple regions, it is important to have clarity olds for some time. Whether payTV companies on the formats and bitrates required, prior acquiring eSports can help plug this gap remains will certainly help.” to transmission. to be seen. “It is understandable that Pay TV services are Moreover, whether eSports should be trying to benefit from the seemingly overnight considered a ‘real’ sport seems something of a that perspective, we think virtual reality success of eSports. However, these traditional moot point, although it is worth noting that the technology has a lot to offer. To those who institutions are running the risk of International e-Sports Federation is processing an question why so many people would be interested commercialising eSports too much, making it application with the International Olympic watching others play competitive video games, unattainable to fans and then isolating them,” Committee (IOC) to be recognised as such. immersing the viewer into the competition warns Richard Wilson of CLICKON. With big brands getting in on sponsorship will certainly help change their mind and further “In order to enable the relationship to be opportunities for tournaments, and major sports broaden the appeal of eSports content.” mutually beneficial, the companies investing in organisations from other disciplines sponsoring Delivering live eSports content raises certain eSports must allow themselves to compromise in players, now could be the be the time for TV technical challenges, as Deluxe Media order for the industry to maintain its sense of self operators to grab the eSports joystick.

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 13

10-13_Esports.indd 5 29/08/2017 11:10:31 Analyst corner

online viewers. eSports’ through pay-TV with curated linear programmes/ Is pay-TV the right primary outlet has shows. Following investment from Sky and ITV in traditionally been October 2016, Ginx TV now has deals in place online video platforms with several pay-TV operators gaining presence in home for eSport? such as Amazon owned 41 territories and a potential reach of over 37 Twitch, YouTube million homes globally. Its main revenue stream, New channels jostle for crowded EPG Gaming and more like most eSports platforms, is advertising, and sports, or pro-video gaming, recently Twitter and Facebook. The social aspect has recently extended its reach further with the has been the talk of the of these platforms has extended the content introduction of a dedicated SVoD service. Despite town recently, with VCs, beyond just video, to building communities this reach, it is still a comparative niche, one of brands and broadcasters around the games and wider industry. Fans can many channels jostling for position on an already investing in an effort to directly engage with players online and event crowded EPG. reach a generation spending hosts can offer up digital merchandising- such an increasing amount of functionality would potentially be lost through a eSports-lite Etime away from the big screen and from traditional channel, and subsequently reduce However, eSports is not the only niche trying scheduled TV. A rising number of pay-TV engagement which has been one of eSports’ to seek benefits from presence on pay-TV. Vice operators are now testing this market, major appeals. began online and saw successes from its high adding eSports to their content line-up, in In 2016, US network Turner launched the quality and often controversial content targeted at part to maintain attractiveness to younger Eleague tournaments, announcing a multi-year younger demographics, garnering 8 million audiences and also to take advantage of its deal with Twitch to distribute through its site, subscribers and 1.4 billion views through its rapidly rising popularity. complemented by a weekly roundup show on a YouTube channel alone. Across 2016, Vice made Whilst from a pay-TV perspective, aggregating Turner linear broadcast channel. Its most recent the leap onto pay-TV with the introduction of its eSports on to their respective platforms forms tournament shown on TBS reached an audience Viceland channel. Although not deemed a failure, part of a well-rounded content proposition, what of 335,000, a number three times higher than despite a strong following and reputation this is the real value that can be extracted from this? usual viewership for the Friday 10pm slot. venture has fallen short of its online success with Will, or can, eSports see a similar trajectory to Although arguably still relatively low, what this UK daily viewing figures peaking at just 50,000. traditional sports on pay-TV? ‘experiment’ provides is distribution and access to While distribution through pay-TV offers eSports has seen major successes in its current a more casual viewer and builds the awareness of new and potentially greater financial reward guise, with content offered for free, remaining eSports to a wider audience. for eSports, challenges of transitioning an easy to access and available on a global scale - So can eSports flourish on pay-TV? To date entertainment medium that currently offers indicative of tournaments such as The Intel Ginx TV, a 24/7 eSports TV channel, is interactivity and immersion to a one-way Extreme Masters in Poland, achieving 46 million attempting to bring eSports to the mainstream traditional viewing experience, potentially curtails its appeal to its current fan-base. Yet perhaps they can offer up a more compelling and attractive ‘eSports-lite’ experience for the average viewer. So pay-TV will certainly play a part in the future growth of eSports, but as with the overall entertainment sector, it will be one proponent in a wide array of mediums, as content owners continue to seek the widest audience possible and the best medium in an ever more fragmented landscape of platforms and devices.

Amisha Chauhan Research Analyst, Media & Entertainment futuresource consulting

14 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

14_Analyst_Column.indd 1 25/08/2017 15:11:29 csi-cover-june2016.indd 1 www.csimagazine.com digitalEditions-feb2017-204x271.indd 1 June 2016 Market trends • International coverage • insightandanalysis Independentnews, • industry decision-makers Targeting top-level • ofdigital TVandmedia Your window to theworld •

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Multi-channel networks DVB-S2x Cable tech special NFV & SDN csi-cover-september2016.indd 1

September 2016 www.csimagazine.com Virtual Reality television As close asitgets: 13/02/2017 11:12:25 23/08/2016 11:45:24

IBC 2016 preview Live OTT Satellite broadband Millennial viewing Advertorial

solution for satellite transmission that is based on TV content providers virtually unbreakable AES 256-bit encryption. ‘Virtually’ unbreakable means that it is theoretically breakable. It would, however, take 50 take back the sky of the most powerful supercomputers on earth, working in parallel for approximately 4 times the age of the universe to decrypt a 256-bit key. So, from satellite pirates hacking does not pose a real-world threat today. By Ronen Sadan, AVP Marketing, NovelSat Together with a secured OTA (Over-the-Air) channel for exchanging AES keys plus event 5 years ago, when AT&T and lost revenue and damaged reputations. Although scheduling and content entitlement tools, NASA launched Telstar, the BISS/BISS-E are the DRM encryption standards ProtCASTER is the most secure satellite world’s first broadcast for many broadcasters, BISS/BISS-E algorithms broadcast solution currently available. satellite, it wasn’t long have been hacked making it common for ProtCASTER is an optional add-on to the before pirates and thrill decryption keys to be published by pirates in NovelSat high-efficiency satellite transmission seekers started tapping into social networks 24 hours before major broadcast platform and is compatible with all NovelSat broadcast signals. By the events. These cyber crimes make it obvious that products. It works with DVB S2 and DVB-S2X 51970s, millions around the world were the broadcast market needs more aggressive DRM transmissions as well as with NovelSat ‘enjoying’ pirated content broadcast via solutions. That is true for distribution and NS3/NS4 waveforms. satellite. Some early analogue ‘encryption’ redistribution of recorded and live content, and Any security expert will tell you that there is no methods, such as colour shifting, splitting also for contribution. unbreakable encryption: that it is only a matter of audio and video signals and adding One solution designed to foil today’s hackers time before some hacker group works out the intentional interference, worked briefly. and pirates is ProtCASTER from NovelSat. It was code. However, with AES 256-bit encryption, the But, as with any security measure, it was rolled out for the first time in 2017 and was consensus is that, although security theorists have not long before the hacker community recently implemented in one of the world’s largest come up with ways to crack it, there will be no defeated it. satellite broadcast distribution networks. practical way to break the code in the foreseeable Security hacks have been a painful reality in ProtCASTER was already in place to support future. No other satellite broadcast encryption the satellite broadcast industry. Over the last worldwide distribution of a major international can make that claim. Armed with this dozen years or so, BISS and BISS-E encryption football tournament in Russia, and will secure information, it is now up to TV content providers keys, transmitted over the air using the satellite upcoming major sporting events including tennis, and broadcasters to decide if 2017 will be the link, became the target of cyber-attacks and digital basketball, football, auto racing and athletics year that they take back the sky from the pirates, costing TV content providers millions in events. ProtCASTER is the world’s first DRM satellite pirates.

16 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

16_Novelsat.indd 2 24/08/2017 11:06:12 Data corner

almost doubles Chart: Scatter graph torrent usage vs legal OTT Penetration Torrents, technology the strength of the relationship between the and temperament factors. Similarly, there By Guy Bisson, Research Director, seems to be a fairly good Ampere Analysis relationship between the uptake of streamers and

ith IBC OTT hardware and the levels of piracy, with Analysis Ampere Source: upon us, higher streamer uptake relating to lower levels of thoughts piracy. Germany — with its incredibly low inevitably reported usage of torrents — is the outlier in this turn to relationship. Removing it from the analysis results Chart: Bar chart relationship between torrent usage and OTT box uptake technology: in a 30% increase in the strength of the chipsets, relationship between the two measures. set-top boxes, and that mainstay of the pay TV Neither relationship is perfect, and clearly Windustry, encryption. Content protection has been there are multiple factors at play here, including at the centre of pay TV since its gestation, when a the fact that content access and availability, even technology initially developed with banking where there are several legitimate OTT services, protection in mind was repurposed to protect still shows huge variation. Hollywood movies and soaps. National character may also play a role. It With the move to IP and expanding range of seems the Germans are the most honest when it DRM options (often now requiring multi-DRM comes to paying for content… or perhaps the support) the market is more challenging than most dishonest in lying about their actual piracy ever. Nearly three decades on from those fledgling habits? By contrast, the Spanish and Brazilians Table: Torrent usage league table pay TV offers, piracy remains an on-going battle show the highest rates of torrent usage (or, for the content industry. One reason that has conversely, perhaps the greatest honesty about Country Torrent usage 18-34 year olds (%) often been given as an excuse for fueling piracy is habits…?). Either way, the figures presented restrictive content access policies. Over the years, actually represent an underestimation of piracy Brazil 15.2 has piracy been created, or at least been stoked, levels. Additional sources of pirate content, such Spain 12.3 by restrictive windowing, and the ‘failure’ of the as locker site usage, boost this even further. Saudi Arabia 8.9 content owners to make content available at a Nonetheless, after the Brazilians and Spanish, Netherlands 8.7

time and in a means demanded by the audience? the Saudis and Dutch rank next highest for piracy, France 8.4

Today, with the growth of legitimate OTT while the British and Danes show the lowest Poland 8.0

services and the proliferation of content viewing levels after the Germans. Interestingly, torrent Italy 7.9 devices and options, can this excuse for piracy usage in Sweden is almost twice that of Sweden 7.5 still hold water, and is there any discernable neighboring Denmark, showing that national USA 7.1 relationship between piracy and OTT services? character is quite geographically specific. Turkey 6.9 Obviously there are many factors that play into Most of the other countries surveyed fall UK 5.1 a consumer’s decision to pirate content, including somewhere in the mid-range with between seven peer group, social status and income, but it’s and nine percent of Millennials using torrents to Denmark 3.9 increasingly hard today to suggest that consumers stream content. This appears to be a fairly typical Germany 1.1 are not being given legitimate opportunities to baseline and also the point at which increasing consume the content they want. availability and uptake of legitimate OTT services also far more likely than average to be male and Using torrent usage among Millennials (18-34) has little further impact on the levels of piracy. of lower income. One thing rings loud and clear as a measure of piracy and comparing this to the This ‘legitimacy threshold’ is perhaps best from the data: content piracy isn’t going uptake of legitimate OTT services (subscriptions), illustrated by the USA, where very high OTT anywhere, despite the industry’s drive to provide there does seem to be a relationship between the uptake does not result in a decline in piracy below content ‘anytime, anywhere and on any device.’ two, with markets that have higher uptake of legal the mid-range level. Locking down content, water-marking and OTT services,generally having lower torrent usage. Supply and demand also play a role. Pirates are tracking properties that do get pirated remains The US is actually an outlier, because of its very particularly keen on sci-fi movies and action key. The stalls of IBC don’t look like emptying out high OTT penetration. Removing it from the data content weighs heavy on pirate sites. Pirates are anytime soon.

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 17

17-Data.indd 2 31/08/2017 13:12:36 A NEW HOME FOR OUR CONNECTED SECURITY PLATFORM

Connected devices are extending the security landscape for video and beyond. Before seizing new opportunities through cloud-based services, analytics and even IoT, you need to redeﬁne your security strategy.

Who are you going to trust with your connected future?

www.verimatrix.com

Visit us at IBC 2017 15-19 September • RAI, Amsterdam Booth # 5.A59

Securing the Connected Future™

Untitled-1 1 15/08/2017 14:04:48 Focus sponsored by: www.csimagazine.com

Cloud and IoT security

19-23_Verimatrix.indd 1 15/08/2017 14:07:14 Sponsored feature

know-how,” he highlights. Locking up the clouds “Security needs to be automated and embedded in the entire process, from requirements, to CSI’s Anna Tobin looks into cloud security and design, build, test, deploy and through into operations. We recommend that businesses upcoming major data regulation in Europe moving to the cloud start off small with pilot projects to minimise risks and ensure that any here is no getting away rearchitecting our solutions and working with our issues with skills, processes and tools or security from it, anywhere, anytime, partners to create new end-to-end systems using are resolved quickly, rather than moving personalised content and a cloud-based architecture.” everything into the cloud at once, which could be the need to scale is pushing In a bid to contain costs there is the temptation risky. A holistic, gradual and maturity-based the majority of the world’s to try and adapt an existing legacy system for the approach is crucial.” IT infrastructure into cloud, but bugs and incompatibility problems can the clouds. The latest result in this costing more and eventually being Public or private? Tforecast from the International Data scrapped for a new cloud-based system. The public cloud is expected to grow faster than Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly “Cloud changes the game entirely,” states private alternatives at 13.8% year-on-year, Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker, predicts Peter De Rooij, security principal at Accenture according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Cloud that total spending on server, enterprise Digital Video. “It’s not just about a technology IT Infrastructure Tracker. If an operator owns storage, and ethernet switches for change, but about putting entirely new processes their own private cloud service the total control deployment in cloud environments will in place – security being a critical factor - and they have over it should make it easier to keep it increase 12.4% year-on-year in 2017 to a changing the culture in terms of the way the secure. The public cloud, however, offers great mind-blowing $40.1 billion. business operates. benefits in terms of scaleability and affordability, The advantages of cloud storage far outweigh “A common issue that we see across private, which is what makes it particularly attractive the disadvantages, but the security of those public and hybrid cloud is that there is a lack to smaller companies who work on short ‘bursts’ clouds, is now concerning every operator of realisation about how different cloud is. It of activity. deploying their digital assets within them. Russia’s changes relationships between stakeholders, “There are advantages of running things in the suspected involvement in the US election is the demands entirely different processes, and the public clouds,” says Peterka at Verimatrix, “but most high profile cybercrime to date, yet related rate of change goes up dramatically. All of this you need to understand what tools you get in the stories make the news daily. Germany’s BSI means that traditional security processes simply public cloud to protect your business, consider federal cyber agency, for example, is investigating fall apart.” them correctly and understand what is missing a wave of attacks on German firms suspected to and then provide that functionality or that have begun in April and Disney and Netflix have Cloud skills shortage security yourself.” had to deal with ransom demands from hackers Highly skilled personnel are key to maintaining The key areas of vulnerability in the public who have obtained unreleased content. Most and growing a secure cloud-based business, adds cloud come from the users of that cloud, not the recently, a hack at HBO has reportedly led to a De Rooij. “This is one of the biggest challenges management of it, says Tim Erlin, VP at Tripwire, leak of unreleased content, including unseen companies face today, because there is a skills “The public cloud infrastructure itself may episodes of its global blockbuster Game shortage for people with both cloud and security experience vulnerabilities, but they’re more likely of Thrones. There has been a seismic shift in the way content security is viewed now compared to just a few years ago, highlights Petr Peterka, Verimatrix’s CTO. “Compare cloud use to the traditional deployment, where the operator had a full IT staff, physical data centres and physical headends. They had full control over the physical network and their machines and full control over physical access to the rooms holding them, determining which staff could and couldn’t enter.” Operators have had to rearchitect their systems for the cloud, adds Peterka. “They’ve had to identify interfaces that were previously assumed to be physically secured and secure them electronically,” he says. “We’ve spent a lot of time

20 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

19-23_Verimatrix.indd 2 15/08/2017 14:07:48 Sponsored feature

Quantum cryptology for IoT security Korean telco SK Telecom has developed a prototype of an ultra-small quantum random number generator (QRNG) chip with entropy source and deterministic random bit generator (DRBG), which it says will “dramatically enhance the level of security for IoT services”. A QRNG generates true random numbers without any kind of pattern, meaning that it is ideal for use in cryptography, according to the company. However, so far, the cost and size of QRNGs currently on market have prevented them from becoming widespread. With the successful development of an ultra- small QRNG chip measuring 5mm by 5mm, SK Telecom expects that it will soon be able to aspects to the private cloud and you run the rest data can go geographically and it’s important embed QRNG to a wide variety of the Internet of your business in a public cloud, where you to take this into account when architecting of Things products, including autonomous can take advantage of the scalability and systems. For instance, in our Verspective™ vehicles, drones and smart devices, to other benefits. Operator Analytics solution you have to be able to dramatically enhance the level of security for “We have to interface with more and more compartmentalise the data to comply with some IoT services. Although the price of each hosted or cloud-based services, whether it’s of these regulations and you have to be in full QRNG chip has not been set yet, the company the encoding or the subscriber management control over where the different data, collected said that it will be the lowest price ever systems, billing systems and other components from different parts of the world resides, because for a QRNG. that the operator needs to have, but they may be of these regulations. And, sometimes operators “Understanding the importance of data and hosted in different environments and the operator have their own additional requirements beyond ~ dta security, SK Telecom has focused on needs to interconnect all of them and I’m the regulations.” developing quantum cryptography technologies anticipating that in most cases this will be a Next year will be a landmark year for cloud to guarantee secure transmission of data in hybrid environment.” regulation predicts Erlin at Tripwire. “The areas including artificial intelligence (AI), IoT Whether you’re outsourcing all your cloud [EU] General Data Protection Regulation and autonomous driving,” said Park Jin-hyo, storage, using a private cloud or a hybrid, it’s (GDPR) coming into effect in 2018 may be the Senior Vice President and Head of Network important to understand which aspects of most impactful change for data security for a R&D Center of SK Telecom. security are provided by the cloud and which decade,” he says. “It’s impact hinges on how it’s must be done on the ground, emphasises enforced, however. to be addressed quicker than those introduced by Tripwire’s Erlin. “The GDPR itself contains all the ingredients third-party products and individual users. “The fundamental security issues in the cloud necessary to fundamentally change how Misconfiguration of cloud-based systems is a aren’t different to those for on premise systems, organisations collect and secure data, but that big risk. These may not be vulnerabilities in the but the technology and implementations may be impact will only come to fruition if there are traditional sense, but they ultimately lead to loss very different,” he warns. “You’re still responsible effective audits and meaningful consequences to of data regardless.” for protecting your data, but the steps you take to failure. If the GDPR’s bark is worse than its Private cloud is still the best option in some protect data in cloud storage or a cloud-native bite, organisations will quickly relegate it to a circumstances, adds Peterka at Verimatrix. “There database may be different to on-premise. Make minor cost of doing business, rather than a are clear needs for a private cloud,” he says, “for sure you don’t lose sight of the objectives in the significant investment.” instance, some key assets that you can’t afford to face of different technology.” Assuming punishments for infringements will have compromised or lose when they are attached be tough, and for their own peace of mind, in a public cloud, you may decide to run in a Ruling the clouds: data regulation operators need to create secure end-to-end private cloud.” Various national and international laws have been systems now. “You need to have a holistic as By using a mix of private and public clouds, made or are in the process of being legislated in a possible approach,” sums up Verimatrix’s Peterka. you mitigate the risk of having your data attacked, bid to control the data that is gathered and stored “You need to architect your system in a way that lost or damaged. I think in the end, we all will in the clouds. addresses all of the security needs in a end up running in a hybrid environment, says “The legislation is evolving and it will take a comprehensive end-to-end manner, in the same Peterka. “Where you really need the advantages of while before it stabilises,” says Verimatrix’s way as operators used to do with their private the security of the private cloud, you isolate those Peterka. “The focus tends to be on where the data centre deployments in the past.”

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 21

19-23_Verimatrix.indd 3 24/08/2017 14:37:35 Sponsored feature

Failure to acknowledge what has gone Internet of Things needs before has created the illusion that IoT needs new technologies and strategies to address its security challenges. This has also put the end-to-end security that spotlight on the cloud infrastructure and big databases where sensitive or confidential information might reside, while under- includes devices representing the challenges of the IoT devices themselves and the crucial communication Four key elements needed to secure all aspects links to and between the client devices. If these elements are not secured, then the whole and components of IoT services. By Steve data protection strategy is undermined given Christian, SVP of Marketing, Verimatrix the rule that security is only as strong as its weakest link. ecuring the internet personal data to eavesdropping and of things (IoT) has become tampering as a result of proliferating Four key security elements for the a high priority for service Internet-centric application approaches IoT lifecycle providers in diverse and underline how providers of services, The reasons for developing and applying bottoms- industry sectors including apps and components could be responsible up security approaches are clearly seen in some pay TV, as reflected by for breaches. of the systemic vulnerabilities very publicly its greatly increased For longstanding providers of revenue demonstrated in recent years. Many issues have Sprominence at IBC 2016 and a number of protection in the video services business revolved around theft of credentials and denial specialist industry events since that time. such as Verimatrix, emerging regulations also of service, which are common to most, if not This has been driven in part by several illuminate just how much common ground there all, sectors of the Internet. Security in IoT high-profile incidents that have illustrated is between security in pay TV and IoT. This point applications should therefore include a foundation breaches at varying levels of severity but has been missed by some of the newer players in for managing the integrity of the “things” – the also by impending regulatory initiatives, the IoT arena unaware perhaps that many of the devices themselves and the software that runs such as the European Union’s General Data same fundamental challenges have already arisen on them - just as has developed over the years Protection Regulation (GDPR) which comes and been tackled in the video services industry, in the mature pay TV word. into full force in May 2018. Such initiatives especially in recent years with rising IP Such considerations have led Verimatrix to were motivated by the growing exposure of connectivity and distribution. suggest four key elements for protecting data throughout its lifecycle in a connected IP environment: device integrity, device or user authentication, integrity of device communications and security of data collected by IoT devices. These four elements naturally build on tenets established in video revenue protection that can be extended to IoT scenarios, while taking full account of the differing perspectives. The first element, device integrity, implies that measures have been taken to detect and prevent attempts to hijack devices. It requires firstly ensuring integrity of the bootstrap process by which devices obtain key material and configuration information to allow them to be authenticated for operation within

22 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

19-23_Verimatrix.indd 4 15/08/2017 14:09:09 Sponsored feature

governance. This too has important implications for IoT security, because it will require that all domains adhere to the same basic quality standards and enable a single view of the customer, whether the data comes from low power relatively dumb devices or systems such as PCs and smart TVs with much greater resources and access to a lot more bandwidth. Currently, many broadband and pay TV service providers have multiple views of subscribers through marketing, billing and audience analytics, with IoT now adding a further dimension to the mix. Increasingly, these operators are looking to their longstanding revenue protection specialist to bring all these data sources together inside a common security framework as a crucial step towards compliance with GDPR or equivalent regulations outside Europe. Such unification of security is being driven not just by standards and requirements of IoT but also by convergence at the ecosystem level, with the same underling vendors now developing products an IoT domain, and secondly, integrity of the lifecycle, rather than just a single element or a across the spectrum. This can be seen in devices updating processes to prevent subsequent single point in time, it is contingent on the particular at the silicon level where there is a attacks. Integrity at both instances can be ability of the other three elements to protect common push to an underlying set of hardware safeguarded by mechanisms already proven in the against threats at any stage – and to be renewed primitives and subsystems – including a hardware pay TV space. or updated if threats are understood to be root of trust for example - to underpin security For device authentication, it is essential to shifting. The golden rule of security is that it implementations at the device level. In the pay protect the wider IoT network or service from the job is never over, because there will always TV space, this integrated on-chip approach was intrusion by unauthorised clients or users, be some new or previously unappreciated points motivated by the desire to replicate the hardware ensuring that only devices explicitly identifiable of weakness that might be the source of a new based security that operators have long enjoyed are allowed to join a given IoT network. Device exploit. That’s why pay TV revenue protection through dedicated set-top boxes; applying similar integrity and authentication, as well as integrity specialists like Verimatrix are already deploying technology to IoT has the potential to ensure of communication, contribute to DDoS attack machine learning and AI to protect customers’ continuity of data collection and protection prevention and thus to availability of the video services and are extending these to against threats such as DDoS attacks to overall service. IoT both for proactive monitoring and which all other IP connected IoT devices The third element maintains integrity of post-attack response. are exposed. communication between devices and the IoT It is IP connectivity, allied to onboard network or hub. Protecting data from interception Keeping a watchful eye on IoT processing capability, which enables rich IoT or alteration during transit can be achieved by GDPR and similar regulations over personal applications and at the same time brings about encryption, also building from proven data governance elsewhere suggest an even the security risks. A key component of both technologies in pay TV. Similar to the advent of more compelling reason for adopting proven derives from potential to exploit personal data Big Data, communications integrity and security technologies for IoT. The key point is through analytics, just as in pay TV. Therefore, confidentiality continue to become even more that these regulations require enterprises that exploiting IoT will depend not just on adhering critical in the IoT realm because customers are hold personal data to reconcile it all so that it to rigorous security standards but being seen to granting trust in allowing such personal can be effectively accessed and managed from do so and on this count regulations such as information to be obtained. one place. The GDPR mandates various rights GDPR will be valuable by providing an Maintaining security of data collected by for data subjects, including rectification, erasure acknowledged certification. connected devices is the fourth element, and it is (also known as the right to be forgotten) and the fundamentally predicated on continuous active ability to restrict processing of that data. The Visit Verimatrix at IBC stand #5.A59 to learn monitoring and support of the solution over its GDPR’s remit will also extend to the area of more about innovation in IoT. To schedule a lifecycle. Because it pertains to the whole solution data quality, which is closely related to meeting, go to www.verimatrix.com/ibc2017

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 23

19-23_Verimatrix.indd 5 25/08/2017 14:58:47 Streaming latency

services, including streaming boxes like Roku or How do you solve a Sky’s Now TV, and so there is thought to be much lower tolerance for buffering and errors from users. Streaming delays can mount to as problem like latency? much minutes over the course of a football game or tennis match. Again, every little adds up. Disclaimer: there is no quick ﬁ x, as “Sports and other live events have an immediacy of value, complicated further today Goran Nastic discovers by alternate platforms such as social media very little counts as the old broadcast in order to have competitive second breaking key moments and results in real-time,” adage goes and in the case screen offerings and potentially differentiate in an says Steve Plunkett, CTO, Broadcast and Media of video latency, or delay, increasingly crowded market. Services, Ericsson. there is a concerted push to Obviously, poor service quality results in poor High profile viewing events like the Super Bowl minimise this as much customer satisfaction, which can lead to churn or the Game of Thrones premiere, where as possible. and negative reviews. While not necessarily congestion is more common, can be impacted by On a wider level, discussions related just to OTT streaming, there was a well- lack of synchronisation, something that many Eare taking place around latency in real-time publicised case in the US recently, where the companies like Net Insight with its Sye solution applications as they pertain to Virtual Reality, Comcast X3 router and similar gateways that use are directly trying to overcome. online gaming, and everything that comes with the Intel Puma 6 chipset can suffer from In a recent YouGov poll, commissioned by 5G and IoT. As a general frame of reference, the noticeable latency issues that have also upset Edgeware, of over 1,000 viewers in the US and blink of an eye takes about 150 milliseconds, broadband subscribers elsewhere. In the UK, the UK, 60% of viewers said that spoilers caused while in voice communications echo starts to customers using the cable operator’s Puma by transmission delays mattered to them (‘a lot’ become noticeable when delays similarly cross 6-based ‘superhub 3’ modems from various or ‘a little’) and most (52%) wouldn’t tolerate 150ms. These benchmarks or metrics define the hardware manufacturers have been similarly delays above 15 secs (see chart on page 26). The expectations for real-time applications intended to affected by high latency. results, and associated latency speed calculations, interact with humans. According to a report by Conviva, 9% of can be seen in Edgeware’s published white paper, For the television industry, as viewing habits video requests in the home take so long that entitled ‘TV that’s faster than a Tweet?’. shift online, the main focus of attention today viewers click away to something else before The growth of interactive live experiences, centres on reducing streaming latency, which is the video starts. especially in sport and thanks to multi-camera, the relative delay between TV streams delivered In short, latency matters. have inadvertently increased the pressure on over an IP network compared to traditional video providers to deliver low latency streams, distribution via satellite, cable or terrestrial A perfect storm according to Ostmodern’s Amos. For these kind broadcast. Latency has steadily increased over It matters even more with consumption habits of experiences, the need to deliver switching time from less than 100ms for analogue signals to moving to internet platforms. Users are between synchronised streams has resulted in a digital to satellite and IPTV. Even a ‘traditional’ increasingly consuming broadband video on demand for low latency. Amos thinks live broadcast today involves around a five second devices other than the television while expecting broadcasters need to overcome these challenges delay from the actual event taking place to being the same high quality as the TV. An estimated in order to engage millennial audiences in seen on the TV set due to the technical 25% of the global population now watch video different ways, taking a fresh approach to the transmission chain where every little bit adds up. online, putting added pressure on IP networks. curated content experience through the ‘second “It’s an industry secret that live rarely means A combination of live sports, social media/TV screen’. live,” says Richard Amos, CTO, Ostmodern, a and second-screening are creating a perfect storm “Once the OTT experience is more closely digital design and content delivery company. “It’s of market pressures for reducing streaming lined up with linear TV, broadcasters can look at no surprise broadcasters have therefore latency. With many high-value live TV events now all content sources, including different camera traditionally focused on delivering the best being watched online, the additional delays angles and other match data, to present sport in possible linear experience. Editorialising content introduced by an IP delivery system can have a a way that considers TV and second screen in for live sport has been centred on the TV as a significant impact on the viewing experience, sync with one another. It becomes one platform,” result, which is why it’s still common to see particularly for live sports. If latencies are too he says. tweets shown as an overlay on a linear feed high, compared to terrestrial, cable or satellite despite this feeling archaic in 2017.” delivery, then viewers are exposed to social media Latency optimisation: a balancing act At the same time, in terms of distribution and posts, texts and on-line commentaries that can This is easier said than done. Latency is a delivery, live OTT content providers are seeking contain spoilers for their game. problem with OTT networks because they are to get their content to viewers as fast as linear Live sport is increasingly available via OTT packet-based and therefore the increased use of

24 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

10-13_Latency.indd 1 25/08/2017 15:45:55 Streaming latency

GPS and latency measurement: beware buffering It is important that service providers have visibility of the customer experience to understand if there is network latency. Operators have remote receivers and regularly monitor network latency by looking at the decoder types relative to GPS signals. Some technology providers offer a standard feature that uses markers on test content or embeds markers on live content, enabling service providers to compare their stream with a GPS signal. There are even test analysers on the market that provide latency figures. Harmonic’s Trow warns that service providers need to be careful because there is a degree of error associated with any end-to-end latency figures. “The buffer model varies by about +/- 40 ms. Any absolute measurement needs to be treated with caution and is OTT delivery results in more inherent latency. workflows). In terms of transport protocols, dependent on buffering,” he says. The video stream traverses hundreds of nodes an technologies such as HTTP segmented live Townsley at CDNetworks, highlights an extensive number of systems from the streaming can have a further significant impact on ‘synthetic monitoring’, which can also test if production down to end user devices, and each of latency, adding over minute in certain situations, an application can deal with spikes in traffic those systems introduces a small delay. As a according to Marcus Schioler, Senior Director, and determine if a CDN is needed. result, end-to-end latency is a composite of many Product Marketing, Haivision. elements – encoding, packaging, distribution/ “The industry move from RTMP to HTTPS “The good news is that latency is variable. It’s CDNs/network congestion, protocol choices, streaming has significantly slowed OTT over the not deterministic like a DTH network; therefore, decoding and rendering in the client device – past three years,” he adds. you can optimise the packaging and origin server that all affect lag and latency. Moreover, the ownership, business priorities or to reduce the latency within the CDN and player Multiple factors and combinations can technical choices at different stages of the decoder,” says Ian Trow, Senior Director increase/decrease latency such as: network can create considerable vulnerabilities, Emerging Technology & Strategy at Harmonic. • encoding/decoding; notes Lakshmana Pamarthy, Head of Marketing The bad news is that optimising each of • edge server ping, load and CPU; and Business Development, ActiveVideo. “The these for latency requires trade-offs in cost, • Forward Error Correction (FEC); combination of these factors has a considerable quality and reach, so operators face a balancing • player settings; and bearing on the overall latency, which maps act. That’s why there have been many attempts to • protocol used. directly to the consumption experience,” he says. cut down latency in streaming over the years Encoder latency, for example, can impact the In order to lower the overall end-to-end latency, because the problem can be approached from delivery by a few seconds on the distribution side, content streamers need to optimise everything different angles. mostly because it involves complex networks with from encoding, to contribution, transport, “Low latency streaming has always been a hundreds of nodes as well as multiple decoding/ distribution. Here, low latency encoding, challenge,” acknowledges Amos at Ostmodern. encoding operations to create all video profiles, optimised transport (RTSP is said to be faster “The constant quest to make this more practical according to Rémi Beaudouin, VP Marketing, than HTTP live-streaming), and edge packaging has led technology providers to drive down the ATEME, a provider of encoders/decoders. are all viable techniques. size of fragments in traditional streams, which “Depending on the resolution you want to The Conviva report found that 8% of viewing reduces the buffer length on the client side. achieve, a typical latency value for compression sessions stall at least once during playback, with However, as this also increases the risk of on the distribution side is likely to be around one the buffering ratio 24% worse on cellular than unreliable playback on poor connections, there or two seconds,” says Beaudouin. WiFi. There is some debate as to whether is more to this story than one technique alone,” To account for packet loss, TCP/IP packet streaming latency is mainly caused by video he observers. retransmits at any point in the workflow, which buffering on mobile devices, but because it Conventional adaptive bitrate streaming can add seconds of latency to the total (this CSI involves multiple factors, unacceptable delays can (ABR), now commonly used for virtually all multi- is told is especially true in contribution occur at any stage. screen delivery, induces latency. ABR, of which

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 25

10-13_Latency.indd 2 25/08/2017 15:46:08 Streaming latency

Apple’s HLS and MPEG-DASH are the most “The buffering that’s associated with a higher distribution. Intelsat’s focus is on taking care used versions, has raised the level of latency by an resolution format, such as HD and UHD, can of the middle mile, where it uses satellites to order of magnitude and means that streaming be quite challenging,” agrees Harmonic’s skip the terrestrial networks that are clogged delay compared to traditional broadcast can be Trow. The higher the format, the longer the or heavily used and focus on delivering the anywhere from 30 seconds to one minute. latency simply because of the amount of data content closer to the edge for distribution to “HLS requires operators to strike a balance involved with buffering. “But broadcasters client devices. between large and small file sizes. Crucially they are addressing this issue, particularly for “There are some technologies that we’re run a risk of using too large a segment of over ten OTT sports applications. There are production exploring where we can scale for multiple seconds, which can lead to increased latency, or techniques that can be used to mitigate latency streams after distributing the content close shorter segments that run the risk of causing during interviews.” to the edge. We think that there is an opportunity issues with buffering,” says Kristan Bullett, Head Latency can also be an issue in the last mile, to use multicast and broadcast to reduce of Solutions, Piksel. and bandwidth can limit the amount of data a congestion and improve end-user experience. Some vendors propose using HLS or MPEG- customer receives. A content delivery network Other technologies like caching can be applied DASH chunk sizes of around 2 to 4 seconds, can resolve these issues by automatically to lower latency in video on demand as well,” as a good compromise between encoding delivering content to the end user via the most Ostapiuk adds. efficiency and flexibility for stream adaption to efficient path, according to Chris Townsley, “Our experience has shown that there is no bandwidth changes. EMEA Director, CDNetworks. “With media one-size-fits-all approach,” says ActiVideo’s CSI also understands that DASH low-latency servers located close to viewers, a CDN can Pamarthy. “Processing in the cloud vs device, mode is making progress with early adopters minimise the distance that content need to centralized vs distributed edge servers, direct embracing it for wide video delivery and playback. travel to the end user. This avoids network CDN streaming vs transcoding on operator’s congestion and reduces buffering and delays,” cloud all have bearings on the performance Ingest and the last mile claims Townsley. A CDN is also able to offer metrics based on the subscriber footprint.” Additionally, latency variation (also known as adaptive bit rates and progressive download Ericsson’s Plunket identifies a need for a jitter) can be a factor, according to Hardik seek features to further improve the systematic approach at multiple levels in order Ajmera, Director of Product Management, user experience. to ensure low end-to-end latency. Plunkett calls XCellAir, a company formed in 2015 aimed at But not everyone is convinced. “We have for better workflow automation as one of the improving the WiFi experience. “With video found that in general, public CDNs show a key tools in combating latency overall. “One streaming, variations in delay can make the video decline in quality even in the middle mile (as challenge today in OTT delivery is that all content bursty and unwatchable, and so jitter buffers are opposed to last mile).This is especially significant tends to be treated equally with uniform workflow used by streaming applications to reduce delay when there is significant usage. For example, and delivery systems. We need to think more variations as seen by the user and smooth out the this occurs when there is congestion on the about latency optimised flows for specific video flow,” he says. public CDNs and all of the routes available content and events,” he says. There are challenges at the initial stage of the for delivering streams are being used to And as Trow notes: “By far the most difficult broadcast process, too. Content ingestion can be capacity,” says Peter Ostapiuk, Head of aspect concerning latency in a pay-TV severely delayed if numerous pieces of content are Media Services, Intelsat. environment is associated with the perception that being uploaded to a VoD platform, while large 4K Therefore, while some are looking to limit a neighbour is getting a superior service.” and HDR files can slow the process further. their reliance on satellite networks, Ostapiuk This, however, impacts all means of delivery, argues that satellite can help alleviate the A need for standards? not just streaming. challenges with middle and last miles of Considerable effort is being invested in reducing OTT latency to the levels set by broadcast. Most of these have been piecemeal but there are signs that more concerted developments are starting to take shape. Those CSI interviewed for this feature generally welcomed the introduction of standards that might achieve the aim of further lowering streaming latency. At NAB this year, it was encouraging that a number of latency related announcements came out from the show. Harmonic showed a real-time streaming workflow that matches the latency of live broadcast by using Common Media Application Format (CMAF) packaging. Trow told CSI that Survey carried out by YouGov in March 2017, in March out by YouGov carried Survey by Edgeware and commissioned

26 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

10-13_Latency.indd 3 25/08/2017 15:46:20 Streaming latency

and they miss it). Although this work is not AWS, mini data centres and edge specifically related computing to latency, Pamarthy also It is widely acknowledged that moving points to ongoing attempts to functions such as processing and storage standardise cloud streaming closer to the ‘edge’ of the network can be very through the World Wide Web beneficial. Lowering latency is one of many Consortium (W3C), Web & (if not key) reasons to put data-centres close TV Working Group - Cloud to the user. Browser Task Force. Telecoms analyst Dean Bubley outlined a “Any improvement in terms theory that Amazon this year decided to of end-user experience is acquire retailer Whole Foods partly because welcome. Using standards (as the giant tech company is interested in local, Harmonic supports CMAF from both from a opposed to proprietary methods) is also the mini data-centres for its cloud business. At the standards and solutions perspective. preferred method as it makes sure there is a moment, Amazon Web Services has around “It would greatly simplify matters if there was complete ecosystem following the same norm,” 40-50 main data centres, split into regions and ubiquitous performance, because some of the low- says ATEME’s Beaudouin. ‘availability zones’, with more coming in latency models in the past have been proprietary In the meantime, providers like Edgeware are China, France, Hong Kong and Sweden. It and use lower buffering models. Avoiding positioning dedicated purpose-built TV CDN also has servers (mostly for content-delivery) incompatibility would be a real benefit as systems as a way of achieving network delivery in various other companies’ data-centres, well,” thinks Trow. latency below the one second mark. Designed for notably telcos. Akamai, which showed an improved Media distributing television, rather than generic files, Whether Amazon eventually does start to Services Live platform at NAB, is among the they are claimed to be able to deliver IPTV with physically put servers into hundreds of Whole many backers of CMAF, along with the likes of only sub-second latency, even across multiple Foods stores is speculation on Bubley’s part, Apple, Google and Microsoft. (Common tiers of caching. but it does reflect the importance more encryption remains a catch with CMAF, Then there is Broadpeak’s approach, in trials distributed network architectures. Any time something we have covered in a separate issue.) with some telcos, which involves its nanoCDN for content gets closer to the edge, it presents a CMAF proponents argue that with the help of multicast ABR solution. It leverages home better experience (though it is expensive and this format, OTT viewers can enjoy the same QoE gateways to optimise video traffic up to the very there is still congestion in the last mile). as traditional broadcast. last mile. The French company claims nanoCDN “We call it the edge cloud,” says Roland “The CMAF standard could bring some brings the latency down to a few seconds by Mestric, Video Marketing Director, Nokia. improvement, by simplifying low latency transferring the traffic from an unmanaged to a “In the future, the edge cloud will provide implementations thanks to more flexible managed network, reducing the quantity of local delivery of high-bandwidth, high- packaging features,” agrees Nivedita Nouvel, VP buffered video necessary to guarantee smooth performance, low-latency services with global of Marketing at Broadpeak. playout. Broadpeak’s origin packager, which is accessibility, enabling the same high-quality In terms of transport protocols, Haivision is part of the solution, sends “just the right amount” services to be delivered to users regardless of pitching its Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) as a of video based on players’ requests. their location. The edge cloud will enable low latency video transport protocol for first mile “It would be hard to create a specific standards innovations like cloud-based UI, new UI contribution and delivery across the public body to address latency issues, however there controls, new search and recommendations internet. Developed by Haivision in 2013 to go needs to be a conversation about it in the services,” says Mestric. over and above UDP, the company this year industry. An independent body to champion formed an alliance with Wowza, also unveiled at latency issues will focus attention – especially if it “The total end-to-end latency target has to NAB. Together they are promoting SRT as an develops protocols that can be followed,” thinks be five seconds,” agrees Schioler at Haivision open source full-stack protocol. Piksel’s Bullett. He adds that consumer (incidentally, posting on Twitter or Facebook “The open-source SRT protocol is gaining dissatisfaction should be a significant motivating requires about five seconds). momentum. We’re hoping that SRT is adopted factor for operators to come together to agree on “In broadcast live video streaming, the aim is to as an industry standard to enable low latency,” a next-gen streaming protocol. match the standard established in the traditional Schioler says. Overall, Plunket identifies a need for a linear broadcast workflow. We are seeing On the user interface front, ActiveVideo systematic approach at multiple levels in order technology advances that are making this closer to found as part of its research on UI latency - yet to ensure low end-to-end latency. In Plunkett’s a reality,” believes Schioler. another part of the overall OTT latency puzzle - opinion, HD latency over terrestrial sets a norm With continued incremental improvements that a few hundred milliseconds is generally that other forms of distribution need to close across all fronts, we may yet get to the stage of acceptable to viewers (literally a case of blink the gap on. not envying the neighbours’ pay-TV.

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 27

10-13_Latency.indd 4 25/08/2017 15:46:45 Q&A Q&A Agama Technologies CSI caught up with Agama CEO Mikael Dahlgren about how the company is helping improve OTT video service quality

they are outside of coverage, video services How do you think the media ecosystem’s will not work. perception of OTT service quality has What you can do is not to guarantee service changed over the last few years? quality, but do your best to manage it. By I think it has matured. The industry now agrees understanding service quality from the customers’ that OTT technology can be used to deliver viewpoint and where in the delivery chain excellent service quality. At the same time, any issues arise, you can manage both the however, there are limitations when it comes to various providers in the delivery chain and the internet availability that naturally applies to customers’ expectations. OTT video. We are now at a point where OTT technology is becoming yet another way to deliver What are the added benefits of having an video, existing in parallel with cable, IPTV and end-to-end solution in terms of gaining a broadcast, and each have their respective better understanding into customers? pros and cons. Obviously, the broader the set of data you have available in a solution, the more insights and To what extent is the gap between Cloud TV Mikael Dahlgren, CEO, Agama Technologies Dahlgren, CEO, Agama Mikael conclusions you can draw from it. But, as the and ‘traditional’ TV closing? value of the solution is really in the analysis, From a technology perspective, the gap is and not in the data itself, you must make sure clearly closing. The classic TV operators are that the solution can really consolidate all adding OTT to their mix, both for their main information from across your delivery chain in screen offerings and their companion services. a meaningful way. And at the other end of the spectrum we are What are the main challenges in delivering One way of achieving this is, of course, to go also seeing pure-play OTT providers, such as OTT video services? with a single vendor, such as Agama, capable of YouTube, starting to offer live TV services, If you are looking at this from a service delivery providing an end-to-end solution. If you do so the two worlds are clearly converging. point of view the fundamental OTT technology integrate a solution from multiple vendors you as such is really not a problem. Although the need to make sure that you not only collect Going forward, what would you identify as increased complexity with active clients and reliable data from the different parts, but that you the main trends in this space? dynamic codec rates make the solution a bit more understand how to read it all as a whole. This can We expect to see a continued focus on complicated, this is still manageable. be harder than it first seems, particularly if the understanding the end customers and improving The main challenge for OTT providers is their semantics differ between the different parts their overall experience. This is not just about lack of control over the entire delivery chain. of the solution. the technical service delivery, but the entire Third party ISPs and CDN providers, as well as a customer journey, from onboarding through wide variety of unmanaged devices, make it hard Is Agama involved in improving the end- to customer care to churn prevention.We will to manage the overall service experience. client/player side? If so, how? also see operators increasingly virtualizing Yes we are. Our solution can provide numerous parts of their solutions, including moving Is it possible to guarantee service quality insights into how players and devices perform functions to the cloud. This should increase end-to-end given the huge number of parts under various circumstances and this information efficiency and enable outsourcing to service in the chain involved? can then be fed back into the development partners, while at the same time, allow Strictly speaking, no. At least not for OTT process. We see this being used way beyond operators to stay in control of the total services that are available outside of the traditional testing of single units, it is increasingly customer experience. More flexibility in operators’ network. However, this is not really being used for A/B-tests and statistical analysis, deploying and running services improves a big issue as customers understand that when for example. operator agility, which is a key success factor.

28 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

28_Agama.indd 1 21/08/2017 12:23:34

Industry column

The transition to IP also brings a genuine ‘Future of Broadcasting’ industry responsibility to ensure that security is prioritised, including the assurance of data privacy, anti-hacking as well as monitoring of and debate at IBC 2017 restriction on unsuitable media. Serious consideration must also be given to the level of By Richard Lindsay-Davies, CEO, The DTG investment required to truly shift to IP and safeguard this for the long-run; ensuring that the viewer experience is high quality and easily accessible from the start. The ‘Future of Broadcasting’ debate on Saturday 16th September at IBC will address the change broadcast is facing and the impact and solutions to the foreseeable challenges and opportunities. Chris Lawrence, Senior Director and Head of Media Consulting UK and Ireland at Cognizant Technology Solutions will chair five experts as panellists who bring a wealth of industry knowledge to the debate: Liz Ross, Chief Source: Syafiq Adnan / Shutterstock.com Syafiq Source: Executive Officer at Freeview Australia; Raymond Lamphen, General Manager and Vice President at Digital Media Centre; Justin Gupta, Head of UK Broadcast & Entertainment at Google; and me, Richard Lindsay-Davies, CEO at the DTG. Introducing the audience to perspectives from different areas of the industry, we will discuss the disruption that broadcast television is currently facing around IP-only delivery, on-demand viewing habits and the personalised consumer experience. We will be assessing the impact of combining live-airing and video-on-demand with he television industry is to significantly change to combine both consideration for how this will affect catch-up experiencing dynamic on-demand and linear content. Providing material channels, scheduling and advertising but also the change with the long- that is suited to the consumers’ tastes and way rights are negotiated, traded and managed debated transition period to preferences will be made possible through content particularly with sports content. We will also IP getting underway. The aggregation and the metadata gathered from consider the reality of changing viewer behaviour move to IP is expected to signed-in IP viewing. The data collected will and viewing statistics, particularly for audiences take place within the next enable the service to provide targeted material for under 35 and what this means for the future Tten years thanks to a rapid growth in viewers, so that they do not waste time attempting of EPGs. broadband speeds and capabilities. A shift to locate appropriate content amongst the vast From a DTG perspective we are uniquely from appointment-live viewing to amount of available material. placed to convene all the players involved to on-demand services, with release viewing Globalisation of media and platform ownership further examine and plan for the transformation for broadcast content, is already happening are hot-topics in the industry, with concerns being of digital TV. We have an unrivalled heritage and and will continue to influence the future of raised around the impact of potential industry can demonstrate expertise in driving industry television and consumer behaviour; making dominating mergers and the affect this will have change through collaboration and we are asking way for the increasing viewer preference on national industry players. The SVoD market is our Members to join us in developing the future for binge-watching. already commanded by Netflix and Amazon, who of digital TV. These are exciting times for broadcast, offering are delivering IP services to a worldwide a real opportunity to revolutionise television as we audience. This supports the feasibility of a move know it. A personalised television experience for to a mass-market worldwide TV platform and Richard Lindsay-Davies, CEO, the viewer is in the pipeline but the current greater utilisation of DAI (Dynamic The DTG Electronic Programme Guides (EPGs) will need Advertisement Insertion) going forward.

30 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

30_DTG.indd 2 15/08/2017 14:59:13 Advertorial

ur New WISI HLS Streaming distribution of training content. The Firefly content, and has an intuitive graphical user Solution Significantly solution uses HLS as streaming protocol for cost- interface, as well as an IP or ASI output interface. Reduces Costs for effective linear TV delivery to headends over the Optional features include an integrated modulator Broadcasters and Content Internet. It also provides options for cable for digital or analog distribution (QAM, PAL, Providers. It features: network operators, and enables the hospitality NTSC, SECAM, FM, COFDM etc), scrambler, • End-to-end solution from industry to enhance existing offers with additional descrambler, IP multicast and unicast, multiplexer playout to headend content and video services; for example, service and de-multiplexer. O• Affordable delivery of satellite video and providers will be able to supply citizens from dedicated lines; abroad with TV channels from their home End-to-End • Supports reception of HLS video streams; countries that cannot be received via satellite. WISI’s Canadian subsidiary Inca Networks • Ideal for niche, international and corporate TV provides the other end of a complete solution for channels; and Heart of the Solution: Firefly HLS IRD delivery of HLS packaged content. The INCA • Simple and attractive way for cable operators HLS is an http based protocol that provides a 4400 transcoder and the INCA 5420 packager and distributors to expand TV and video services. robust transfer of video data streams over the and origin server transcodes and packages the The WISI Firefly HLS IRD is a new Internet. Presently, it is mainly used for OTT channels and transmits them as unicast HLS professional broadcast receiver that will services and for media file streaming to mobile streams over the public Internet to the Firefly. To complement the delivery of video over satellite devices. At the heart of the new WISI solution is secure delivery, operators can encrypt streams at and dedicated lines. Firefly helps regional and the Firefly HLS IRD, which can receive HLS file the source and decrypt them in the receiving small TV broadcasters, and video service segments in a headend through IP streaming, and headend. For additional processing, operators can providers to reduce cost for the distribution of convert these to outputs such as QAM, DVB-T, deploy either of WISI’s headend platforms their content. The new broadcast platform also ASI, ISDB-T, FM radio and more. The Firefly Tangram or Chameleon. By combining these offers opportunities for TV and video applications comes in an efficient 1 RU 19” stand-alone device products into one end-to-end solution, content for corporations, such as TV services for with single or dual HLS stream reception ability. can be sent from the broadcaster over the Internet employees located abroad, and efficient It also supports the decryption of scrambled to the viewer without any loss of quality.

WISI FIREFLY HLS Receiver For Video Contribution Over the Internet See you at IBC, Amsterdam 15- 19, 2017 September Hall 5, booth 5.B50 Affordable delivery of satellite video and dedicated lines

Ideal for speciality channels, foreign language channels and corporate TV

Simple and attractive way to expand TV and video services

www.csimagazine.com April 2017 29

www.wisi.de

31-Wisi.indd 3 21/08/2017 12:20:11 Android TV

ust 19 years after Google was incorporated as a Android TV and the company, it is extraordinary to think how deeply embedded its technologies future of the STB now are within our world, including day to day David Adams assesses the current wave of Joperations of organisations operating in every sector. Android TV deployments globally and asks The TV industry is no exception. During the past three years, Google has become an ever more what the implications are for operators and visible presence in the set-top box (STB) world, their customers either in the form of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which can be used to build an behind the growing popularity of using Android proprietary middleware and other technologies Android-based TV platform or, increasingly, in some form within the STB. One driver is used by operators to create customised solutions through deployments of the Android TV platform, the desire to have the most popular third party and user experiences, Android TV and to a lesser use of which entails an operator providing some apps, in particular Netflix and YouTube, extent AOSP offer the prospect of a faster EPG real estate for Google services, including easily accessible for viewers through an development cycle. access to the Google Play app store. The operator operator’s interface. Some operators have chosen to use AOSP in must also agree to implement updates to Android “There is almost no way an operator can now part because it enables them to benefit from within set timeframes. go without Netflix or YouTube on their platform,” access to a large pool of Android developers In early 2017, research from Ovum says Kai-Christian Borchers, founder and without having to accept the conditions applied to commissioned by Irdeto revealed that more than managing director of 3 Screen Solutions (3SS). using Android TV. AOSP was used to develop 60% of 301 people working for video service His company has been working with operators on Swisscom’s highly successful TV 2.0 IPTV operators in markets around the world saw both AOSP and Android TV deployments for offering, which introduced a new user experience, Android or AOSP as the technologies they were several years. Current projects include work with network DVR and multiscreen services - it was most likely to deploy in future STB platforms. two European operators using hybrid boxes: both also the first Android TV deployment by a More than two-thirds said they expected Android plan to go live during the second half of 2017. major operator. to be the market-leading TV platform by 2025. Peter Fregelius, head of TV and entertainment This August, Finland’s DNA became the latest Android TV vs AOSP at Swisscom, says the company still values the in a growing list of operators to deploy an Using Android can shorten time to market. additional flexibility and independence it gains Android TV box. There appear to be a number of Whereas in the past developing a new pay TV through working with AOSP rather than Android practical, technical and commercial reasons platform might take several years, with TV: it has complete control over the content available through its EPG, so there is no risk of a consumer having a poor experience when using an app and then blaming Swisscom for it. Other operational advantages include control over the pace and pattern of upgrade decisions. “The idea we had of building a system ourselves has proved to work very well for us,” says Fregelius. “We don’t have to ask a supplier of an end to end solution that we would like this or that feature. This freedom to innovate at the pace that we want has paid off: today we are the biggest TV provider in Switzerland.”

Swisscom TV 2.0, courtesy of 3SS TV 2.0, courtesy Swisscom But, Borchers believes a

32 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

32-34_AndroidTv.indd 2 21/08/2017 16:16:49 Android TV

TV platforms likely to be used for upcoming STB implementations (Source: Ovum) offset to some extent by the extra Android TV and the expense of the hardware required. “I know there are some manufacturers that were looking at using Android TV future of the STB and found it requires too much memory, too much processor power David Adams assesses the current wave of and their business model was such that they decided to go for something Android TV deployments globally and asks lighter,” says Allan Isfan, director of business development, platforms what the implications are for operators and at You.i TV. their customers “In general the hardware requirements for an Android STB are quite high,” Borchers concedes. “The chipsets are becoming cheaper, but compared to another box it will be more expensive. But it results in a better user experience.” Frank Poppelsdorf, product director at Irdeto, acknowledges another concern cited by some operators: that some subscribers will cancel their TV industry’s perceptions of Google (Source: Ovum) subscriptions shortly after taking delivery of the operator-subsidised, growing number of operators are now choosing to But this is not really a free solution: there are expensive Android TV-driven STB, then just use work with Android TV rather than AOSP, in part always some additional costs, particularly for the box to access other TV apps. The obvious because this enables them to bypass additional any operator that needs to integrate the solution to this problem – a minimum contract development work required when working with technology with DVB. length – will not work in every market. But, he the latter; and in part because using Android TV “A pay TV operator cannot just use Android argues, at least the presence of the box in the has become easier. TV out of the box,” agrees Lawrence Brickman, home then makes it very easy for a subscriber to A growing number of operators seem to be vice-president, pay TV, at Accedo. “It does not start paying for the operator’s services again in impressed by both the technical capabilities of the offer all the technology they require. It doesn’t future, if the operator can tempt them back. platform and by Google’s approach to providing have CA pre-integrated, it doesn’t have DVB services around it. “Its stable environment makes included. Pay TV operators as a rule have to work Security and control concerns it low-risk for commercial deployment,” says with a software company or integrator to add The operators surveyed by Ovum also had Frederic Gounard, vice-president, sales, Europe, this functionality.” concerns around security; 43 per cent of at Alticast. “It offers pre-integrated OTT services The partial loss of control over when updates respondents expressing concerns were worried like YouTube and Netflix; and Google also are added to the STB platform can also create that the easy installation of applications onto the provides most of the TV software stack to the problems. “It’s very important to Google that STB increased the potential attack surface. 41 per operators, along with a guide to implementation.” devices remain updated, so that apps will run on cent feared that subscribers might install Borchers also points out that using Android them,” says Brickman. “That update cycle is a applications that could be used to stream content means operators no longer need to worry so challenge for the rest of the community. The pay illegally; 32 per cent were worried about content much about compatibility with middleware and TV ecosystem has to learn how to move at piracy. The same number feared that simply using chipsets, which could sometimes present moving internet speed. In the long run it’s a positive open source creates additional vulnerabilities. targets to an operator trying to develop a new thing, but it’s a struggle.” Poppelsdorf argues that the frequency of platform. “Google has a proven reference Borchers agrees that the speed of development updates to the system should be one reason to be platform that is stable, with certified chipsets – his team will soon have worked with three confident about the security of the system. But he and this has resulted in a cost-optimised solution.” different versions of Android TV in the space of also points out that pay TV operators simply 18 months – can cause difficulties, but he need to come to terms with a more open Knowing the costs suggests this may still prove a less complex task technology world. “Pay TV operators have to More than half (57 per cent) of the operators than would managing some proprietary open the box to other parties. If you tried to surveyed by Ovum cited lower overall operating middleware technologies for STBs. stick to the old security paradigm, that’s not a costs as a key benefit of adopting Android TV. The cost benefits Android can offer are also long-term solution.”

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32-34_AndroidTv.indd 3 21/08/2017 16:17:02 Android TV

out there that are equally pertinent to the future Israel’s Partner launched a new television service, Partner TV, of the set-top box,” says Darren Fawcett, vice- based on Android set tops and mobile/tablet devices in 2017 president, technology solutions in the customer premises equipment business at Arris. “But most operators today have some sort of Android story, just as they probably have an Apple story. Some operators will embrace it. But it’s not only about Android.”

Android and the smart home One should also consider the wider context of Android penetration beyond the STB. Brian Palmer, CEO at Cello Electronics, offers a perspective from a smart TV manufacturer. Android TV is used in his company’s full range of smart TVs, in part, says Palmer, because of the ease of development compared to other open source technologies. “People can develop apps for it relatively easily. We get good chipset support and you have the ability to upgrade the apps Just over a quarter (26 per cent) of online. The consumer gets a better, more respondents to the Ovum survey cited ‘Concerns “Most operators versatile product.” about Google’s influence over our business’ as a Another angle to consider is the likelihood that major reason not to use Android in the STB. This today have some Android will be used within more smart home was the joint most frequently cited reason not devices in future. There are already signs that to use it, along with a stated desire to focus on sort of Android smart home offerings will become more other technology priorities and security concerns important to some operators: in July the Italian related to open source technologies. It is clear story, just as they operator TIM launched a new smart home and that some within the industry have concerns IoT ecosystem, including an Android-based STB. about Google’s long term strategies, and about probably have an Brickman believes Android is well-suited to a the possibility that it might launch pay TV system where video delivery systems are services of its own at some stage. Apple story. But it’s integrated with smart home and IoT functions. But, Mark Evensen, CTO at Amino, thinks “As the TV becomes integrated with the IoT, this is hard to imagine at present. “I think not only about technologies that show up in other devices will people have valid concerns,. But compare have an advantage,” he notes. Google’s approach to Apple or Amazon: Apple’s Android.” But at present, says Poppelsdorf, the main not going to be anyone’s partner except Apple reason operators are adopting Android as the and Amazon hasn’t opened up to the market yet.” The technology’s most enthusiastic adopters basis for new platforms and STBs is simply Concerns have also been raised about Google suggest that Android TV could be the future of the speed and relative ease of development it collecting and exploiting data gathered from the STB. Others are not so sure. “It’s about enables of things that don’t give them additional Android TV implementations. “Google has whether you care about giving up complete revenue but are asked for by consumers: the voice told us that the only data they collect is from control of the main termination device,” says search and other features. “I think platforms that use of Google services, but I think a lot of pay Anthony Smith-Chaigneau, senior director, give you a complete solution is what operators are TV operators are still concerned about that,” product marketing, at Nagra. “Yes, you get a looking for. Whether that’s Android or something says Brickman. powerful set-top box, but there is a cost else, I don’t know.” Poppelsdorf also suggests operators have little associated with that. It is true that the course of technology trends to fear about Google’s desire to absorb data. “I’m not denigrating Android – we support makes fools of most people who are willing “Google’s biggest focus is to get a large the Android ecosystem for set-top boxes, we’ve to make predictions. But at present, while advertising platform on all devices,” he says. put a very compelling user experience on top there remains a good match between the “That’s where their analytics is really focused. of Android. But will one system dominate technology and the needs of of operators, it They have no access to the pay TV operator’s completely? I tend to think not, but one looks increasingly likely that the rise of data. The only thing they know is which apps the never knows.” Android TV will continue for some time consumer has bought.” “There are other open source technologies to come.

34 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

32-34_AndroidTv.indd 4 21/08/2017 16:17:17 EPGs

he challenge with conventional television grid LUNA module has landed guides and video library catalogues is that we have William Cooper of informitv describes an to wade through so many innovative approach to the problem of ﬁ nding irrelevant options to find something to watch. The something to watch, with the LUNA user Tresult is the impression of plenty but the experience engine pervading perception is that despite the vast choice there is nothing worth watching. Improved search and voice control may help, but it would be better if we were only presented with programmes we are likely to watch in the first place. That does not necessarily mean algorithmic recommendations. We are often already familiar with what we want to watch. A lot of what we watch is habitual. We may watch alone or with others. Yet we all tend to have favourite shows that we regularly enjoy. So why does it seem so difficult to find them? Based on insights into viewer behaviour from many years of research, and over 15 years working with interactive television, we conceived a concept interface that combines smart channels and playlists for multiple viewer profiles to create a The image above is of a transition between programmes, presenting what is coming up on the custom custom viewing experience for a family ‘Shows’ channel. The programmes are from a number of sources, including an on-demand service, with or household. planned start times based on their duration. Rethinking the UI We created the Mercury proof of concept box, just in time for a paper that we presented prototype in conjunction with Craftwork, based at the NAB Show. on their LUNA user experience engine, which The Mercury concept interface employs allows the rapid development and deployment of dynamic graphics that deliver a televisual sophisticated video interfaces. LUNA enables experience, providing a new way of navigating and interfaces to be developed in JavaScript but presenting television and video programmes. delivers performance usually associated with So viewers can create their own virtual native compiled applications. It achieves its channels, which can combine programmes from efficiency by dispensing with a conventional web many sources. They can choose between these browser, designed for rendering documents, channels according to who is watching and the and providing an application programming sort of programme they want to watch. interface that offers direct access to optimised Programmes are presented sequentially, just like accelerated graphics functions and the underlying traditional television, with information about what operating environment. is coming up shown in junctions between them. LUNA runs across various set-top boxes as The difference is that each channel is customised well as Android and iOS phones and tablets. for those viewing and can include programmes The LUNA software development kit includes from different sources. perfect precision. a simulator that allows applications to be Compared to some of the clunky interfaces we Already deployed with leading pay television developed and previewed on Windows, Mac have seen, working with LUNA is a revelation. It services, including Sky, LUNA has been and Linux computers. enables snappy navigation and smooth animation shortlisted for two CSI Awards. As one of the Working from wirefame designs, Craftwork at fast frame rates. It is also very efficient and regular judges for the awards I recused myself developed the application in just two weeks and productive, allowing screens to be specified by from these categories, so if it wins it will be on its delivered a prototype on a low-cost Android TV designers and coded by developers, with pixel- own merits.

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35_LunaUI.indd 3 21/08/2017 12:26:45 Q&A Q&A ADB CSI caught up with Andrew Rybicki, the CEO of ADB, the Geneva-based company best known for set-top boxes and gateways, but now a provider of software solutions for payTV, broadband and IoT

power into the products where the price is a knowledge of the system and CPE combined premium. If you can take advantage of all features under one roof gives you significant advantage and functions that the SoC CPU machine offers, and benefits customers greatly. We have for and do it right, you can be highly competitive. It example such a system in the works with one of is the art of building smart software running on our key Scandinavian customers. relatively low power silicon hardware. This has Legacy IPTV systems are ripe for replacement been a strong competitive advantage of our and/or upgrades. We are helping them to migrate company ever since its inception. from the old systems, old boxes and software, to At ADB, software is our main activity (our new ones, including Android-based systems. We main software engineering facility is still in see this as a big opportunity. Poland). The advantage of that is efficiency, We are also addressing different types of access to high quality engineering resources subscribers. Younger generation are all sold on Andrew Rybicki (often through cooperation with universities) as super graphics, while the older ones value well as well-developed and growing focus on the simplicity and convenience. Our in-depth entire pay-TV systems, which is what we always knowledge of the box’ SoC, combined with ability CSI: To start with, tell us a little how ADB wanted to do. Our direction – system, software to optimise the whole system, has produced has changed over the last couple of years. and services (SSS) – remains therefore fantastic results on the screens along with greatly AR: There have been a couple of important unchanged. What has changed is the execution of enhanced user friendliness (take a faster than changes. First, the migration to an ODM model the strategy: we made some management changes competition channel change as example). (ODM - original design manufacturer). Under the and I took over as interim CEO. We also went Anything that has to do with man – machine former EMS system (electronic manufacturing private, and the company is now owned by top interface and the user experience is a big priority. services) we used to design our own CPE level management. I am quite optimistic overall – This includes also remote control with voice hardware (gateways and set-top boxes), which we we are moving in a right direction, gaining recognition technology. don’t do any more. Instead, we delegate it to our momentum and experience. Data analytics is also now a very important manufacturing partners while we define the part of our system. Its results may be used in such product. The advantage is much better cash flow And what can we expect from ADB in diversified fields as content viewership assessment as we buy products not components and we take the next 12-18 months? and for down-time prevention of cable or fibre- advantage of large volumes – and thus purchasing We want to work very closely with customers based networks. One of the problems that Nielsen power – of our ODM partners. more than before in terms of putting together the has had for years is the inability to tell who is Certain key components, such as highly entire system. We have a large knowledge of watching. They know what family but not the complex System-on-Chip (SoCs), have usually system integration (SI); we have been doing it for specific individual. Having voice recognition and long lead times which our fast-moving industry several years even if it wasn’t sold as a separate other sets of data are extremely valuable to cannot tolerate any longer. Our ODMs can take product. Today we offer complete systems, operators and content providers. That leads to a advantage of their vastly larger purchasing power including several attractive plug-in functionalities potential invasion of privacy, of course, so to to better manage their materials inventory, which on top of the SI. protect this data, make it secure, we handle the in turn helps to improve delivery time to our By optimising placement of such functionalities pre-processing side. Collecting and processing customers. So that ODM move was quite between the CPE and the servers – instead of data related to cable/fibre network performance beneficial to us and our customers. packing several of them in a “traditional box” - tells the operator what and where is likely to fail, We also maintain very close cooperation with you can bring box costs significantly down and leading to avoidance of service interruptions. the SoC suppliers trying to understand well and download it from the cloud as needed. This is After all, most of the OTT and even IPTV systems then maximise all internal resources of an SoC. especially evident in IP-based TV and is of course are still miles away from the signal distribution We cannot afford packing large computational very beneficial to operators. That’s why quality level that the old-timers like me used to

36 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

36-37_ADB.indd 1 21/08/2017 12:37:19 Q&A

broadband communication The same concept will be applied to our IoT technology, real-time signal offer. We get data from the sensors, collect it processing and SI in our portfolio and try to make sense out of that, suggesting of skills, we decided to go into actions to CE manufacturers. That’s how I see consumer related areas. We have our position in AI. developed a system for (and have a contract with) Whirlpool and several What is your involvement with Android as it other companies, still under NDA at becomes more popular with payTV this time. So we have a chain of operators? events, built upon mutually Android is a very good fit for many operators. complementary technologies that tie If you asked me one year ago I would have been nicely with one another. very sceptical about it. They changed their Overall, we have to stress our approach to data and it became more palatable system capability and to develop for operators, easier to accept. For us it makes more with less. Here we go back to no difference, it’s yet another piece of software. the beginning of digital television. It makes no difference to the “box” except for One of the very powerful selling one thing. If Google modifies something in their tools was customer education. DTV Android it potentially might interfere with existing was new so most engineers didn’t combinations of other software. If there is a know it and were very appreciative major disruption to the system – especially during of us coming in and explaining how a live broadcast - because of some unexpected everything works. Today we have or unintentional download from Google then something similar because we the operator may suffer and someone will have combine data communication/ to solve it – and quickly. broadband with television and IoT. We always warn operators about such call “broadcast quality”. A room for improvement This fits in with TV and mesh networking for possibility and maybe it would be worth industry is huge – there’s a lot to do. Luckily, the move to example. It’s a chain of various events that help wide if we start some conversation with our ODM modus operandi has freed a number of us build business. competition to build in some protections against resources for us. such possibilities. Some sort of “firewalls” against Then you add to that the in-house/garden What about AI, is that something you interference with third-party software in the connectivity aspect. Today it is WiFi, practically are looking into? same box. speaking, as nobody wants to pull wires. It is not We wouldn’t go as deep as calling it artificial bad, but it could be made even better through intelligence, we are not in a position to build What excites you going forward? deployment of so-called mesh radio technology. another Watson, but what we do is data analytic There’s a number of things I am excited about in Installing mesh radio gateways or set-tops with which leads to, eg, recommendations in content the state of digital TV. Towards the end of my mesh capability and sending video through that selection or network preventive maintenance in career I see a clear combination of data and eliminates several quality problems. Video is a transmission business. Now we can derive television. Yet, TV is a specific type of data that real time stream so you can’t afford any breaks. conclusions from the data we collected and requires specific treatment. It’s a huge field where Mesh helps and this is where our acquisition of processed, to suggest to the operator what the improvements are still needed. Combining that Pirelli Broadband comes in. The TV experience viewer might want or where the network might with mobility where data is flowing through not then benefits from a better home network. Next fail. It’s still in the early stages. It is crude always predictable channels or media, to deal with is a WiGig gateway operating in 60GHz, giving intelligence although smart thinking about the that is a huge engineering challenge. That is you much bigger bandwidth and practically viewers or networks, trying to understand their exciting for the next ten years to perfect that. not going through the walls, hence further habits or mechanics, as applicable, not just raw Security and data protection also comes in. decreasing potential interference. That’s next data. We try to make sense of the numbers. We Ensuring quality is a huge area of opportunity on our strategy chart. do that in our graphyne2 ™ system, which has for both companies and society, in many aspects The above ties nicely with IoT. Having analytics as one of the plug-in elements. of our life.

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36-37_ADB.indd 2 21/08/2017 12:38:36 AI

AI enables Irdeto to automatically Feeding the virtuous circle process streams distributed by pirate aggregation sites or other Artiﬁ cial Intelligence for media is still in its distribution media, and recognise the original source of the video stream infancy but already has a critical role to play by identifying the broadcaster logo. The key benefit is the scale at which helping broadcasters leverage broadband/ the system can operate. In January broadcast convergence across multiple workﬂ ow 2017, its crawling platform analysed over 700,000 unique URLs where components. Adrian Pennington reports pirated content streams were embedded on the internet. “A rtificial Intelligence will challenge and need to drive their business using manual approach cannot scale for this type of contribute as much as more relevant data that they often don’t have, as volume,” says Mulready. “After all, speed is the $15.7 trillion to the legacy TV systems are not always two-way name of the game especially when it comes to world economy by 2030, connected,” explains Simon Trudelle, senior fighting live sports piracy.” according to PwC. Global director, product marketing, Nagra. “Social In terms of cybersecurity and the threat of GDP, which stood at platforms and other external systems can offer malicious attack, if the system is monitoring all about $74 trillion in extensive sources of data intelligence that can the logs and knows what ‘normal’ looks like, A2015, will be 14 percent higher in 2030 as a benefit service providers and other players in the then unusual internet traffic coming from a new result, according to its projections. $6.6 TV/video value chain.” device on the network could be flagged as it trillion of this would come from increased A second dimension to consider is the happens, enabling early intervention with productivity as businesses automate development of machine learning predictive preventative measures. processes and augment their labour forces algorithms that use a feedback loop to improve “Rather than just providing intrusion detection with new AI technology, states the report. the relevance of the prediction engine over time. in the network layer, our automation application According to CB Insights, 658 funding deals software might become aware of where control around AI took place in 2016, worth over $5 Diagnostics, scheduling, content protection commands are expected to come from,” says billion in VC funds. In the last five years, 1,928 Then there are AI/ML platforms that go further Pebble Beach Systems’ CTO Ian Cockett. AI investments have accounted for over $12.4 and leverage neural networks (using dedicated Another important area is in network billion as the development permeates all aspects chipsets) and have been proven to outperform management. Bandwidth is not limitless and is a of technology. human beings for repetitive skill-based tasks such significant portion of the expense of operating The television/video industry is no different, as speech or image/video recognition for instance. (especially for OTT). “Today’s CDNs and with more and more back-end and front-end For example, AI can play an important role in protocols are very wasteful of bandwidth (your powered AI solutions slowly making their way improving accuracy and reliability for placement, device will always pick the highest available onto the market, from recommendations systems believes Michael Atkin, BroadView Software’s bandwidth whether it’s needed or not at that and video analytics, to security and archiving. president. “BroadView’s latest Promo Campaign particular time,” says Tim Child, CCO and Eventually, even applications like playout will Management tool learns from previous passes and co-founder, Cantemo. “Analysing the video as it is be affected. works to deliver improved placement results with transmitted and then using the data to determine However, much of what is suddenly branded each pass. Scheduling at both planning and the required bandwidth can help network as AI in media is in fact the evolution of the presentation level can be more automated and operators make more efficient use of bandwidth, data analysis solution market. This is taking done in a manner that improves operations by lowering costs and improving quality at the different dimensions. learning from past runs.” same time.” First, the use of unstructured and structured Mark Mulready, senior director, Cyber Services data, coming from multiple sources, combined & Investigations at Irdeto, is focused on the role Metadata the key with configurable data science algorithms, allows of AI in combatting content redistribution piracy. If metadata describing the content as well as the for the development of powerful prediction “Combating redistribution piracy requires the precise timing of the start and end of each engines that is galvanising the data analytics and proactive search and identification of illegal program were incorporated into the broadcast, business intelligence market. New knowledge re-broadcasts,” he says. “AI can play a key role by it would be possible to use this to record content graphs and correlations can be found and refined enabling detection of illegal streams, through for later viewing or to start programs again both in real time by data scientists. semantic analysis of social media ads and/or web from the actual start of the content rather than “This is clearly where most value can be page indexes, and by enabling inspection of visual when the EPG says they should start. delivered in the payTV industry in the short term, elements in the re-distributed content, matching it “Most systems today provide DVR and start as the players face a business transformation to the original source.” again capability but they are not as accurate

38 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

38-41_AIInVideo.indd 2 24/08/2017 11:07:47 AI

as they could be and if the schedule changes This metadata could be used by an AI engine to at the last minute it doesn’t work at all,” says “Automating the provide people with better search capabilities. It Cantemo’s Child. “Signalling metadata in band could also be used for contextual advertising by at the time of transmission solves this and allows production of communicating exactly what is coming up when. AI systems to ‘know’ the what and when so they “When matched with who is watching and can match with the user’s preferences/ accurate metadata where they are at the time this cannily make circumstances automatically and accurately. advertising more relevant and therefore more This same metadata can also being married describing the valuable,” explains Young. with rights information for the content so that There is a further discussion to be had on it can be intelligently and automatically be content fully dynamic ad insertion and the delivery of substituted downstream.” customised commercials from the linear playout Many applications are using AI to deliver great including timing for stream. Pebble Beach says its systems can help results faster and cheaper – image processing, real live/linear content is some of these legacy linear systems better time translation and speech recognition to name a compete with online services by making it easy to few. Their success is based on training computers going to be critical add SCTE signalling for downstream dynamic ad to process a huge amount of data in order to insertion, for example. “However, given that recognise patterns and derive meaning from for downstream AI/ broadcast is still playing catch up and trying to the patterns. implement virtualisation many years after the IT “The first thing is to get the metadata right,” ML systems to be sector embraced it, the effective implementation stresses Alan Young, COO at network of AI across the playout space may yet be some management software developer Crystal. “All too able to operate way off,” says Crockett. often metadata is a manual afterthought. Automating the production of accurate metadata properly.” Training datasets describing the content fully including timing Netgem makes a similar point when applied to for live/linear content is going to be critical for Its Crystal Connect product automatically recommendations. Taking an OTT provider like downstream AI/ML systems to be able to extracts and formats metadata so that it can be Netflix, for example, there are two main operate properly.” delivered to and used by AI engines downstream. limitations to AI, according to MD Sylvain

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38-41_AIInVideo.indd 3 24/08/2017 11:08:03 AI

Thevenot. Such providers limit recommendations based on the content available within their environment and often the recommendation is based on the user history. “Netflix won’t recommend live sports to its users because it doesn’t offer it,” he says. “There is no interaction with other data sources from other platforms that allows meaningful and relevant recommendations. This creates silos within the different environments. The data universe isn’t complete as far as the end user is concerned so the analysis of the data to provide a meaningful service is flawed once you look outside of each silo.” Netgem says it’s helping to counter this by blending different sources of content on live, on demand, SVOD and catch up and gathering the associated data to provision a solution for operators to provide consumers with relevant recommendations across environments. “The goal is to realise the benefits of moving from manual curation and QA, which is the current industry standard, to a hybrid model datasets, it enhances the system’s understanding Others suggest that rather than being replaced that combines the best of editorial expertise of entertainment content and its ability to by machines, human jobs will evolve to more with the scalability, accuracy and dynamism identify meaningful relationships to fuel more creative or oversight functions. of algorithmically-supported machine learning,” relevant recommendations.” “Advanced systems will change the way says Charles Dawes, Tivo’s senior director, Josh Wiggins, CCO at automated metadata things are currently done and will require international marketing. “For example, humans collection, curation and search specialist supervision and proactive management to tend to be able to describe a TV show or a GrayMeta would like to see AI rebranded. make sure key business objectives are reached,” movie with emotional descriptors like its mood “People are scared of the word. But I think there’s says Trudelle. “Constant benchmarking with far more easily and accurately than machines. real opportunity to bring data together and to let other predictive applications is often needed to When that editorially-driven descriptive human deals with the important 10% that validate the performance of the new system. information is added to knowledge graph-based machines can’t understand.” So, it’s clear that while automated AI/ML

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38-41_AIInVideo.indd 4 24/08/2017 11:08:13 AI

technology can help reduce the workload associated with some tasks and improve business performance, it does not take away the other more business-centric angles to consider when deploying any IT-based solution: scoping the business issue, defining the “why? and what if?” questions, making sure the outputs have an actionable business impact.”

GDPR and AI Automated individual decision making, heavily based on AI and machine learning algorithms, will fall under greater scrutiny as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) come into effect next May. “OTT and TV companies are using Al-based applications for many processes including fraud management, personalised content recommendations, personalised marketing offers, and increasingly for programmatic advertising,” highlights Viaccess Orca’s SaaS director of product marketing, Ludo Rubin. “They are leveraging user profiling to predict the content piece that a customers’ will like the most; the personalised offer that will prevent churn or the most impactful ad doing ‘conversation-style’ operations for support to serve.” “We will hear and information checking. The area of scheduling The GDPR wants, in particular, to guarantee and rights management is also prone, again in transparency and equal rights when algorithms more of the ‘zero quite basic areas such as the digitisation of operate. Consequently, OTT operators are contracts and then the ability to use AI to required to obtain explicit consent from interface’ model check and query contract terms.” customers to collect and process personal data, Child forecasts that “In future, we will be and be ready to share some information with where tools like able to generate personalised video content them about the logic involved and the significance based on audience profiles, behaviours, location. and envisaged consequences of such algorithms. Alexa and Google There’s already a great deal of investment While ML technology is constantly improving, from media companies capturing detailed we shouldn’t assume it is going to get it right Home will be information about viewers to enable them to every time. “Although it has the potential to serve personalised content and ads. Using make media providers much more efficient and used to access video intelligence, this process can be automated enable them to offer much more personalised and much more accurate, meaning consumers services, it will always need that human touch automation only get content that is highly relevant and to check it has got it right,” emphasises Child. interesting to them.” If today’s mindset is man versus machine, systems.” Oliver Botti, head of international business “What we see as the future is that man and development at Fincons Group, agrees, machine together can be better than the advertising, platform/network performance), arguing that AI will increasingly help analyse human,” says Anand Rao, AI researcher with more relevant personalisation, to optimising vast and complex data sets spanning from and principal at PwC. video and business operations. specific TV content choice, to products “We will hear more of the ‘zero interface’ purchased over ecommerce from a specific Down the track model where tools like Alexa and Google Home viewing device such as a tablet computer or Looking to the mid-term the realm of possibilities will be used to access automation systems,” even from the smart TV itself, helping to is expected to keep growing and be vast, from predicts Niall Duffy, CMO, Virtual AI. “There define a much more accurate content improving the user experience (UEX, content, are already examples of Alexa and IBM Watson recommendation process.

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38-41_AIInVideo.indd 5 24/08/2017 11:08:24 Watermarking

says Nakano, who admits, however, Live sports give forensic there was also demand for unbundled services which is being met by Nagra as well as others such as Verimatrix, watermarking a push allowing purchase of the watermarking component separately. By CSI contributor Philip Hunter Nakano highlights how growth in live sports streaming has propelled demand omentum is of watermarking since the middle of last year. We for watermarking over the last year, driven by the building quickly are now also seeing sports rights owners content owners or rights holders themselves. “The now behind forensic increasingly mandating anti-piracy requirements, CEO of Major League Baseball in the US has watermarking for including source detection, in their licensing been talking to us about live watermarking, along video services, raising contracts, which has also fueled more interest and with leaders of other major sports,” he says. the question why it uptake with operators.” The availability of higher quality content, has taken over three Resistance has come from some operators especially online, has not only raised the stakes by Myears for this to happen after MovieLabs which have still been reluctant to do more than presenting more valuable assets but also made it published its specifications mandating the ‘tick the box’ and fail to deploy the technology easier for the pirates to steal and make available technology for Ultra HD content in April properly. But now through improved without too much deterioration. The situation has 2014. The answer is partly that it is only implementations from the leading providers of been exacerbated by the growing availability of recently there has been enough UHD watermarking coupled with stronger advocacy, devices, such as those running the Kodi software, content to justify the investment, while the message is getting through. As Mulready coming pre-loaded with unlicensed add-ons at the same time the technology has notes, fighting fast growing online piracy depends allowing illegal streaming. come of age. on identifying both what content has been leaked “The pirate plugins that are enabling illegal Another big factor is that watermarking has and from where. viewing through Kodi, for instance, have lowered come to be seen as an essential component of But watermarking by itself cannot combat the threshold for piracy,” says Mulready. revenue protection not just for UHD, but also live online piracy, being like an adhesive without the ERW content can be seen as the third type of sports and early release window (ERW) content complementary hardener. It also needs the video asset driving watermarking given that it is in general. In fact any valuable premium assets network forensics to detect when piracy is not always UHD quality and the value lies in the susceptive to piracy, especially through occurring in the first place, identify the content timeliness or exclusivity. One example is 21st re-broadcast or redistribution, can be protected and take appropriate action. These components Century Fox which has reduced incidence of effectively by a combination of measures must dovetail with traditional content security ERW piracy significantly in its South Korean including watermarking. measures designed to enforce rights, including operation through use of Verimatrix’ VideoMark “The push for watermarking implementation Conditional Access and DRM, as well as toolkit in combination with other measures. has unsurprisingly come from the content owners, hardware roots of trust. These other components This leads to an important point made recently but they have needed a watershed moment to can either be obtained separately or provided as by Ali Hodjat, Verimatrix Senior Director for really drive the operator uptake,” says Mark part of a single integrated package, according to security and watermarking product management, Mulready of Irdeto, one of the few security Mark Nakano, senior director of product that forensic watermarking elicits a wide range vendors offering the technology. “This push has marketing and partnerships for NexGuard, part of of valuable evidence that can be used to trace come with the rapid growth of 4K UHD content, Kudelski Nagra. “Studios are telling us they want and prosecute pirates, even when the immediate which has been a big driving factor in the uptake the complete package with end to end security,” source cannot be located at once. This could happen when pirates are using VPNs to conceal their IP address while accessing ERW or other premium content as a prelude to illicit redistribution. Even when they are setting up new accounts for each infringement, each one would leave its own footprint via the watermarking system, which combined with network forensics could help piece together the pirates’ identity and location, as while as furnishing evidence for prosecution. This reinforces the case for watermarking as a crucial component of content security going forward to cater for evolving threats.

42 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

42-43_Watermark.indd 2 21/08/2017 12:45:25 Advertorial

considerations when it comes to Forensic watermarking – renewability. A headend solution is installed within the secure environment of the provider. The solution is not that easy going beyond anti-piracy to to tamper with. As such, it is less prone to the reverse engineering efforts of pirates.

guide business decisions The business value of watermarking Whichever approach is taken to the technology By Mark Mulready, Senior Director, solution, forensic watermarking is more than an Cyber Services & Investigations, Irdeto anti-piracy tool however; it is a business tool that provides detailed analytics to help in the decision- and precious investment. Therefore, protecting making process. the revenue it generates, when distributed directly The forensic information that can be provided or indirectly, is as important as negotiating by watermarking is the key to unlocking business the deal in the first place. With new devices value. This intelligence enables you to protect and plugins making it easier for pirates to steal your content and current revenue through high quality content, there is even greater pressure enforcing contractual compliance. In addition on the bottom line. to this, watermarking forensics guide decisions Watermarking is a proven and crucial tool in around the introduction of new business models, the fight against content redistribution piracy. helping protect the value of content and overall The invisible unique mark provides the forensic revenue. The reason watermarking intelligence capability to track and trace, helping you identify can be so valuable to both operational and the source of leaked content. It complements strategic business decisions is that it is other content protection technology such as accurate data. DRM, Conditional Access or BD+. However, the Previously, content owners would need to rely benefits of forensic watermarking do not stop on purported sources and estimation to find out there. It is actually much more than just an anti the source of the pirated content. This obviously piracy tool. had its limitations and was often unreliable. However, with watermarking, it is possible to Approaches to watermarking obtain definitive intelligence on what quality ith consumers Before we consider the combination of resolution is the most popular along with what having a wider watermarking with other services to deliver source format was used to propagate most of choice of content business value, it’s important to look at the the leaked content, as well as the number of than ever before, approaches to watermarking itself. The options copies downloaded. the competition here are headend and client-based solutions. For the value of this intelligence to be realized between the When deciding on the best option to protect however, embedding the watermark into your content owners is valuable content, the two key aspects to consider digital content is only part of the overall process. Wmore pronounced. However, it’s not just are playback device reach and renewability. Arguably, one of the most important tasks in the legal competitors that content owners need When considering reach, it is all about fight against piracy is the identification of illegal to worry about; pirates are the biggest ensuring that your content is watermarked when activity and pirated content. This is crucial to threat to existing business models. They it is delivered to your consumers’ devices: set-top revenue and copyright protection. Integrating your are a global competitor, who are not box (STB), tablets, mobile, etc. With a headend watermarking to an end-to-end discovery, hindered by rules and regulations. Pirates watermarking solution all the content is detection, analysis, enforcement and reporting supply content across the world and are not watermarked before the signal arrives at the service ensures that you’re able to identify the concerned with regional or country specific STB or device. Because there are no hardware source of any leaked content and be in a position deals. Content redistribution piracy is a or software modifications needed on client to enforce your content rights either technically or global problem and the illegal supply of devices, there are no unprotected devices: contractually. The analysis and reporting is what premium content, such as live sports and managed or unmanaged. Even existing legacy will provide the basis for the business value that early release movies, is driving devices are supported. All consumer devices watermarking can unlock. this increase. will always receive watermarked content when Read more about this business value in our For pay-media operators and content rights using a headend solution. whitepaper, Forensic Watermarking: Much more holders, this premium content is a substantial Security and ongoing maintenance are both key than just an anti-piracy tool

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 43

42-43_Watermark.indd 3 25/08/2017 15:02:00 IBC 2017 Q&A Michael Crimp Michael Crimp, the CEO of IBC, shares some of the highlights to look out for during IBC 2017 and what lies for the show in the future

have now seen was just beginning. We had conference and events team and our committees dedicated areas focused on mobile video and identify where the industry is going and therefore digital signage, again things that we take for where IBC needs to be. My role is to empower granted today. You can see the equivalents in them to deliver the best possible IBC. IBC2017, like the IP Showcase and all the work But I do see IBC as an important enabler for done on interoperability. change in the industry. Last year we pulled off an The one area I would say that IBC has evolved incredible achievement, with our partners, in significantly is that we are much more proactive building the first IP Interoperability Zone,

Michael Crimp, CEO, IBC Crimp, Michael in leading strategic thinking and business bringing together large numbers of different transformation. Five years ago we started our vendors to demonstrate that the next stage of the Leaders’ Summit, the behind-closed-doors IP transition, live production, was practical and conference for CEOs from the top broadcasters the big challenges could be resolved. That was an and media organisations, and it has proved initiative of massive global importance. hugely successful. As IBC2017 progresses, I have no doubt there This year we are adding two more similar, will be equally ground-breaking events. IBC is celebrating its 50th anniversary invitation-only events, this timed aimed at CTOs. this year. What is it doing to celebrate We have a day focusing on cyber-security and How are the attendees and companies this occasion? another looking at the potential for 5G – a great participating in IBC changing? How are you 50 years is a great achievement, and of course we example of IBC’s ability to look ahead and help growing attendance for IBC each year? will be recognising it. We are producing a determine the media industry’s position on The industry is so much broader than it once was. commemorative book, and our annual party will new opportunities. As the industry expands, so does the IBC be particularly special this year. We are also trying a new business match- community. This year, we have the biggest But the most important way we can celebrate making venue this year, the IBC Startup Forum temporary structure we have ever built for an IBC, the golden anniversary is by carrying on being the (see page 50 for more details). to house hall 14, dedicated to content everywhere. leading global forum where the real issues of the industry are discussed and new strategies What are you most excited about for What are the latest developments in adding developed. Back in 1967 the founders of IBC IBC2017? What do you hope attendees take capacity at IBC? knew that to be a success the event had to have away from it? We have a very strong working relationship with three strands: a comprehensive exhibition, a IBC attracts around 55,000 visitors and every one the RAI. The team there understands IBC and its visionary conference, and the networking of them has a different agenda. My fervent wish is future strategic vision very well. We are already opportunities to share ideas. that every single one finds the answers to their talking in detail about our plans out to 2020 and 50 years on we have a huge amount to talk own particular questions. 2021 and we are confident that, together, we will about: from Ultra HD to 5G connectivity; from IP Personally, I know I am in the right job at meet all of IBC’s needs. to cyber-security. IBC is still the best place for it. around 11.00 on Friday, when the exhibition halls There is always talk of the need to move to get that first surge of visitors and the hum, the another venue, and of course as a responsible How has IBC evolved over the past 10 years? noise of business being done, begins to rise. business we keep this continually under review. The simple answer is that IBC has evolved along But where would we move to? There is nowhere with the industry, or rather IBC has strived to In terms of technological trends, what that offers the same combination of exhibition identify the key trends which will transform the are you most excited about as we space, conference facilities and catering and industry, and ensure that we are ahead of the approach IBC2017? networking under one roof. Nowhere with the curve. Looking back 10 years, digital cinema was It is not really my role to get excited about hotel prices that Amsterdam offers, nor its still a work in progress: the total transition we technological trends. Our exhibitors, our friendly and welcoming atmosphere.

44 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

44_IBC.indd 1 29/08/2017 11:24:31 Advertorial

Storage full? Searching for ﬁ les? Archive to

only takes minutes. The benefit of having the rescue! metadata that can be customized, browsed and searched, makes the Archive an efficient By Marc Batschkus tool for referencing, re-purposing or any form of monetisation. Now files can be igger files in production re-used anytime. means more demand for storage capacity. High Archiving pays off performance production By saving expansion of production storage, storage always fills up Archiving pays off. Using LTO tape as storage disk and Cloud can also be used to build this faster than anticipated. medium improves security and is the most level of security and save to off-premise storage. Constantly expanding it is economic way to store large amounts of data. Bno option for most, because it is simply too Previously used by large corporations and banks, Archiving the easy way - P5 Archive expensive. Additionally, older files are LTO is now available to all production A web browser is enough to access and use accessed only rarely, though they take up environments. With a price point of about 10US$ Archiware´s P5 Archive. Proxy clips and media considerable space. Is there a solution to per TB with LTO-6 it is unmatched. previews make browsing and finding a file easy. this situation? Yes! Archiving. Now anyone in the company can access the Maximum security for production media Archive. Archiving on the Mac can be simplified Simplify finding files by Archiving Tape is less vulnerable to malware, viruses even further. One right-click is all it takes to The Archive is the repository for completed and mishaps. Contrary to disk, infections can archive and restore. The Add-on P5 Archive App productions. They are archived and deleted not spread to other tapes. Only the tape that offers the necessary Finder integration as well as from production storage to free up space. The is mounted in the drive can be accessed by the FCP X integration. Archive becomes the single point of reference server. With a guaranteed shelf life of 30 (!) for all files and edits that were ever completed. years, tape is ideal for long-term media storage. The key to the Archive - Metadata This saves countless hours of searching through P5 Archive offers tape cloning to create two With P5 Archive, Metadata fields can be external disks, lists of files, notes or other identical tape sets, one for off-site storage customised to match the individual production material. Now finding and retrieving a clip for maximum security. With P5 Archive, criteria. This way, files can be found using technical and descriptive criteria. P5 Archive offers universal compatibility and flexibility. Running on Mac, Windows, Linux and FreeBSD makes it future-proof. P5 Archive offers maximum choice of storage categories supporting Disk/SSD, Tape and Cloud storage.

One solution to protect the workflow P5 Archive is part of Archiware´s data management suite P5 that covers the A-B-C of data management: Archive, Backup and Cloning. All products can be combined to protect the complete workflow in all stages. Take advantage of the free 30-day trial license and download Archiware P5 today. http://www.archiware.com/download

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 45

45_Archiware.indd 3 25/08/2017 15:03:18 Technology corner

ould you tell me, please, which Is there a ‘perfect ’ way I ought to go from here? That depends on strategy for UHDTV? where you want to get to said the David Wood, Chair, DVB CM-UHDTV, zooms in on WCheshire Cat. “I don’t much care where” Alice (in Wonderland) replied. “Then it High Frame Rate, which faces an uncertain future doesn’t matter which way you go,” smirked the Cat. The UHD services using For ultra HDTV, do we know where we want the first DVB spec (DVB to get to, and what to do to get there? This is UHDTV 1 Phase 1) were a no smirking zone. simply the 4K level of Tick the box for ‘DVB specification for resolution and optionally UHDTV Phase 2 delivery system’. UHDTV is WCG. Constant Luminance clearly on the rise in 2017, but there are different Coding bit the dust. It was roads that could be taken from here. The word thought to give only a small on the street is that “the best UHD TV set to buy reduction in compressed bit is the one that comes on the market ten minutes rate at the cost of confusing after you’ve bought one”. So what is the right production. The other strategy? Why is it difficult to see? features were seen as not We want a UHDTV system where everyone in ready, too costly, or too the value chain, from programme maker to viewer, complex to introduce in Fig. 1. Comparative Results for PQ10 and HLG10. gains. In the end, the change has to be profitable those early days. This is Image courtesy of IRT, RAI, EBU, and BBC in the many senses of the word. understandable, but the non- UHDTV was born in the ITU in the years marketing truth is that the quality benefit from high quality images, with sets somewhat less before 2012 . It was seen as a package of new 4K resolution alone compared to HDTV is expensive than OLED sets. LCDs are also very features, to be usable for the next 30-40 years. The modest, unless viewing at pince-nez distance from much still around. Furthermore, if the home elements that were to make up UHDTV were: a) the screen. The pile of pennies is none too thick. system involves a set-top box, the capability of the levels of Higher Resolution (4K, 8K) based on Today, the DVB UHDTV Phase 2 spec is HDMI connection can constrain the value of the multiples of 1080p; b) Constant Luminance agreed. It includes delivery system versions of all features. Overall the differences in consumers’ Coding (CLC); c) Higher Frame Rates (HFR); d) the ITU features except the non-constant equipment can reduce the value of the UHDTV Wider Colour Gamut (WCG); e) an Advanced luminance and the 8K resolution. Broadcasters features. What should the broadcast or Sound System aka Next Generation Audio and Broadband providers now need to choose broadband provider target? (NGA); and f) an anticipated option of Higher which features to use. When deciding, many Dynamic Range (HDR). factors need to be weighed up. High Dynamic Range We didn’t think at the time that any of the One of the key features beyond the resolution in features, on their own, would justify the transition Display issues DVB Phase 2 is High Dynamic Range. HDR from HDTV. We saw them as cents/pennies that One is that the value of the features is constrained makes an image more like natural vision. If the were not thick individually but, by piling them up, by the capability of the viewer’s TV set. When we source images were shot in HDR, and the delivery one on top of the other, we could achieve a major developed UHDTV, the author thought that the system and domestic display allows it, it can give quality gain that would justify the transition. They UHDTV future would lie with OLED displays. a major improvement in quality. The system would collectively offer not just “more pixels” The ITU Wider Colour Gamut was intended to makes use of the higher peak screen brightness but “better pixels”. There would be a ‘gestalt’ encompass potential OLED primaries. OLED that is available, and will become ever more of the features. displays would be capable of sharp, good contrast, available, in TV displays. We were naive. In practice, the media world images with none of the drawbacks of back-lit The DVB spec. includes two options for the has seen the ITU features as a “tool box” which displays, and they would make very thin HDR systems. These are 10-bit/sample systems could each be drawn on at will. Maybe this was/is consumer-attractive TV sets. What’s not to like? termed PQ10 and HLG10. There are two sensible from a marketing point of view. Maybe it Five years later, there are OLED TV sets on because the technical group preparing the was necessary because some technology steps the market, but they are expensive and only part specification was asked by DVB Members to were/are not yet practical, and companies didn’t of the TV set landscape. The first generation provide two options. One for where backwards want to wait. Quantum Dot has emerged and offers very bright compatibility with DVB UHD Phase 1 TV sets is

46 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

46-47_TechCorner.indd 2 22/08/2017 11:16:55 Technology corner

necessary (HLG10), and one for where it about this, and hopefully future DVB meetings But in 2017, the tide may have turned a little in is not (PQ10). should resolve this issue. favour of HFR becoming a reality. In May of this These two tie in well with the UHDTV year, SES and Samsung made test broadcasts with production formats of the ITU, which specifies High Frame Rate HFR . They probably used a software decoder, both HDR options at higher numbers of bit per High Frame Rate could almost be called the but it was a start. sample. The delivery version can be the studio Forgotten Feature of UHDTV. There was never In addition, a major international project made signal rounded down to 10-bits per sample. any doubt that doubling the Frame Rate would a live end-to-end production with 100Hz HFR, Comparative tests reported in 2017 to DVB significantly add to UHDTV image quality when albeit at 1080p. This was the 4Ever-2 project with World suggested that the final quality for the there was movement in the scene. Happily the Orange, AMP Visual, France Televisions, viewer would be similar with both systems (see delivery bit rate would not be increased Globecast, Ateme, and Teamcast. Their trial Figure 1). In discussions, it became clear that proportionately because the higher frame rate shows an Ice Hockey Match. Can’t you just see many set makers include the capability to would mean more redundancy, and thus more that puck staying sharp? interpret both systems in their TV sets. There efficient compression. Their conclusion was that the “visual benefit is no unique view about when it is best to But doubling the Frame Rate seemed likely to is obvious”. They claimed that there are no real use which system. seriously affect production resources, and need technical issues in production to solve except in The DVB Phase 2 specification can be part or larger storage and higher clock rates for the professional monitoring and recording. all of a broadcast or broadband system. There are decoder. In other words it was going to be The DVB Phase 2 spec for HFR is ready to go, DVB Members who believe that there will be expensive. The quality gain would be significant and includes temporal scalability. This means cases where more than just the basic HDR system only for objects moving such that the eye could that a basic 50Hz (or 60Hz) version is broadcast is needed to give a further boost to the image still track them. When called into play because of with a top-up signal for 100Hz (or 120Hz) quality. This can be done by providing additional movement, it could match the quality gain of TV sets. dynamic metadata with the broadcast or HDR, but only then. It seemed to be less valuable broadband signal. With the DVB specification as overall and more expensive than HDR. What does it come down to? it is now, it is possible to signal the inclusion of The decoder makers told DVB several years The road to HDR seems relatively certain. It dynamic metadata using the private data ago that HFR would call for development of a remains to be seen what proportion of UHD allocation. The discussion underway at the new decoder IC, and a faster HDMI interface. TV sets include HDR capability, and what kind moment in the DVB Project is whether signalling They looked us in the eye and said that they could of screen brightness they will have. But in ten for the dynamic metadata systems should be only do it if there would be large scale usage by years’ time it will probably be the norm. formalised in the specification, or left as potential broadcast and broadband providers. We have a The road to higher frame rates is possible but private data. There are currently different views ‘chicken and egg’ situation. less certain. The reality is that HFR will only happen if broadcasters and Fig 2: The 4Ever-2 production team in action. Photo Credit: “4EVER-2 hockey end-to end HFR 100fps broadband providers are convinced trial game, with the kind authorization of the French Ice Hocey Federation (FFHG), 9th April 2017” that (as they say in France) the game is worth the candle. Only if they say so, will the decoder manufacturers set in motion the receivers for HFR. Its success probably rests on whether sports producers are convinced and sport fans demand it. There are other options for UHDTV that we have not touched on here – the use of NGA, and the prospects for the 8K level of resolution. For these too, we need decisions. There may not be a ‘perfect’ strategy for UHDTV. But then, the skill of management is to make good decisions using inadequate information, isn’t it? What do you think the Cheshire Cat would say if Alice asked about UHDTV?

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 47

46-47_TechCorner.indd 3 22/08/2017 11:17:12 Q&A Q&A ACCESS Europe Talking to CSI’s Goran Nastic, Dr Neale Foster, Managing Director and COO of ACCESS Europe, tells operators how to reach 100 million consumers with IoT-enabled multiscreen video services Dr Neale Foster (left) Foster Dr Neale

CSI: How do you see the multi-screen the consumer want to do? You have to add the virtual operator provides this service to the market evolving these days? social networking and social sharing aspects to consumer then they provide it rather than device Neale Foster: It’s really quite fantastic. It’s this. From my point of view, as I see it there have makers providing it so it’s really quite a changing so much at the moment. There’s no to be solutions that focus on the consumer. So fundamental shift of who controls that experience staid way of doing it now. You’ve got the ‘old’ what does the consumer want to do? They want and who satisfies the consumer with that Amazon and Netflix, and Apple coming in. to consume their content simply easily and not to consumption experience. You’ve got the device manufacturers and have to pay too much for it. You have so many traditional payTV operators. You have all this multiple sources of this and sometimes I pay for The analysts refer to it as OTT stacking fighting ultimately for making sure they own the the same content two or three times. In the UK especially but it can be any service. People consumer experience and the video entrainment we have Sky and Virgin, Netflix and Amazon subscribe to multiple services these days, experience. All this is going on in the market. The among others, and every country has a different it’s not an either-or game. There’s a shift multi screen market is at a different definition if version of this, but it’s fundamentally all the same happening in consumption, technology and you look at according to how you consume it that there is multiple content sources, multiple business models. One mega trend is the from a device point of view and how you deliver devices and consumption models. move to the cloud, everything moving to the it from a content point of view and the revenue Really what we are focused on doing is cloud, so-called ‘cloudification’. This year I models there. It’s a really changing world, providing the Twine service, which our proof have heard operators talk about cloud UIs really fascinating. point is Reliance with their 100 million and cloud browsers. How is ACCESS subscribers, and operators like Reliance – one of involved in all this? What often gets lost is the consumer the biggest operators in the world – they are The cloud is the cloud. Everything is going to be perspective, what their needs and demands trying to make sure that they own the delivery, the in the cloud. Obviously there is a hybrid type are. How are they changing? video entertainment experience rather than device model that goes on, stuff still has to work on the That’s the most important question. What does manufacturers owning that. So if the payTV or device. Fundamentally everything has to work in

48 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

48-49-AccessVideo.indd 1 29/08/2017 10:52:11 Q&A

the cloud these days. We have made various everybody. It means the whole cloud server-client we are seeing with reliance in India, they have announcements with Hisense on 4K TV, we have structure architecture works very nicely and pretty worked out how to do this from a consumer Zenterio. We have multiple devices like Nintendo much everybody is using that now for their user points of view and obviously ACCESS provides Switch that are using our browser and also interface requirements. the technology and enables them to do it. Reliance with our Twine product. They are all about the cloud at the end of the day, it’s all about You’ve mentioned Reliance. Tell us a little Did they customise your technology, and is it cloud delivery and storing services on the cloud bit more about that deal, how it came about all cloud-based or is there a client element? and a cloud delivery model. From our point of and what you are doing with them. There’s two components, a server side and client view it has to be done seamlessly. The consumer It’s extremely exciting. Some people in Europe side. It’s a proper client-server architecture. just has to sit there and it works. it just needs to may not be familiar with the company but if you They’ve put the Indian customisation and they work weather it’s the cloud or not the cloud it just live in Asia or are in the telco community you know the customer far better than we do. They’ve needs to work and it needs to be transparent and would 100% know of them because Reliance Jio taken our core root technologies, the SDKs and invisible to the consumer exactly what’s Infocomm is literally one of the biggest application development kits and they’ve taken happening otherwise they will get frustrated. So telecommunications operators in the world. India that and customised it and put it in their final what we are doing is making sure – and our itself as a country has over one billion mobile consumer solutions at quality. I really hope biggest proof point is the 100 million subscribers phones, it’s an enormous creator of Bollywood everyone gets a chance to see what they have in India with Reliance Jio Infocomm, they really and other content. So really with the Indian done, they are leading in that way. are delivering a cloud based video and media content creation, whether it’s commercial movies sharing so consumers can access all their personal types of content or whether it’s user generated Is it a mobile-first service to mirror the video, family, weddings, holiday, all that personal content (UGC) or social sharing type content, wider Indian landscape? generated content, including their DRM content Reliance Jio have really come out and created a Not necessarily. It’s fundamentally designed for protected video across all their different devices, dynamic change in the Indian market providing all device types, whether mobile, or classic TV in whether it’s home or out of home. So being with their backend storage infrastructure with all the home through a set-top box or in the car. One able to deliver that content across that whole the various different applications on the different of the most exciting developments will be using set of devices is really where the cloud comes into devices, where ACCESS is providing the Jio our Twine product for video sharing, or movie its power. media share and media home app so people can and video consumption ultimately through all consume the content across all these different different segments. There’s obviously multiple components to devices. We’ve created a carrier-grade technology that. A lot of technologies go into delivering that’s being used by them to allow all their To finish on, what can we look forward to at a seamless multi screen experience, consumers to share all their content. Being able to IBC from ACCESS? whether cloud based or otherwise. The provide a truly carrier-grade provisioned quality For me, it’s all about the various different ways move towards HTML5 by broadcasters and and service level agreed technology means that we you consume media. ACCESS has a history multi-DRM seems to have enabled some of can provide that globally to all other various focused very much on the car and the TV. We are the recent transition too? operators as we are doing. showing a lot of, I don’t like the word Absolutely. Even five years ago there were It’s a big dynamic change and for me what ‘convergence’, but combination of car – all the question marks as to whether HTML was a good reliance is doing is that they are seeing the change stuff going on with Tesla is very hyped and user experience environment. Was it the right that’s going on and going straight for it. Seeing exciting – ACCESS has many customers in the markup language to create fancy beautiful but also that the consumer wants to take control of all that car industry. As a software company, we have fast user interfaces? Those questions have gone and be provided with a service by their operator many deployments with the likes of Jaguar. The now. The CPUs, memory and all the other rather than just a pay-TV video service. For me combination of you taking your devices into a car technical requirements have enabled that to be a that just allows device manufacturers to control and how you consume video is something we will seamless situation. It’s been good for everybody part of the user experience so you purchase your be showing at IBC. We’ll be showing Reliance and that there has been a level playing field for HTML movies and everything through the manufacturer explaining that in a lot more detail and we’ll be to be able to be the ubiquitous user interface and I think from an operator point of view they showing a lot of the 4K TV, YouTube and all the environment. It’s really become a standard should be the ones who control and manage and things you can do on a 4K TV, and then there’s without anybody pushing it from a proprietary excite and make the consumer happy and to make the car. So there’s three main areas we will be point of view, it’s really a level playing field for a very comfortable experience. And that’s what focused on. You can come see us in Hall 14.

www.csimagazine.com September 2017 49

48-49-AccessVideo.indd 2 29/08/2017 10:52:34 Show preview

them and how they might affect companies IBC turns 50 and consumers. ‘In Conversation with... Bots: Messaging and Voice Platforms as the Next Battleground for CSI looks at what visitors can expect from IBC as Consumer’ looks at the ‘The Big Bot Battle’ the show celebrates its 50th anniversary this year surrounding Chatbots as an interface. Panellists from organisations including Al Jazeera Media Network, The Bot Platform and TurnUp Music will debate emerging opportunities, challenges forms the centrepiece of the conference, and it is and winning applications for the media industry. still seen as the most important, as well as the most prestigious place to introduce new thinking. On the floors… But the conference is much broader than back in On the exhibition front, expect the halls of IBC the late 1960s. Session topics range from the feature many vendors boasting ‘end-to-end’ deeply technical, like new codec design, to fake content delivery and solutions, whether on their news and alternative facts. Speakers range from own or, as in most cases, through partnerships Alberto Duenas, the principal video architect at and integrations. chip-maker ARM to Dan Danker, the product For the set-top box makers, security providers director at Facebook. and many others, their business is increasingly being virtualised so cloud-bases solutions will also Platform Futures feature heavily. Again, it is hard to find a vendor Platform Futures is one of the strands running without some sort of cloud story these days. through the conference. The Saturday strand will Often time, business and creative sides lag BC returns to Amsterdam this explore where and how audiences are moving and behind the technology. As a perfect illustration, September at a slightly later date of the latest innovations in viewing and advertising VR will dominate the Future Zone area again this 14-19th with the over-arching theme technologies. Speakers will include Orpheus Warr, year, but the question monetisation remains to be of “Truth, Trust and Transformation”. Channel 4’s CTO, and Adrian Drury of Liberty answered. And how can creators tell a better story As CEO Mike Crimp explains Global, who will be sharing their views on the with this medium? We are at a very early stage elsewhere in these pages, the rapid most exciting new technologies and devices still where experimentation is the name of the proliferation of terms like “fake transforming the TV market. Christopher Mead, game. More details of the exhibitors in this zone Inews” and “alternative facts” over the last Senior Director of Partnerships EMEA for are available in our online preview. year is a critical topic to debate at IBC, Twitch, will be joining a panel to discuss the new A new addition, the IBC Startup Forum is because the industry’s response to it is online video ecosystem. bringing together startup and ‘scaleup’ businesses, central to its future, commercially as well IBC is dedicating the Platform Futures strand investors and media houses to help new as technically. Broadcasters have to sport on Sunday, including the growing companies. There will be a Deal Room as well traditionally been the trusted brand for phenomenon of eSports, with its associated as networking areas and a seminar programme. news: is the era of social media and opportunities for broadcasters. The goal is to take the best new ideas from a universal internet access changing that? The series of Tech Talks also on Sunday look a spark of invention to full fruition, according to Indeed, the same holds true for related little further into the future. ‘Inventing the Future the organisers. The event takes place on Sunday genres like sport, which are increasingly - Decoding the Unknown’ promises to be a wide- 17 September. making their way to streaming platforms as ranging discussion with experts envisioning the The next 4K 4Charity Fun Run begins at 07:30 viewing habits and demographics continue technologies and applications that are likely to on Saturday (more at 4K4Charity.com/run/IBC) to change. materialise in the near and distant future, and the while details of this year’s film are below. On this note, the Business Transformation impacts they might have on humanity. The panel conference session entitled ‘Broadcast is about to includes senior executives from organisations Movie Monday be transformed’, will see speakers from Google, including BBC R&D, NHK, 21Million, Nuance The Big Screen Monday night film was Freeview Australia, DMC and DTG discussing Communications and Disney Research. announced just before going to press, and it’s the many disruptions currently facing broadcast ‘Artificial Intelligence - Driving the Next Wave Baby Driver, starting at 6.30pm on September on all fronts. What can broadcasters do today to of Innovation’ looks at the potential for AI. 18th in the Auditorium. It will shown in Dolby make the most of these transformations? Attendees will hear from tech pioneers about the Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. Today, the technical papers programme still latest developments in AI, how to harness

50 September 2017 www.csimagazine.com

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