Defining Cable's Role in a 5G World

1_Cover.indd 1 www.csimagazine.com Deﬁning cable’s role ina 5Gworld June 2016 • OTT, VoD, Cloud TV, Cable, Satellite, IPTV, DTT, IoT • TV Br oadcast •Streaming •SatelliteCab The leading mediafor videodeliverytechnology The magazinefor global video le •Hybrid The latest news, views andfeatures June 2019 15/05/2019 15:07:25

Asian TV landscape Multicast-ABR ATSC 3.0 vs DVB-T2 Buyers Guide Embrace the age of Infinite Entertainment.

We’re Synamedia. We’re helping operators, service providers and media companies around the globe to deliver, protect, and monetize compelling video content. We do that by delivering the world’s most complete, secure and advanced end-to-end open video delivery solution.

We’ll be at ANGA COM 2019, stand E11, hall 7 and we’re looking forward to discussing how to embrace this exciting age of Infinite Entertainment. www.synamedia.com

The magazine for global video

www.csimagazine.com 19 Edge networking: a Netflix

TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology June 2019 story

Buyers Guide Buyers How Netflix localised content delivery

ATSC 3.0 vs DVB-T2 3.0 vs ATSC Editor with CDNs at the edge Multicast-ABR Goran Nastic Asian TV landscape 20 TV in Asia Commercial Deﬁ ning cable’s role in a 5G world This article examines Asian market Camilla Capece June 2016 • OTT, VoD, Cloud TV, Cable, Satellite, IPTV, DTT, IoT • The latest news, views and features 1_Cover.indd 1 15/05/2019 15:07:25 dynamics with a focus on streaming, Daniel Torelli Android TV and piracy 05 News & analysis Design and production Matt Mills (Manager) 06 Data corner: OTT in Asia 24 Opinion Jessica Harrington There is a thriving market for local DVB’s Peter Siebert identifies a key streaming players. India and China in difference between ATSC 3.0 and DVB-T2 Regular contributors particular are becoming hotbeds of new Adrian Pennington, Philip Hunter, David Adams, Stephen Cousins, content development 26 Synamedia Q&A Anna Tobin Rinat Burdo of Synamedia talks about 08 COVER STORY: From 5G... online video credentials sharing and using Circulation The advent of 5G stands to transform the behavioural analytics to combat piracy Joel Whitefoot mobile and wider telecoms and IoT landscape - cable wants a piece of the action 28 Industry trends Accounts Identifying the main trends to come Marilou Tait, Mohamad Saidani 11 ...to 10G out of NAB 2019 and beyond Editorial At the same time, the cable industry is tel +44(0)20 7562 2401 emphasising its ability to push to 10 Gigabit 30 Live sports streaming [email protected] and beyond through its ‘10G’ programme How to reach its full potential Advertising tel +44(0)20 7562 4382 13 M-ABR with Broadpeak 33 Buyers Guide 2019 [email protected] Together with Broadpeak, CSI looks at Our inaugural listing of key suppliers in tel +44(0)20 7562 2438 the state of the Multicast-ABR market the cable, broadband and satellite sectors [email protected]

Subscriptions tel +44 (0) 20 1635 588 861 Editor’s report: [email protected] Circulation manager: joel.whitefoot@ While even the most luddite tech consumers have likely heard of 5G, you’d be perspectivepublishing.com forgiven for not being quite as familiar with ‘10G’, a cable-led initiative, including logo and (possibly) pending patent, to reflect its push towards multi-gigabyte, low- Subscription rates latency next-gen networks. Starting on page 11, cable industry expert Daniel Per year: Europe £88; UK £68; Rest of World £98. Cheques payable to Etman outlines the tools available in cable’s technology boxset to get to at least Perspective Publishing the 10G promise. Indeed, as Etman notes, already there are deployments in Europe using the Limited and addressed to the coaxial cable for 10 Gbps, full duplex, up to 3.5 Ghz. The drive to 10 Gigabit and beyond Circulation Department forms a large part of ANGA COM’s conference agenda this year, and we will be reporting back from the show on this and other key issues. Back with 5G, it will be all-encompassing for Printed by Buxton Press the next few years, affecting also satellite, DTT and other networks. Goran Nastic Managing Director John Woods

Perspective Publishing Publishing Director 3 London Wall Buildings London Mark Evans 2019 EC2M 5PD www.perspectivepublishing.com ISSN 1467-5935

www.csimagazine.com June 2019 03

03_Contents.indd 1 16/05/2019 10:27:43 News

news in brief First demo of 5G backhaul via LEO as Joyn launching in June satellite looks to 5G for growth ProSieben’s new streaming service Joyn, a joint Can satellites participate in The world’s first live test of John Miller, senior venture with Discovery, the 5G ecosystem? As 5G 5G services using a LEO manager, satellite demand will launch in June. aims to embrace other access satellite was conducted in and customer design for ProSiebenSat.1 said its networks including fibre and April with Telesat’s Phase 1 Vodafone Group, said: new streaming platform microwave, so the satellite LEO satellite connected to “The use of LEO satellites will provide over 50 TV sector is eager to play a role the University of Surrey’s 5G provides an additional mobile channels in live streams. that will drive new growth, test bed network. Specialist backhaul option and can be In addition, it will offer with backhaul seen as a key Vodafone engineers an important part of the on-demand self-produced use case. supported the trial and the delivery system particularly series, shows, previews and 5G can become the next company arranged licensing. to customers in our markets local content. Netflix was driver of growth for satcom Test results confirmed a who live in rural areas.” estimated to have just over and, according to NSR, with network reaction time (round Gilat and Newtec supplied 5 million customers in 1 out of every 3 new $ in trip latency) of 18-40 the high throughput modems Germany as of last capacity revenues for milliseconds, among the used for the test network. October. backhaul in the next 10 years lowest ever for a satellite Overall, a number of use- directly attributed to 5G. connection, according to cases for 5G require close Mediaset shifting payTV Now, a group led by the companies. The demo interworking between mobile, channels online Telesat and including supported video chatting, web terrestrial, fibre, microwave, Mediaset has closed its Vodafone and the University browsing and simultaneous satellite networks. In Europe, terrestrial operations on of Surrey have demonstrated streaming of up to 8K video. broadcasters are ramping up Italy’s DTT network that Low Earth Orbit The team also transferred 4K 5G trials to determine how effective June 1 and satellites can provide low- video to the edge of the 5G the technology can decided to go OTT-only. latency backhaul transport network, demonstrating a key complement (or substitute) As part of the move, for MNOs. 5G future use case. production and delivery. Mediaset Premium channels will migrate to the Infinity streaming Average broadband pricing falls in Q1 service. The move is part of a downsizing of the globally while bandwidth rises Mediaset Premium pay-TV In Q1 2019, the average last quarter, according unit following the failed monthly charge for fibre to the latest data from sale to Vivendi. Customers connections decreased by Point Topic. fell 80% to 300,000 at the 4.8% while the average price Asia-Pacific retained its start of 2019. of copper accesses dropped dominant position in terms by 1.5% and the charge for of bandwidth. In Q1 2019, Record losses for US TV cable accesses went up by the average bandwidth in Traditional video providers 1.3% compared to the this region was 472Mbps. in the US lost a record 1.4 previous quarter. Western Europe and North million subscribers in the The average bandwidth America followed with last quarter, compared to provided to residential 265Mbps and 253Mbps a loss of 808,000 in Q1 subscribers increased by respectively. 2018, according to nearly 7% compared to The lowest priced business MoffettNathanson. Q4 2018. The boost was tariffs were offered in Europe broadband download speed Satellite (Dish and impacted by the continued and North America while at 68Mbps. DirecTV) was worst hit. increase in bandwidth Asia-Pacific offered the In Q1 2019, the combined Craig Moffett noted that provided over fibre and highest average download average cost per Mbps on 40% of the subs lost in Q1 cable networks. The average speeds. broadband packages provided were converted to OTT-TV download speeds over fibre Middle East and Africa, over the three technologies providers, down from and cable increased by 6% which are focusing on mobile, dropped from $0.47 in Q4 89.4% in the year-ago. and 5% respectively in the had the lowest average fixed 2018 to $0.43 in Q1 2019.

04 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

4-5_News.indd 2 16/05/2019 15:32:49 News

Experimentation “critically important”, news in brief says NBA, as streaming giants circle live DT tops 100Gbps over microwave link OTT sports arena Advanced backhaul solutions will be needed to A panel at SportsPro Live in but let’s see what happens… support high data London debated the future There are going to be throughput and enhanced direction of sports streaming. different players in the mix. customer experience in “If you think of OTT as For the time being it’s about the 5G era. Ericsson a mature marketplace for finding the balance with and Deutsche Telekom entertainment, sports is not our current partners where have achieved what they there yet but we see two we can do things that are say is a landmark data phases on the horizon for the mutually beneficial.” transmission rate by growth in OTT sports,” said Through technology we are NBA worked with consistently topping Will Staeger of Endeavour making it easier to access our Twitter and Turner to follow 100 Gbps in a trial Streaming. “We haven’t seen sport. We use OTT and a single player with the microwave link over the big streamers like Netflix technology to think about camera for the entire game. 1.5km. Conducted at and Amazon fully step in. how we can change the “There are eyeballs that are the telco’s service centre I think that phase is coming. formats of the games we put on Twitter that might not be in Athens, the project How will that disrupt the out to suit fans in different on Turner but the belief is achieved more than 10 market? I also think we will time zones on different digital that all parties would times greater throughput see more DTC services from platforms. It’s about how can benefit and it’s in most speeds than current the leagues.” we use the product to solve cases a complimentary tool. commercial solutions on “I don’t know if the future the problems our fans have “But from a rights similar 70/80 GHz of sport is OTT,” said Sam rather than just putting a standpoint it will be tricky millimetre wave spectrum. Jones, CEO of NFL Game broadcast stream online,” and we want to do what’s Pass, the league’s premium Jones said, adding the Game best for our current partners Cellular IoT streaming product. “I think Pass is seeing strong growth while at the same time connections pass 1bn OTT has a strong role to play particularly in markets growing our fan base Cellular IoT connections but looking at the music without broad FTA coverage. and delivering games in reached 1.2 billion industry it moved to be an “There’s a place for OTT a way that young viewers worldwide in 2018, driven experience around what the and DTC”, agreed Jason especially now want to by “exceptional adoption” fan is interested in. That’s Kaufman, SVP of research, see them. We appreciate in China, which accounted something that sports leagues NBA. “It’s definitely a our partners want to for 63% of the global are beginning to grasp. The balance. As you see new experiment, and learning installed base. Berg Insight content and experience both players like Amazon and what works and doesn’t is projects that there will be start with the fan, not with Apple... Netflix said they critically important for 9bn IoT devices connected the technology or rights. don’t want to be in sports everyone going forward.” to cellular networks worldwide in 2023. “The most distinctive European viewing reveals meteroic rise characteristic of the Chinese IoT market is the of online TV but also FTA TV on mobiles way that the government is Online TV is now the second nScreenMedia for Gracenote. nearly eight in ten. systematically using new most popular source behind Nearly half of viewers in The report also found that technology to implement payTV with usage ranging the countries studied are FTA TV is gaining traction its vision for urban life in from just under 40% in multi-source TV households. on mobile. More FTA the 21st century.” Germany to more than 50% in In the UK, 17% use all three viewers use broadcast apps the UK and Sweden. TV sources available to them, to supplement viewing than CSI Awards 2019 In Sweden, 31% consider higher than the other two. payTV viewers use operator This is your last chance online TV to be their primary In Germany free-to-air TV TV Everywhere apps. Over to enter our awards! See TV source, the highest of the still rules and accounts for half of FTA users in each www.csimagazine.com/ three countries studied by the majority of viewers at country use broadcast apps. awards for more details.

www.csimagazine.com June 2019 05

4-5_News.indd 3 16/05/2019 15:33:06 Data corner

giants in the form of iQiYi, Tencent and Youku, (live streaming platform Streaming in Asia — the Douyou is also part owned by Tencent). Each shows monthly usage rates among online homes at new local power players greater than 50% in Ampere’s local By Guy Bisson of Ampere Analysis consumer survey, although iQiYi is a clear leader. aid-streaming TV is SVoD today are Hong Kong, Malaysia The Chinese and Indian local a fast emerging and China, with Japan South Korea, streaming majors all deploy mixed phenomenon in Asia. and Thailand catching fast. India and business models which distinguish them While most countries China represent two key markets in strategically from their international in the region show the region thanks to their sheer size, peers, and while local content is key, streaming but offer very different environments it’s often the mix of access, pricing subscription uptake for local and international SVoD tiers, bundling and wider content Prates below 30%, usage of paid opportunity. Overall SVoD uptake in strategy around sport that distinguishes streaming in Asia has grown China stands at 27%, by contrast, the streaming platforms in these two very from virtually zero just a couple rate in India is just over 3%. different markets. of years back. Super aggregation has been one of One interesting aspect of the region is India and China are becoming the keys to success in China, but in the unique way in which local players hotbeds of new content contrast to the super aggregation approach the streaming market in terms development strategy recently detailed by Apple, of business models and content As a largely closed market, China lacks the Chinese majors do everything proposition, as well as the thriving international players. By contrast, India themselves. China’s iQiYi, Tencent market for local streaming players. is much more international in its and Youku have all diversified into A result of the growth of streaming streaming TV usage with relatively high other content formats, including TV in Asia as a whole, and China and usage of social media platforms that books and comics, as well as into India in particular, is the boost seen in host video (Facebook, Instagram and ticket sales for live events and retail local content production. Both India Twitter) as well as international SVoD tie ins and buy through from products and China are becoming hotbeds of platforms like Netflix. featured in the shows they transmit. new content development, driven in But what unites both markets is the This internal diversification is both part by the emergence of several local emergence of a significant number of a factor in their success and a situation major streaming platforms. local streaming majors. China has seen driven by the closed nature of the The strongest Asian markets for the rapid growth of three local SVoD Chinese content market and the scale

06 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

6-7_DataCorner.indd 2 16/05/2019 15:34:39 Data corner

opportunity that presents. SVOD penetration of homes in Asia The second tier of Chinese streaming services is made up of more specialised players, exploiting niches of scale, like BilliBilli with its gaming focus and content strategy centred on Japanese and Chinese anime. DouYou, the live streaming platform, has also exploited demand for gaming and eSports. India, with its much lower SVoD uptake, has taken a different approach to mixed services and business models. And sport is a key driver in the Indian streaming market. Leading platform Hotstar mixes both content and business models with free and pay tiers and a powerful sports pack that features key Indian cricket content. It is the only India: top ten video streaming sites local platform to register over 50% usage by online homes in Ampere’s consumer survey. Jio Cinema, part of major local mobile group Jio Reliance, bundles its streaming service with mobile contracts, pushing it to second place among the local streaming majors, although Sony Picture’s Sony Liv, driven by access to content from its linear channels and a smattering of key sports is of equal scale. Smaller, but still important, players like Eros, Altbaliji and Zee rely on access to local content, pushing them to usage rates between 10% and 20% of online homes in India. Streaming services in the region have China: top ten video streaming sites been one of the key drivers for new show commissions, helping to drive China and India to the number two and four slots among the top five international (outside USA) markets for the number of new TV shows going into production or development. China and India both have a notable focus on drama commissioning with romantic content being key in both markets (particularly China) with comedy in India and sci-fi in China also important. With streaming TV the driver, international opportunity must be next on the agenda for Asia’s fast growing

content sector. Analysis Ampere Source:

www.csimagazine.com June 2019 07

6-7_DataCorner.indd 3 16/05/2019 15:35:02 Cover feature

capacity,” says Belal Cable and 5G set to open a Hamzeh, senior vice- president and CTO at CableLabs. ““They will then new phase of convergence be able to deliver a 5G service well ahead of that provided by the competition.” David Adams assesses the role cable Speaking at the CES cable event, Cox operators can play in the 5G ecosystem as Communications CEO Pat Esser said: “This is not a battle about 5G and the relationship enters its early phase 10-Gig. Actually, if you’re trying to roll out a wireless 5G network you need us here was a time when infrastructure does function as it should deploying a 10-Gig network.” advances in mobile and that coverage is eventually fairly This points up one of the big phone technology comprehensive in markets where challenges for cable operators, which carried little more consumer demand drives adoption. concerns how best to use HFC and professional interest What does this mean for the cable fibre backbone facilities to support 5G, to cable TV operators industry in general, and for cable TV regardless of whether they offer a retail than did advances in operators in particular? 5G service 9more on which later). Tlawn-mowing. Admittedly, that was Cable operators that are not also a long time ago – mobile services Telcos have cable in sight with 5G mobile/wireless providers might have been part of some cable FWA comfort themselves with the thought operators’ service bundles for Some mobile operators certainly have that it may be a long time before many years now – but only in cable TV companies in their sights. reliable small cell-based 5G recent times have advances in Verizon’s new fixed wireless access infrastructures are in place. But as 5G mobile really become very relevant (FWA) offering in the US is an attempt equipment develops and adoption to cable operators’ strategies. to take on cable: offering consumers increases over the next five to ten years With the launch of 5G the high speed connections beamed directly it will become more economical to convergence between these two areas of to home receivers capable of delivering manufacture, procure and install that technology enters a new phase. On a high quality video. True, the service will equipment. Further advances And technical level, 5G should live up to at almost certainly not be as reliable as a although some demographic groups least some of its hype, providing faster, cable-based service at first, but no cable may be less interested than others in 5G more reliable, higher capacity mobile operator will want to see another FAW propositions as an alternative to networks, reducing latency in video potential source of competition cable subscriptions, we should also delivery from 10 milliseconds to a appearing in their market, particularly if expect the best quality phone and tablet fraction of one. 5G networks should priced competitively. screens to improve and to become be able to support up to 1 million Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are all cheaper over the same period, which connections per square kilometre, developing and launching 5G services might help make 5G services more whereas 4G can only support 100,000. in the US at what might be described as attractive for a wider range of viewers. Of course, that assumes the a sensibly cautious pace. But once such On the other hand, as Hamzeh points infrastructure can overcome 5G’s services are up and running they could out not, even if 5G can deliver Gigabit weaknesses, such as the way that use of present a potent commercial threat to connectivity and low latency video to high frequency millimetre waves limits cable operators. Research conducted by the home, many cable operators already cell size, or the fact that the waves are Macquarie suggests 57 per cent of US provide this. In the US, between 70 and blocked by building materials and consumers would consider switching 80 per cent of residential broadband disrupted by weather conditions, which their home broadband services from customers already access to 1GB mean a large number of antennae need a cable provider to a telco. internet via cable. to be used within each cell. Anyone Of course, many cable operators Hamzeh questions whether 5G trying to build an infrastructure capable also offer mobile/wireless services, so services will be able to deliver 1GB of delivering video to a mass audience will be launching 5G services of their connectivity reliably and at scale. will need to build/buy and install a lot own. “In many instances we see it as “Cable operators today are able to of equipment. complementary for cable operators deliver a 1GB service at scale; and with But let’s assume that the with a rich infrastructure in scale and technologies being delivered at

08 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

8-10_5G.indd 2 16/05/2019 15:37:39 Cover feature

CableLabs we have a roadmap to go provide 10GB internet one day, broadband services, especially where well beyond 1GB per second,” he says. although probably not for a long time. coax or fibre already exist,” he says, Nor is connection speed the most Either way, it’s striking that those who pointing out that the 5G New Radio important consideration: “You need talk up 10G and those hyping 5G have (NR) customer premises equipment high speed, low latency, high capacity, both spoken a great deal about the that will be needed to terminate and security.” other purposes to which both 5G NR signals is still very expensive. These are also the attributes that the infrastructures could be put, enabling “Both the size of the cell and the cable industry has been highlighting greater use of smart home and smart range of the GBps signal constrain when discussing its ‘10G’ programme city technologies, driverless cars, GBps-plus speeds,” Cheevers explains. (more on which on page 11), a planned augmented reality, healthcare, “5G NR also typically requires an network upgrade that will bring 10GB educational and business applications outdoor unit for RF signal termination per second broadband services into and so on. It’s important to remember to baseband in the home. This all adds homes within the next few years. the wider context here – this is not just complexity, CapEx and OpEx costs.” In one sense, the promises attached about providing video to the home. He expects to see 5G drive more to 10G can be viewed as aspirational in But if we are just talking about home consolidation and new partnerships in the same way as those related to 5G, entertainment and other broadband wired and licensed wireless provider because it will be a long time before services, Charles Cheevers, CTO, CPE markets, but also believes cable cable equipment used in the last mile and technology, at CommScope (now operators and their customers will gain enables universal 10GB speeds. The fact that the acquisition of Arris is significant value from the roll-out of that the initiative is called 10G also complete), suggests that at present Full-Duplex DOCSIS (FDX) solutions, makes it look like a slightly panicked economic factors favour cable well before 10G becomes a reality. response to the hype surrounding 5G. operators. “The economics still favour Cisco and Arris (CommScope) are And 5G infrastructures might also cable operators for higher-speed among the vendors developing a way

www.csimagazine.com June 2019 09

8-10_5G.indd 3 16/05/2019 15:37:43 Cover feature

According to Cisco’s latest Mobile Visual Networking Index (VNI) forecas (left), by 2022, 5G connections will represent over 3% of total mobile connections (more than 422 million global 5G devices and M2M connections) and will account for nearly 12% of global mobile data traffic. By 2022, the average 5G connection (22 GB/month) will generate about 3X more traffic than the average 4G connection (8 GB/month).

of using FDX that increases throughput for an increasingly complex, evolving ecosystem,” says Cheevers. “It’s opened in both directions. CableLabs and other 5G infrastructure will need to plan up a number of new opportunities.” vendors are also working on other capacity and contractual terms These include further development ways to extract maximum value from very carefully. and improvement of DOCSIS, HFC a DOCSIS 3.1-based infrastructure. Cheevers outlines some steps cable and FDX products; of gateway devices operators will need to take if they and infrastructure equipment; and want to exploit this opportunity to opportunities related to the addition “5G requires an the greatest possible extent, including of CBRS as a 5G band, which will investing in demarcation points such allow cable operators to license extensive backhaul as utility poles for 5G FAW; and use spectrum for other uses. of Dual Sim technology to support “Wireline network providers will network and cable in-home use of CBRS (Citizens also have opportunities to partner Broadband Radio Services) or 5G NR. or build wireless 5G solutions, because operators are well- “The cost of 5G, for fixed wireless 5G NR and the future wireless world access in particular, must be as require wired connections to 500ft cell equipped to provide economical as (or better than) pulling sites, and, potentially to all the utility fibre to the end location,” says and light poles erected,” Cheevers that.” Cheevers. “This is particularly continues. “The 5G rollout may pronounced for an operator that already foster more collaboration across the has an expansive HFC [Hybrid Fibre- ecosystem. We’ll see partnerships The 5G backhaul opportunity Coaxial] or FTTH [fibre-to-the-home] between mobile network operators Cable operators will also benefit from network. This has the cost advantage and cable operators, where the use of their coax lines to power 5G of acquiring customers with an former leverages the backhaul of small cells. Research from CableLabs extension of the network and using the cable plant.” suggests DOCSIS-based networks will a cost-effective consumer premises For now, all eyes will be on consumer play a big role in 5G backhaul, as they equipment solution.” reaction and business strategies used have a total cost of ownership that is The acquisition of Arris and in the markets where 5G will roll out lower than more fibre-based networks – associated brands by CommScope will in 2019 and 2020. Ultimately, as with although fibre will also have a role to help the company exploit opportunities so many other technologies, the hype play in core networks for 5G. related to 5G: it is in part a commercial surrounding 5G may be forgotten “5G requires an extensive backhaul reaction to the increasing convergence as the technology is improved and network and cable operators are between wired and wireless developed by many different industry well-equipped to provide that,” communications. “As part of participants. But cable operators will says Hamzeh. CommScope, we’ve got a true end-to- still need to consider very carefully how But cable operators and others end view of the ecosystem and are the roll-out of this technology can and looking to benefit from opportunities to already looking at new ways to improve will affect them in both the near and make money out of providing backhaul the infrastructure of the cell the longer term.

10 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

8-10_5G.indd 4 16/05/2019 15:37:43 Cable tech

The focus is on Cable`s toolbox to get to 10G Remote MACPHY but Remote PHY can The cable community is trumpeting its ability to offer also be used in combination with a symmetrical bandwidth far in excess of 1Gbps with Remote CCAP core. FMA is not a its 10G initiative. How can it get to its vision? Industry finalised specification expert Daniel Etman offers some answers and is still work in progress. Most of t has only been a couple of the fact that this is a transitional the concerns with R-PHY are latency months since the cable architecture. related, but complexity plays a role industry started the Dell’Oro Group projects that Remote as well. However, the Low Latency marketing offensive to push PHY and Remote MACPHY unit DOCSIS specification recently back on the mobile industry’s shipments, which include both new announced by Cablelabs does resolve “owned” 5G messaging, nodes and modules, will grow from just some of those concerns. introducing and trademarking under 31,000 units in 2018 to 61.1,000 Virtualisation of the CCAP is a topic I“10Gtm”. This was mostly an effort units in 2020. With an estimated that tends to become a religion, with to point out that Cable as an installed optical node base of around R-PHY being a key raw material in the industry is perfectly able to offer 1.1 million nodes and growing, those drive to virtualisation. Once a CCAP symmetrical, low latency numbers represent just a fraction of the becomes a device without cable-specific bandwidth to its subscribers that total addressable market (see chart). hardware on it, it becomes a router with go well beyond the 1Gbps. Although the benefits are clear, Ethernet interfaces, which is pretty So what are the tools that the Cable reduced power, cooling and physical “easy” to virtualise. industry have in their toolbox to execute footprint in the hub-sites, cable There are two ways to achieve this: on the 10G claim? operators will likely only insert DAA use the old-fashioned dumping of a Distributed Access Architectures when there is an actual operational monolithic software construct in a (DAA) is a good place to start, after drive and opportunity to do so. Next to virtual machine (VM); or, better in my all, this is the technology that is driving that, maturity of the products has also view, get to a software construct that a lot of the elements required to get been slowing down deployments. enables you to take real advantage of where cable needs to go. Interestingly, only recently a new virtualisation. By using state-of-the-art Where is the industry with DAA? Of architecture was introduced by software architectures, breaking down the two flavours, Remote PHY and Cablelabs, the Flexible Mac the software in multiple micro-services Remote MACPHY, the first is still Architecture (FMA), which is all about you are, in theory, able to simplify the gathering the most traction. disaggregating the management, control operation and maintenance of the Nevertheless, the adoption of DAA has and data planes, effectively defining the CCAP in a dramatic fashion. The actual been slow, a lot of that has to do with head-end re-architected as a data centre. quantifiable advantages are in the use of “bare metal” servers, increases in service velocity and customer experience. Take custom, expensive-to-develop, hardware out of the equation, add FMA to that and you have the perfect storm likely resulting in a dramatic change in the CCAP vendor landscape. Interestingly, virtualisation also allows for a radical change in the business relation between the vendor and service provider (SP). Why buy a product as an SP if you can buy a service tied into specific KPIs? Full Duplex DOCSIS (FDX) is a

Source: Dell’Oro Group, January 2019 Group, Dell’Oro Source: technology enabled by DAA and

www.csimagazine.com June 2019 11

11-12_CableFocus.indd 3 16/05/2019 15:39:27 Cable tech

“Take custom, expensive-to- develop, hardware out of the equation, add FMA to that and you have the perfect storm likely resulting in a dramatic change in the CCAP vendor landscape.”

probably equally as contentious as well. FDX allows for upstream and downstream to use the same spectrum on the cable network… smart. This basically turns DOCSIS into a 10G technology, but not yet really symmetrical, as that will require HFC future? Will it continue to build on top What about latency? Double digit networks to be utilising spectrum of the existing, complex, architectures? microseconds on the Coax network up beyond the 2 Ghz. But FDX is a big Or will we see a completely new to the RPD, with a single home on an step toward 10G, the only issue being architecture come to life? FDX segment. Latency would be very that it requires an ‘n+0 HFC’ For example, why not use the coaxial low. And this all without having to architecture, which means no more cable for ultra-high frequencies using a dig fibre, hence the cost savings are amplifiers. Unfortunately, not a lot of more common, less complicated, MAC significant compared to replacing coax cable operators are planning for n+0 layer? What if we can use that same with fibre. any time soon, this due to the cable for frequencies up to 5Ghz, or One could also clearly see the significant CAPEX involved with that beyond? We would then be able to get synergies with 5G, if you have morphed upgrade. The good news is that well beyond the 10Gbps, full duplex. the coaxial network in a network able to CableLabs is working to enable FDX Already there are deployments in support low latency bandwidth well in a n+x architecture, but likely limited Europe using the coaxial cable for 10 beyond 10Gbps, why not use this to n+2 or so. Gbps, full duplex, up to 3.5 Ghz. network for mobile back- or front-haul? One thing is for sure, it will not As Moore’s law continues to rule we 5G requires many more cell sites, and make DOCSIS less complex. would be able to put RPD system-on- in many countries coax is all over chip (SoC) technology in a RF TAP the place. Beyond DOCSIS: some (Ed note: that is a passive device in So for those that think DOCSIS is recommendations for future a cable network behind the amplifier a dead-end road, think again - we have network architectures where you split the coaxial cable, with only just begun. This gets us to the really interesting something like 4 or 8 outputs per tap) discussion, what is next for cable? and drive a single home with FDX, DOCSIS will continue to be no actives and no passives. Now that Daniel Etman is a Business important and relevant for cable, but would get you 10 Gbps full duplex Innovator and Strategy Consultant how will it look like in the (near) into the home.

12 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

11-12_CableFocus.indd 4 16/05/2019 15:39:52 Sponsored by: www.csimagazine.com

Multicast ABR

Reconciling live TV with OTT distribution

Broadpeak_focus_CSI.indd 1 15/05/2019 11:47:13 Multicast ABR

the report highlighted. Transforming live Of course, M-ABR has its detractors. “Multicast ABR is a managed network game. OTT streams with M-ABR providers cannot take advantage of M-ABR because they don’t own Goran Nastic asks if Multicast ABR is set for the delivery networks and they can’t transit multicast traffic over broader adoption the Internet,” notes Kyle Goodwin, Vice President of Product and t is not a secret that the increasing cost-efficiencies”. Innovation, Vecima Networks. internet was never originally This is because unicast streaming “Multicast is only viable over managed designed to carry video does not scale to popular live events networks, but managed networks have traffic, let alone the volume such as World Cup football matches. reliable bandwidth meaning ABR is of IP video traversing global M-ABR minimises bandwidth unnecessary to deal with varying networks today. The last consumption, and therefore the load on network bandwidth, so while multicast few years have seen a routers, by ensuring that bandwidth is solutions are useful Multicast ABR dramatic change in the way only consumed once on a given IP link lacks a viable use case,” he argues. Ipeople watch TV, with OTT and for each stream and not separately for And, as Edgeware’s Bolin notes: VoD services slowly replacing every user, irrespective of the device “There are certain live events such as traditional broadcasting. they are using to view the content. major football matches where multicast This shift towards multi-screen Adaptive bit rate video delivery dates would be a good option, but content viewing on different connected devices back to before 2010, so it is not a new providers have to consider whether it is is forcing those involved in online video concept, but the growth in online video worth developing a solution that only to rethink their approach to delivering has led some big video technology applies to a certain number of live streams to customers. One only has to companies chasing the M-ABR events each year.” look at the trend away from some of the opportunity. Since it formed, But as Anevia CTO Damien Lucas old legacy IPTV platforms to more agile Synamedia has been vocal in identifying explains, the point is really around OTT-centric ones, many of which reside M-ABR as a target market, while the traffic peaks and how to cope with in some form of cloud environment. newly reformed Velocix also touts its those high peaks. Indeed, even the There are also efforts ongoing to Multicast ABR capability. largest operators struggle to cater for incrementally ‘re-engineer’ networks for The last 12 months has seen the wide variations in capacity with the future video age, with some service multicast ABR gain some significant sharp peaks when they are streaming providers introducing TV-centric CDNs traction in the broadcast sector. Recent live content at high resolution to several and considering deep edge caching. predictions suggest that the global million viewers simultaneously (the Multicast-ABR (adaptive bit rate) is multicast ABR market will be worth company ran a trial with CanalSat in another technology option. This allows $852 million by 2023, initially driven by the hotel and hospitality market broadcasters to use just one signal to growth in Europe, before spreading to combining the Anevia CDN and deliver content to millions of viewers. North America, Latin America and, multicast client). Proponents argue it could revolutionise eventually Asia. “If you look at most of the operators, broadband viewing by reducing This is according to Rethink TV, they would like to switch 100% of their bandwidth and capacity bottlenecks. which points to multicast ABR riding to TV service to OTT,” Lucas said, “For IPTV or classical cable TV the rescue of OTT video as the boom in referring to the likes of Comcast, operators with a large number of live sports distributed unicast puts DirectTV, Canal+, Sky and others. existing customers that predominantly infrastructures and associated costs Broadpeak sees the same trends, and watch linear programming, the under intolerable strain. has for several years argued that payTV technology can add real value,” agrees “The challenge lies not so much in operators would like to transition from Johan Bolin, chief product & scaling the services themselves to legacy broadcast or classic IPTV to all- technology officer, Edgeware. millions of simultaneous users but the ABR delivery. “Multicast ABR provides a great way associated costs and latency. Operators The French company is acknowledged for these operators to start deploying are finding they are paying far too much as the clear market leader, with its HTTP-based services, letting them to CDN providers transporting all those nanoCDN technology deployed by modernise their platform while streams as separate unicast instances,” service providers of all types (even

14 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

Broadpeak_focus_CSI.indd 2 16/05/2019 15:42:55 Multicast ABR

satellite and DTT, more of which later) explained. Moreover, Broadpeak has made its across some 100 different devices, such Broadpeak’s proposal, on demo at agent available as an Android app, and as gateways, set-top boxes, cable modems this year’s NAB, is to combine CMAF is working with middleware providers. and WiFi routers. Among them are low latency with M-ABR, illustrating “Our core proposal is keep what you DSL gateways for Cellcom in Israel, that CMAF-LL by itself is not enough. have, could be satellite, multicast for fibre gateways for Beeline in Russia, set- “M-ABR is a way to resolve the problem IPTV or even terrestrial, but instead of top boxes for Delta in The Netherlands. of the network and make sure your putting MPEG-TS inside you just put At Icelandic telco Siminn, the client packets are on time. So 200 to 300 streaming format, ABR,” Sterkers said, software is also in its 4K set-top boxes. milliseconds of buffer is enough, we noting there is an operator in South know that from our past experience in Africa that wants to use the solution for Tackling low latency streaming IPTV” Sterkers said. terrestrial with streaming . with M-ABR and CMAF At the NAB, Broadpeak showed how The approach favoured by Broadpeak is it manages low latency together with Has the time come for M-ABR? live or popular content multicast all the synchronisation of screens. The Standard connected devices like way to in-home device, after which company uses a trigger, in this case the smartphones and tablets don’t support point a process called transcasting takes reception of a new iframe, to multicast, meaning support for the place, where multiple unicast streams synchronise all the screens for all protocols has to be implemented in the are then pushed to other connected subscribers throughout the network. residential gateway. However, these devices. In this case, the end points Sterkers noted that Broadpeak can work protocols are not yet standardised, almost act as a mini-origin server inside with set-top box manufacturers to requiring proprietary software to be the home. ensure that the buffering strategy is integrated into a wide range of content If the multicast reaches right into the exactly the same for all STBs to achieve providers. This, from what CSI home, it brings the added benefit of perfect synchronisation. understands talking to various vendors reducing latency. In terms of use cases, it also based on feedback from operators, can Those who have attended industry demonstrated ad insertion with ABR, very quickly become complicated from trade shows or conferences recently will emergency alerts/ES insertion and an operational and maintenance have noticed the attention place on playlist & manifest manipulation, which perspective. achieving low latency streaming down may not have been possible with “Shifting to OTT, to an ABR format to broadcast levels. traditional broadcast. has been very complex for the whole There are two main causes of “We think that definitely ABR is the industry. People were more focused on streaming latency. One is the segmented format of the future. Once you reach getting their system up and running. nature of the stream, and the second, that point where you have no regression They haven’t taken so much time in even bigger one, is the size of the buffer against traditional IPTV then you get all optimising and that’s coming now,” in the player, according to Damien the benefit of the ABR”, he said. reckons Sterkers. Sterkers, product line manager, “The satellite industry is very So while Sterkers acknowledges that Broadpeak. “What we are saying is you interested in this application as well,” implementing M-ABR has its need CMAF low latency and you need Sterkers added, “Because when we are challenges, he thinks the time is now to do something on the network to doing multicast to distribute the most right for more operators to dip their feet make sure the packets arrive on time so important content we can also do it in the water. you can shrink that buffer,” he through satellite.” Cable Labs started standardisation work in 2014 but CSI understands there has been no update since 2016 and that has actually passed on to SCTE. However, the DVB should have an M-ABR spec in the next 12-18 months and Broadpeak is actively participating in this process. In the meantime, the company is confident it will continue to deploy M-ABR commercially with operators of all types, building up momentum on a long-term vision before any significant competition emerges.

www.csimagazine.com June 2019 15

Broadpeak_focus_CSI.indd 3 16/05/2019 15:43:16 M-ABR Q&A With Damien Sterkers, Product Manager at Broadpeak

Can you briefly explain to our newer streaming formats for time-shift This implies that it’s no longer possible, readers what multicast-ABR and VOD. like initially imagined at the beginning actually is and does. of MABR, that the MABR agent acts as The principle of multicast ABR What is the business case for a man-in-the-middle and intercepts the (MABR) is to distribute video content M-ABR? content requests sent by the player. The over multicast IP, just like traditional The main benefit of MABR is really to system shall instead implement a IPTV, but embedding an adaptive reconcile live TV on the big screen with discovery mechanism so that the player bitrate (ABR) streaming format such as the rest of the video applications. can find the agent and addresses its DASH or HLS rather than the usual Today, most TV operators are still using requests directly. These are only MPEG-TS. traditional broadcast for delivery to the examples. There are things to keep in TV screen, mostly because OTT unicast mind to make sure the system complies Technically, a multicast ABR distribution is not deemed safe enough with real-life and full-scale commercial implementation relies on two to deliver high-revenue programs in deployments but pitfalls are generally components: good quality, and they have to make it simple to avoid with a little bit of • A transcaster server in the headend co-exist with their OTT distribution experience. retrieves its sources from any ABR workflow in the adaptive bitrate format. origin server and wraps them into Using MABR enables operators to Some people talk about the multicast. preserve the quality and safety of operational complexity of deploying • At the other end, a lightweight agent content at the level of a traditional M-ABR. To what extent is this true in the home CPE, typically an IP system while taking advantage of the and how can Broadpeak help gateway or a set-top box, receives benefits of the ABR format. Targeted minimise these challenges? and unwraps the multicast to make advertising is only one of the Deploying MABR is not particularly the content available to all devices advantages. Other obvious advantages complicated. Generally it needs to be in the home in unicast. include the ability to distribute video on integrated into a multi-vendor mobile devices, or to handle cross- environment, and resolving all What problem is M–ABR trying to screen cloud PVR and time-shifting interoperability topics can be more or solve? services. less complex, but that’s not something MABR is a solution that fits between new. traditional IPTV (MPEG-TS over Are there common deployment The most sensitive point of multicast) and typical OTT (ABR scenarios or design goals at a high interoperability is probably to integrate format over unicast). Perhaps counter- level that operators – cable, the MABR agent into a third-party intuitively, operators today are mostly satellite, telco, OTT - can/should CPE, but the embedded systems interested in MABR for resolving keep in mind? nowadays mostly rely on standard Linux traditional IPTV problems rather than There are indeed a few important versions, a well-known environment. OTT. principles to follow during the design We’ve now integrated our agent in over Basically, they want to capitalise on phase to avoid dead ends. For example, 80 devices, giving us the opportunity to all of the advantages of ABR for their when the video is intended to serve the industrialise the process, making it very IPTV service, in particular the ability to main screen, the audience expects fast and safe today. It’s also important address mobile devices and to latency for live events comparable to to note that Android TV OS is getting personalise the content (for example, broadcast, not a stream that is delayed more and more popular for set-top enabling targeted advertisements on the by tens of seconds as is usually the case boxes, making the integration even main TV screen). with OTT. Multicast ABR creates the simpler as the agent in that case takes Another significant advantage of network conditions to solve this issue. the format of a standard app. MABR is that it allows operators to It’s also important to make sure that deploy 100 percent ABR receivers the system supports https, which is What key recommendations would rather than complex hybrid systems every day becoming more of a you give to those thinking about mixing legacy broadcast for live with requirement for browsers and players. going down the M-ABR route?

16 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

Broadpeak_focus_CSI.indd 4 15/05/2019 11:47:14 M-ABR

2- The segmented nature of ABR. An ABR stream is composed of segments, typically 2 to 10s. The issue is that each point in the delivery chain, by default, has to wait for the segment to be fully downloaded, often in real time, before it can be passed to the next point downstream. The longer the segment, the more latency is added. CMAF can subdivide these segments into much smaller chunks, minimising this segmentation effect down to a point it becomes Our main recommendation is to take with MABR being an extreme case negligible in comparison to other advantage of the experience from the where a CDN element (i.e., the agent) factors, such as video encoding. various MABR systems already is actually placed in the home. Bringing deployed. Talk to the operators that caches closer also means having more In summary, the solution to erase the already use it in production and are of them, and MABR logically adds the latency on the delivery network is to successfully phasing out their broadcast notion of populating numerous edge combine both managed delivery of distribution, consider the various caches at the same time, with a more packets, which MABR offers, and architecture options with those that efficient point-to-multipoint protocol CMAF segments. It is important to have experience using these kinds of (i.e., IP multicast vs. point-to-point note, CMAF by itself is not sufficient as systems, and go through a thorough unicast). it doesn’t fix the first issue. proof-of-concept to validate and refine the architecture details. How does M-ABR achieve or How do you see M-ABR evolving, guarantee low latency, which is a what is on the horizon? CSI understands there is a big hot topic at the moment? We definitely perceive a momentum for industry debate taking place at the There are two main reasons for the MABR, and we foresee that its adoption moment between the merits of extra latency typically associated with will increase significantly. This is likely deep network caching. Can you OTT streaming, in order of impact: to be driven by two important issues, elaborate on this? Is there a which still need to be fixed: relationship with M-ABR? 1- The very large buffer that is • There’s a need to make IPTV We don’t see deep network caching and generally implemented on ABR and broadcast evolve toward ABR, but MABR as competitors but rather as two players, typically between 10 and traditional OTT streaming over unicast different and nonexclusive ways of 30s. The buffer is not there by is still not perceived as a good achieving the same goal, which is accident, it is meant to compensate candidate today, particularly because of optimising video traffic on the network. for the fact that video packet its limitations in terms of scalability and Today, for popular events, there are delivery is variable on an http quality of experience. often thousands of physical copies of network. It is possible to reduce that • There’s a need to optimise the exact same content going through buffer, but only if there’s something video delivery on IP networks. the network at the same time, provoking done on the network to secure a We also anticipate that, with its an unnecessary load on the network steady delivery. Using multicast on a popularity increasing, there will be and cost on the infrastructure. This is managed network is definitely a more effort toward standardisation. obviously something that needs to be solution. This is how traditional improved in the short term. Both IPTV is implemented, and IPTV technologies rely on the same principle, players work fine with buffers not Broadpeak can be found at ANGA Com 2019 bringing CDN caches closer to users, exceeding a few 100s of ms. in Hall 7 stand B52

www.csimagazine.com June 2019 17

Broadpeak_focus_CSI.indd 5 15/05/2019 11:47:15

Edge networking

introduced, media How Netflix localised content servers could deliver about 100-500 concurrent streams. delivery with CDNs at the edge Today a single server By Kevin Deierling can manage as many 100,000 concurrent consumer of video etflix copied the streams by cutting out the ‘muddle man’ plot of one of its - the clunky old fashioned centralised own dramas and data centre server. cooked up a Netflix localised its content delivery powerful Content by placing powerful CDN machines in Delivery Network co-location facilities right next to the (CDN) system that consumers “last mile” internet Ngives millions of concurrent connections. These CDN boxes have a subscribers a unique product. But massive need for bandwidth and the it needed some muscle from the Image by: Shutterstock.com only way to feed these monsters is to Network Edge. stream without any interruptions. create very intelligent agents to deal Netflix’s off screen conflict is worthy That means radically changing the with them - the SmartNIC. The name of dramatisation. This story has production process and taking out the makes it sound like they are 25 and 100 ramifications for everyone in this imperfections. Netflix cooks up media Gig Ethernet network adapter cards industry. How does Netflix cater for the and delivers it to the masses in a pure (NICs) but in truth they are powerful ramp up in subscriber numbers that it and powerful form by upgrading the network computers. needs without blowing its cash on CDN system and seamlessly streaming They’ve improved on previous expensive network services to reach its media to millions of customers without network adapter features to precisely customers? To add to the challenge, its so much as a hiccup. stream content at exactly the right product is more complicated than In IT terms it’s using a network quality and exactly the right rate to traditional broadcasting, where computer ‘at the edge’. IT architects thousands of consumers each of whom consumers take what they are given at a have their secret sauce to deliver these have slightly different requirements. fixed time. Netflix is much more chatty CDN edge devices - such as the Netflix made its streaming more and interactive with each customer, SmartNIC, which is easier to ingest responsive by placing the SmartNICS customising its communications for than the proper scientific name, such as exactly where demand is highest. every single individual. BlueField and ConnectX 100 Gigabit In the CDN designed for Facebook Netflix needs to build a scalable Ethernet Adapters with RiverMax Live, 98% of user requests are handled model that achieves what Don Draper media streaming technology. by the edge servers, drastically reducing says in the Mad Men series: “if you The upshot is Netflix can operate at the load on the origin servers. want respect, go out and get it yourself.” hyperscale and flood whole Traditional CDNs can’t handle Well the Netflix data centre architects neighbourhoods with addictive HD dynamic workloads. The demands of did exactly that: they went out and built video with stunning clarity. modern consumer applications are the most scalable, highest performance, Streaming infrastructures are built out beyond them, because their and most cost effective CDN system on like giant power grids today. Their architectures are outdated and their the planet. capacity to service tens of millions of software-caching platforms bloated and Traditional CDN infrastructure was people at once with individualised expensive. Streaming, for the modern built for a previous generation of content takes them well beyond metropolitan area network (MAN) material, which was static. However, traditional broadcast TV networks, who needs to move fast. Content distribution Facebook, Netflix and others have only send the same content, at the same is a young MAN’s game and needs the created user experiences based on time, to all of their customers all at new generation of high performance content discovery and recommendation once. This change in delivery was made and efficient networks. engines. Netflix’s Movie possible by IP. It is a practical response Recommendations, for example, provide to a change in the way we access Kevin Deierling is VP, instant interaction available to 60 entertainment. Marketing, Mellanox million subscribers. Facebook Live In 1997, when commercial audio and allows millions of users to watch a live video streaming platforms were first

www.csimagazine.com June 2019 19

19_Tech-Corner.indd 2 16/05/2019 15:45:21 Asia market

managed network or who don’t Streaming ahead in Asia own the provider’s set-top box.” The demand for mobile Anna Tobin reports on streaming media streaming combined with the availability of cheap smartphones dynamics in the Asian markets, many of is what is driving Asia’s streaming market, agrees Greg Armshaw, which are mobile-ﬁ rst and offer untapped head of media, Asia, at opportunities, but also unique characteristics Brightcove. “Android-based smartphones utside the partially geographical areas and a multitude of are the streaming devices with the most walled garden that is languages, which makes them users in Asia,” he explains. “Mobile China, the key particularly challenging for the big device manufacturers are able to territories of global players to crack and gives local produce good enough smartphones for Singapore, Hong content providers the upper hand (see well under $100 [£76.43]. The current Kong, India, South page 6 for an analysis of some of the market with low-cost device availability, Korea, Indonesia and local streaming platforms emerging out along with a competitive mobile telco OThailand are some of the fastest of Asia, especially China and India). market, delivers a wonderful sweet spot growing and competitive markets “In the context of the Asian pay-TV for internet TV adoption.” in the world for streaming media. industry, it’s clear that new priorities This doesn’t mean, however, that Younger generations of consumers are emerging,” says Simon Trudelle, it’s all plain sailing for OTT providers have created a new content landscape; senior director product marketing, in Asia, to be successful requires many of them have grown up in markets Nagra. “From shifting consumer planning and strategy, adds Armshaw. where pay-TV penetration has been behaviour to the rapidly evolving threat “Creating a strong value proposition below 20%, with mobile phones or of piracy, pay-TV operators across Asia equates to designing and implementing laptops their first point of access to have been forced into a radical top- smart customer acquisition and media. For the bulk of these audiences, down rethink of their business models. retention strategies that strike a their primary screen is mobile and they And with the rise of OTT platforms, balance between a robust content can’t get enough video content on it. pay-TV providers have an opportunity library, the pricing sweet spots, multi- These markets also often cover vast to reach new customers outside of the platform multiscreen accessibility and exceptional user experience. Source: Shutterstock.com Free trials and promotions are a strong initial driver for consumers to sign up for OTT TV; however, price is also the top barrier to adoption. “For SVOD OTT TV offerings, customer retention is by far the biggest challenge. Free OTT TV service trials and promotion drives acquisition, but it is the content that drives retention.” As many Asian content providers are delivering content to large, densely-populated audiences, they also experience huge disparities in quality. “The biggest challenges for the region’s OTT services are associated with delivering content to all those consumers at once without glitches or delays,” claims Richard Brandon, Edgeware’s chief marketing officer. “What we’ve found is that delivering to a baseline of audiences is one thing, but the real challenge for any OTT

20 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

20-23_AsiaTV.indd 2 16/05/2019 15:58:02 Asia market

Top international markets for new content comissioning

160

140

120

100

20 # shows in production/development # shows 0 UK China Japan India France

Action & Adventure Horror Crime & Thriller Children & Family

News & Current Affairs Documentary Reality Romance

Comedy Drama Entertainment Sci-Fi & Fantasy Analysis Ampere Source:

Source: Ampere Analysis

distributor is meeting a huge increase When to take ownership of a Owning the network should also in demand that’s bought about by network? give content providers greater a major event – like a World Cup Content providers in Asia often rent control over the lucrative advertising or Olympic Games. To meet this space on a public content delivery revenue stream and gives them more challenge, operators need a delivery network (CDN), but there comes opportunities to target audiences infrastructure that can be easily scaled a point when it makes economic sense with personalised advertising. up or down to meet the changing to build their own, says Brandon at Whether or not they own their nature of online traffic.” Edgeware. “A lot of countries in the networks, Asian content providers are The language and cultural differences APAC region have audiences that meet increasingly creative when it comes to across Asia and the ability to adapt to the criteria of a self-built delivery delivering their content, highlights these local delivery needs, all combine network – providing that there are Gideon Gilboa, SVP of product and to make it easier for local content enough users in a distinct area, and marketing at Kaltura’s media and providers to penetrate the different they watch online content for at least telecom group. He uses a South Korean Asian markets than for the big global one hour a day,” he explains. case study as an example of this. streaming players to. This means that for the broadcaster, “The Korea Content Platform (KCP), “I just came back from India,” a tipping point is reached where it a joint venture of the three largest says Gilboa at Kaltura, “over there makes more economic sense to build broadcasters in South Korea [KBS broadcasters have highly popular their own delivery network. With their (Korean Broadcasting System), MBC streaming services that are more own infrastructure in place, content (Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation) popular than Netflix and Amazon owners have much better control over and SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System)] Prime combined. If you take India, for their programming so that they can dial – is one of our clients. KCP is the example, it’s a matter of the content up and down services as needed. A TV direct-to-consumer arm of the three that they have and the languages within CDN can also offload peak capacity to broadcasters and it distributes content which they produce their content and public CDN services, so operators can digitally not only in South Korea, but the strength of the brand of the address different regions, areas or also to places around the world. broadcasters themselves.” audiences in different ways. “The interesting thing is that not only

www.csimagazine.com June 2019 21

20-23_AsiaTV.indd 3 16/05/2019 15:58:02 Asia market

do they have a direct-to-consumer Android TV in Asia devices shipped from retail during platform, they also use our platform to Another significant development is that period, though not Operator do OTT syndication. So they deliver the the rise of Android TV. There are Tier,” it said. same content and the same experience several large operators Some operators are choosing into other OTT applications that are using Android TV in Asia, including to deploy hybrid Android OTT highly popular and so dramatically Japan’s KDDI, Bharti Airtel and services, like PT LinkNet in increase their traffic,” Gilboa argues. Hathway in India, Taiwan’s Kbro, Indonesia, enabling them to and SK Broadband in South Korea. seamlessly deliver new hybrid ”We feel that India is fertile broadcast/Android-TV based OTT “The economic ground for something that is services to their subscribers. PT powerful, 4K, cheap and offers LinkNet deployed Nagra’s cardless aspect of tackling voice control,” noted Rethink TV content protection solution to Research in its report on Android secure the service. different wealth TV globally last year. The analyst This is because, as Nagra’s firm forecasts that by 2022 India Simon Trudelle points out, groups is interesting will ship Android TV to 24 million operators using Android TV still hybrid DTH homes, out of a total by need to ensure any service built and the solutions then of 92.8 million. on the platform is secure, are different market Along with Japan, Rethink sees protecting both the content owners Indonesia also embracing the and consumers’ data. by market.” platform. “Well known love of all “For many, its arrival has already things video among Indonesians, proven a watershed moment,” could see many more Android TV Trudelle says. All sides benefit from increased cooperation between OTT service adoption and as credit card use is not mobile devices on the poorest 3G providers and pay-TV operators, says widespread across Asia, operators also connections are able to view video Sascha Prüter, chief product officer at have to be creative with payment without buffering,” Armshaw says. Vewd. “While adaptive bitrate streaming options, adds Armshaw at Brightcove. allows for a relatively flexible approach “For SVOD in mobile-centric Asia, Taking on the pirates to varying access and bandwidth, it still the credit card is not a default set-and- Asia has always been a playground might mean finding unique solutions for forget type of payment behaviour. In a for content pirates and connected TVs, specific markets or regions,” he says. market where there is high prepaid set-top-boxes and smartphones have “Here a partnership with payTV mobile use and users watch their only made the potential for piracy operators could make sense to tackle spending, SVOD subscriptions tend to greater. “As viewer behaviours evolve, this problem with better QoS, traffic be transactional in a sense that a so does the piracy ecosystem,” notes prioritisation, etc.” decision to subscribe is a regular, Nagra’s Trudelle. And not only do content providers recurring decision making process. There’s a growing multi-national in Asia have to be flexible with their Subscribers, who are not buying a telco pirate ecosystem that needs to be fought delivery methods, they also need to be bundle, are actually more like sequential against that requires a more dedicated flexible with their payment plan, adds TVOD purchasers, with one-off and collaborative effort in terms of legal Prüter. “I think the ‘one offer for all subscriptions as low as $0.30. This enforcement, PR, and consumer markets’ is, for example, one of the makes communications with users all education, according to Trudelle. reasons that limits Netflix’s growth in the more important.” Nagra is very active in this area and markets like India. For a lot of OTT To keep users coming back for more, more recently has ramped up efforts in services, a combination of SVOD for most OTT TV services have a free/ the fight against piracy in Singapore by the higher ARPU targets and AVOD for AVOD layer of content. “What we are enabling DNS blocking of pirate servers entry level is a sensible combination, in seeing as less and less of a problem in that stream copyrighted content. Nagra addition to finding interesting bundling Asia, is affordability of the mobile data Anti-Piracy Services provide real-time opportunities, for example, with mobile required to view the content. Also, monitoring and forensic analysis of operators.” delivery technologies like context-aware illicit streaming devices (ISDs) and In economically challenged markets encoding and offline playback have applications delivering the evidence price is often the top barrier to helped ensure even the most basic submitted to High Courts to obtain

22 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

20-23_AsiaTV.indd 4 16/05/2019 15:58:02 Asia market

Asian subscription OTT penetration (% households) close partners we take this very seriously and work closely with them to Country 2018 provide counter measures on our China 26.60 platform. This can be anything from blacklisting illegal apps or actively Hong Kong 46.42 identifying illegal activities that might India 3.25 be harmful to either the provider or Indonesia 10.44 sometimes even the user – bear in mind they are not always aware what is illegal Japan 21.99 and what isn’t.” Malaysia 30.28 Content marking and tracking is Philippines 7.51 the way forward, adds Brandon at Edgeware, which has deployed a South Korea 18.02 forensic watermarking solution that Thailand 15.48 lets content owners add a unique visual code to each stream as it goes Source: Ampere Analysis out to audiences. One thing is for sure, the pirates a DNS blocking order and effectively Portugal) where the company enables are not dissuading content providers prevent popular pirate ISDs and DNS blocking of illegal transmissions from entering these burgeoning and applications from accessing pirated of international and national football dynamic Asian markets. Those that go content. The evidence submitted in championship games over the Internet. in aware of the need to protect against court can result in permanent “App stores and browsers on TVs, criminal activity, to tailor their delivery interruption - or black screens - across have become an additional entry point networks, their content and their infringing ISDs. and gateway to piracy,” points out pricing structures to the very specific Nagra supports such anti-piracy Prüter at Vewd. “Since content nature of each market has every efforts in Singapore (as well as providers and pay-TV operators are our chance of success.

www.csimagazine.com June 2019 23

20-23_AsiaTV.indd 5 16/05/2019 15:58:04 Opinion

solution for any device that has access Is pay-TV a potential blind to the broadband network for the acquisition of DRM licenses and the keys that enable content decryption spot for ATSC 3.0? for DRM-protected services. However, DVB’s Peter Siebert highlights one crucial this approach does not work for a broadcast-only system without a difference between the world’s two most permanent return channel. For this advanced DTT systems use case the necessary elements have not been specified yet by ATSC. here has been, for more video and audio, hybrid broadcast/ Knowing how important pay TV would than two decades, a kind broadband applications like targeted be for the rollout of digital broadcasting, of friendly rivalry advertising, video-on-demand, etc. DVB focused on Conditional Access between the DVB Project (CA) over broadcast-only networks right and our US-based Security implications of ATSC’s from the outset. The DVB Simulcrypt counterpart (for IP-based transport layer specification allows two or more CA terrestrial standards at I see only one fundamental difference systems to be used by the same receiver Tleast), the ATSC. When the first wave between ATSC 3.0 and DVB-T2: the population, particularly important of digital terrestrial television swept the introduction in the former of an when a pay-TV provider wants to globe, countries weighed the strengths IP-based transport layer. Since the switch to another CA system. The of DVB-T, ATSC and the Japanese inception of digital TV, all broadcast Simulcrypt approach is based on DVB’s ISDB-T system, adopting a given system transmission systems have been based toolbox of Common Scrambling based on criteria that were not always on the MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS), Algorithms (CSA) combined with the only technical. which offered a tailor-made solution for necessary signalling. When the DVB-T2 standard was the delivery of video, audio and data In addition, DVB also specified the published in 2009, it was the first, and over a uni-directional broadcast Multicrypt system, where all CA system- for some time the only, second- infrastructure. TS has been the specific elements are separated from generation DTT standard. With superior workhorse of the industry, and all the TV or set-top box and concentrated spectral efficiency and operational studio as well as transmission network in a Conditional Access Module (CAM). flexibility, DVB-T2 has become very infrastructures have evolved around this For this purpose, DVB specified the successful and is the technology of format. ATSC 3.0 breaks with the TS Common Interface (CI) between the choice in more than 100 countries. paradigm and uses an IP-based host and the module. The Multicrypt Our ATSC colleagues have now transport layer. If I was asked to approach allows pay-TV operators to delivered ATSC 3.0, which is a marked summarise the two approaches, I would integrate all CA-related functions in one advance on its predecessor. And so it say that ATSC has defined a broadband module, making STBs obsolete. should be: they brought together protocol stack — which can also be used There is an impressive ecosystem of considerable expertise to create an for broadcast — whereas DVB is using a CA solutions providers whose products advanced DTT specification that broadcast stack that can also be used are based on DVB specifications. About certainly gives DVB-T2 a run for its for broadband. 50% of all DVB receivers worldwide money. But what are the differences Now, this may seem like “six of one, have DVB CA solutions integrated. It between these two second-generation half dozen of another,” but ATSC’s is fair to say that DVB technology has DTT systems? Are there any that could IP-based transport layer has serious enabled the pay-TV broadcast market. be seen as a deal-breaker? consequences for one fundamental It’s something to keep in mind when On the physical layer, the differences aspect of the television industry: assessing the real-world differences are minimal. The systems use essentially content protection. between the two second-generation the same technologies. Any marginal In document A360 “Security and DTT systems. performance improvement that ATSC Service Protection,” ATSC provides the 3.0 offers comes at the cost of higher specifications required for DRM based complexity (and thus cost). Equally, on on the Transport Layer Security (TLS) the higher layers, both systems specify protocol, in combination with the MPEG Peter Siebert is head of the formats and services expected of Common Encryption (MPEG-CENC) technology at DVB modern television services: immersive scheme. This is certainly a good

24 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

24_DVB.indd 1 16/05/2019 16:00:05 A part of

18 to 20 Capture JUNE The Future 2019 Asia’s must-attend international event for the pro-audio, film, digital SUNTEC media and broadcasting industries. SINGAPORE www.Broadcast-Asia.com

www.broadcast-asia.com/register

Organised by: Held Concurrently: Join in the conversation:

#BroadcastAsia www.CommunicAsia.com www.NXTasiaExpo.com #ConnecTechAsia

BCA19_VP_CSIMagazine_H271xW204_D1.inddUntitled-1 1 1 06/03/20195/3/19 09:53:195:42 PM Q&A Q&A CSI caught up with Rinat Burdo, Video Security Product Manager, Synamedia, who highlights the problem of credentials sharing and how behavioural analytics can help

piracy. It is a fact now that streaming cover higher licence costs. piracy is prevalent among the younger In the context of credentials sharing, generation, but it is not just that age we hear more and more OTT providers group as more than 50% (of US and saying that subscriber concurrency UK consumers) watch video illegally! limits and device limits imposed by And nearly half of video consumers content owners are more restrictive watch on illegal platforms in addition to than they would like. Rights owner, with their legal subscription. justification, are imposing constraints to And let’s not forget credentials make it harder for the content to leak to sharing, which is another type of piracy, unpaid viewers. We also see OTT resulting in revenue loss to service providers increasing prices, to reflect providers (more on this later). the increase in usage. Rapidly changing technology, pirate operations and the individual user To what extent is the content intentions, makes this a complicated security business as a whole problem. This is why we need a solution being disrupted? Rinat Burdo of Synamedia that can combine both technology and Piracy can be found along the chain of intelligence. distribution. From the rights owner One of the assets that service distribution path to streaming piracy providers can harness to tackle this and credentials sharing. If in the past, problem is data, applying behavioural piracy was about hacking the CA or Streaming piracy is becoming much analytics to detect the suspicious DRM, now, there are other easy ways to more prominent as viewing habits behaviour of subscribers who abuse the extract clear video content with other change and technology advances. service, including sharing and leaking means, such as end-point devices via Is the problem becoming harder content for re-distribution. HDMI port, and redistribute this to tackle? content. Credentials sharing, abuse and It is correct that streaming piracy is What evidence are you seeing that fraud are also disrupting the Pay TV becoming harder to tackle. From a piracy levels are starting to impact business, since more and more users are technology perspective, setting up a how the way rights are agreed, comfortable sharing their credentials pirate streaming service is rather easy - managed and distributed? with their family and friends. Billions of there are online platforms that allow We see that piracy is having a major breached credentials are also posing a pirates to easily create their own impact on how rights are agreed and is threat to operators as well as potentially branded online services, which can becoming part of the service providers’ jeopardising the security of their sometimes provide the end user with negotiation with the rights owner. subscribers’ personal details. a service that doesn’t fall much behind Recently, beIN Sports decided to opt- Piracy is not just a disruption to the original service. out of F1 rights renewal in an effort to the pay TV business, with pirate Viewing habits are changing and users combat industrial-scale theft of its networks providing stable services, can get almost any content at any time. content. including warranties and great user- Starting with millennials, video piracy is Also, service providers are negotiating experience, service providers should becoming a social norm/cultural trend, sports rights down, claiming that since consider piracy as a competition, which is likely to persist because it content can find its way to potential affecting their marketing funnel. relies on social attitudes towards video subscribers in their region, they can’t Despite providers‘ increased marketing

26 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

synamedia_QandA.indd 1 17/05/2019 12:47:36 Q&A

spend to acquire subscribers, viewers is not disappearing, and it has actually are not staying loyal, and churn rates “We need a solution become a social norm, which is also are on the rise. Piracy turns content increasingly prevalent in older into a commodity, making it even that can combine age groups. According to Magid harder to monetise it. research, about a quarter of US both technology and consumers are using someone else’s What role does analytics play in credentials in order to watch online this space? intelligence.” video (and these are just the ones who Machine learning and behavioural admitted to doing so!) and Parks analytics are now a part of the game as Associates predicts that by 2021 well. Behavioural analytics, an area of credentials sharing will cost the data analytics, gleans insights about piracy toolbox. Take-downs are a band- pay-TV industry nearly $10B. people’s behaviour. aid: quick and useful, but only for a At Synamedia, we understand the The advantage in using analytics as limited time. Pirates can recover from potential risks involved in taking part of the toolbox for fighting piracy, is take-downs, and they can do it rather extreme measures against password that first, the data is out there, available quickly. Take-downs are not shutting sharing, and the need to handle this for service providers to leverage, and down the source of piracy, and even sensitively. Credentials Sharing Insight second, it allows a scalable and robust when the site is off, the streams may is a new solution that lets operators detection of different abusive still exist. Also, it’s easy for pirates to turn password sharing into a marketing behaviours. One may come up with a recover by moving to a different host. opportunity. Take the case of a kid set of rules, for determining what Moreover, legislation is regionally leaving home for university, and still classifies as ‘abusive’, but this is not focused, and pirates are well aware of using the family’s credentials for his sustainable over time. Since the nature that, so they encourage their audience video subscription – with our of human behaviour is to change over to hide behind VPNs or proxies in order technology, operators can identify this time (for example, at different times of to evade detection. issue and choose to offer the account the year), using learning models and The best approach is to combine owner an upgrade to a family account, analytics to derive patterns from the take-downs with watermarking and that allows a controlled level of sharing latest relevant data can assist in tackling anti-piracy automation tools and human with a family member based outside the as it evolves and in changing attitudes, intelligence to rapidly detect and locate owner’s household. by considering multiple data points in a pirate streams, identify the pirate On the other hand, when customers way that a human mind may not. source among subscribers, and disrupt use our tools to detect fraudulent, for- it in real time. profit credentials sharing activity, they With live OTT sports in mind, can move to shut down the account should more follow the Premier Compared to piracy, OTT service immediately. League’s proactive lead in site/CDN password sharing is less well take downs? understood as an issue. How What will you be showing at ANGA Take-down notices are a good tool for significant a problem is it and how this year? combatting streaming piracy, but they can Synamedia help those service At ANGA COM 2019, we will are not enough by themsleves. providers that want to tackle it? showcase Credentials Sharing Insight, Especially for sports events, where the Password sharing used to be perceived as well as the VideoGuard Streaming content is most valuable when it is aired by media executives as a way to attract Piracy Disruption managed service, live, fighting piracy requires fast a larger audience, and grow their which locates, detects, identifies responses. subscribers base. The assumption was and disrupt leaks from broadcast and Synamedia is in favour of having real- that millennials and gen-Z would OTT distribution. time take-downs, similar to what the become paying subscribers over time. Premier League were able to do, but we But the industry is realising that Synamedia can be found at ANGA COM see this as one of the tools in the anti- credentials sharing among these groups in Hall 7, Stand E11

www.csimagazine.com June 2019 27

synamedia_QandA.indd 2 17/05/2019 12:47:36 Industry trends

broadcasters need to strongly consider Key trends at NAB 2019 the roadmap for ATSC 3.0. Though 5G did not feature prominently on the show floor, the - and beyond merits of this new cellular technology were widely discussed for the broadcast Independent analyst Paolo Pescatore and media industries. In particular, for shares his thoughts on some of the key remote production and video contribution with the promise of low themes of this year’s NAB show and what latency and much faster, robust connections. This combined with the they mean for the industry going forward cloud will allow content and media owners to produce, upload streams to he overarching theme handset providers. This standard was the cloud via 5G in real time and of this year’s NAB conceived with the intention to readily available for editors. show centred upon distribute services across numerous Though the business model for 5G in the importance of devices. Unfortunately, no handset the consumer segment remains storytelling. provider has come forward in unproven, there are still opportunities in Arguably, there has supporting the standard in their devices. the US such as fixed wireless home been no better time This is something that NAB president broadband connections. The 5G signal Tto be a content creator/producer. and CEO Gordon Smith underlined is sent to a house and then broadcast There are so many channels to during his opening keynote ahead of the over a Wi-Fi network. Unlike mobile distribute content with consumers official show opening, “To date, 5G, the antenna-receiver connection is spoilt for choice. All providers are manufacturers, Apple being one, refuse fixed and requires relatively clear lines looking to reduce dependency on to enable broadcast chips [that would of sight. This can be seen as a third party licensed content in an allow for next-gen TV] in their devices. replacement for costly cable broadband effort to create the next biggest It is unclear if any might support ATSC services. Also there will always be a blockbuster. It is apparent that not 3.0 in the near future but it might demand from early adopters for new all SVOD providers will survive and represent an opportunity for smaller technology. Interestingly, post NAB, there is a role for a content providers to gain from early mover Verizon announced a tie-up with aggregator. advantage. The harsh reality is that Google for its YouTube TV service. mobile handset providers are firmly This is a fascinating tie-up for both ATSC 3.0 focussed on other areas including 5G companies and one that could be a For sure, next gen TV ATSC 3.0 was a which offer greater revenue blockbuster. Verizon is in the process of prominent theme as it continues to opportunities. Despite this, expect to rebuilding its content strategy and make strong progress. ATSC 3.0 will see support for ATSC 3.0-enabled TV needs services to sell 5G connections. now be deployed in 40 markets across sets and devices at next year’s CES in While, YouTube seems to now the US by the end of the year. This will Las Vegas. replicating a successful reseller strategy be very much welcomed by the US adopted by Amazon and Netflix in broadcasters who are struggling to 5G seeking to gain new audiences. compete for eyeballs in light of the Another hotly debated topic was 5G. rapid rise of SVOD services. It allows More so in light of Verizon’s Codecs providers to take advantage of broadcast announcement to be the first operator A significant battle is looming in this and broadband to deliver services to in the world to launch its 5G network area with several video codecs consumers seamlessly as well as open with a smartphone. Specifically looking competing to be the default next- up new use cases and commercial at the US, ATSC 3.0 could be generation standard in the online opportunities. competing directly with 5G. The video landscape. To a certain extent Leading proponents for this next gen promise of 5G means that billions of this is very much welcomed to ensure TV standard should be applauded for devices will be connected to a 5G low latency and ideally with no getting ATSC 3.0 to this point. network, which is not going to be the buffering. Though networks with However, success is not guaranteed. case with ATSC 3.0. Furthermore, with big pipes like 5G provide faster One of the principal obstacles remains more precious spectrum being allocated connections, data traffic will continue the lack of support among mobile to mobile operators, then local US to grow significantly. Therefore, data

28 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

28-29_IndustryTrends.indd 2 16/05/2019 16:02:41 Industry trends

needs to be transmitted more efficiently, behind remote especially given the demands of production allowing delivering high quality video more live events to For now it seems that AV1 appears to be managed be winning the race as momentum for remotely. this codec continues to grow. Prior to the show Samsung announced its IT companies intention to join the AV1 board, Changes in the way Alliance for Open Media (AOM). content is produced, Therefore, expect Samsung to embed created and the codec across its consumer devices distributed are portfolio. Also, Intel and Netflix opening up released SVT-AV1 codec as open source opportunities for at the show. new parties to move However, some advocates such as into video and TV. Sisvel International argue that the With this in mind complexity of implementing AV1 means there continues to be that its compute cost is higher than a considerable and HEVC and many times higher than noticeable presence VP9. Sisvel, questions whether these of IT companies in codecs should be free. Then there are the exhibition space other codecs as well which all leads to at NAB, including Amazon Web discussed is edge computing. Expect fragmentation and greater complexity. Services, IBM and Microsoft. Google’s this to feature more prominently at next Naturally all of this points to holding presence is steadily increasing and is year’s show given the growing presence back an industry which is already aggressively positioning its cloud of IT companies. Edge computing struggling to come to terms with a capabilities. This represents another redefines the way content is cached and rapidly changing consumer environment battleground as Microsoft is seeking to distributed, closer to the edge of the and has been slow to adopt new ways be the partner of choice with media network and thus the user. Ultimately of collaborating. companies to enable new experiences. this will drive the emergence of new The industry cannot ignore the Also, Intel announced an open source applications and services. This will growing popularity behind AV1 which is project termed ‘Open Visual Cloud’ become more important with the arrival fast becoming the default future codec with reference pipelines for CDN of 5G networks which will become with Apple, Amazon, Netflix, NVIDIA, transcoding and video ad-insertion more pervasive in the US. Future ARM, Facebook, Microsoft and Google at the show. workflows will effectively be one big who are already AOMedia members. They reflected the growing super compute network powered by Expect more support and clarity at IBC opportunity for such firms as the TV AI and the cloud and delivered by later in the year. industry transitions to virtualised fibre and 5G. operations. And most of the post All eyes are now on IBC which AI everywhere production process can be automated hopefully will provide more clarity on In line with other trade shows such as which provides significant benefits. This the codecs battle. Solution providers CES and MWC, the use of AI on the includes tagging of shows by numerous will address latency which remains show floor was noticeable. It has parameters allowing for more searches a significant challenge especially with become an overused hype term. and personalisation of the content. delivering live OTT services. Though However, there were growing signs of this is not new, it represents one of the benefits and use of AI across the Conclusion the few areas of innovation for the entire value chain in the media industry. There were no surprises at this year’s technology providers. Ultimately, The benefits are largely geared towards NAB Show. The industry is still the aim is to bring live OTT services automating the production process to struggling to embrace technological closer to linear broadcasts through increase efficiencies. Content can now change. On this basis it is somewhat optimisation in encoding, transcoding, be ingested and tagged automatically. disappointing that providers have yet to and through the delivery chain to Numerous companies were showcasing make further strides in moving towards end users. solutions around this area. This will an all IP cloud based workflows. Paolo Pescatore, PP Foresight, can be help fuel the growing momentum Another hot area that was not widely reached at [email protected]

www.csimagazine.com June 2019 29

28-29_IndustryTrends.indd 3 16/05/2019 16:03:03 Sports streaming

Living up to the hype: reaching the full potential of live streamed sports By Mary Kay Evans, Chief Marketing Officer, tools to seamlessly and unobtrusively Verizon Digital Media Services insert alternate feeds or promotional material into live action. n the next five years, it is international media rating measurement Given these challenges, some of the predicted (by eMarketer) that service Conviva recorded 75.8 million world’s largest sports networks rely on worldwide revenues from attempts to stream the quarterfinals, but partners to manage both the on-site sports digital media rights over 15% of these attempts failed. production environment and their live will grow by 11.5%, whereas In the first instance, content streams, particularly when producing traditional TV rights will only providers must increase production numerous events simultaneously. grow 3.2%. As OTT platforms value to the standard that is typical of Because it eliminates the need to invest like DAZN and Hulu increasingly live event broadcasts. But to really in additional infrastructure and to cart Icompete for and win the rights to differentiate their offering they must equipment from site to site, this stream live sports, it’s not hard to strive for greater interactivity, allowing approach offers both convenience and see why there’s so much potential. viewers to shape their own viewing — for content producers that are still But delivering the quality experiences by choosing from additional new to live event streaming — a low-risk entertainment experience that today’s streaming content and varying camera way to get into the game. connected consumers expect brings angles. Get all these elements right, and To build an audience and monetise with it a number of challenges that you’ve got compelling live streaming contracts and live streaming content content providers must address when sports events that will capture the effectively, content producers must do streaming live sports video, regardless viewing public’s imagination, but there’s more than stream live events. A of the device it’s being streamed to. a lot of behind-the-scenes technical and compelling TV-like viewing experience Content providers must ensure that live operational work that needs to be done can only be created by a team that streams of sports are not compromised first for live sports streaming to live up enjoys robust and flexible technology, by startup failures, buffering, poor video to its potential. strong operational capabilities and quality or latency issues. The negative Streaming content must be presented powerful monetisation tools. effects of latency are well documented, quickly and at a high quality, even in the Very soon – possibly as you are and at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in face of rapid and immense fluctuations reading this – the 2019 Women’s Russia, which attracted a huge online in audience. But even when the World Cup takes place in France, audience, consumers, the challenges technology supporting live streaming and like the Men’s last year, will be content providers face were laid bare. can scale to handle massive numbers of broadcast in 4K. It remains to be seen Today, broadcast feeds arrive tens of concurrent requests, challenges remain. if content producers have implemented seconds before online feeds, which risks Sending out production crews, setting enough of the necessary fixes required derailing some OTT content providers up signal acquisition, overseeing to improve the live streaming experience before they’re out of the starting gates. logistics and allocating resources to over last year’s event, particularly at Many viewers were streaming games deliver a live program with high higher resolutions. from the BBC website or iPlayer OTT production value can be both expensive No live stream has drawn as many platform, but found themselves and difficult. The unpredictable nature viewers as a network broadcast – yet. experiencing delays of up to 60 seconds. of streaming live events can diminish Nevertheless, audiences for live Just imagine watching a major game at the viewing experience, if not handled streaming content continue to grow. an outdoor party, only to hear cheers appropriately. And, when content producers use the for a goal coming from nearby venues The team on the ground has just one latest technology and tools for smooth utilising broadcast feeds to show the chance to get it right. They must be delivery of live streaming content that’s game, several seconds before you see ready to capture a conventional primary unavailable on broadcast television, the play yourself? feed and the interesting angles and they have the opportunity to meet the This kind of latency is bad enough, behind-the-scenes views that add value demand for content and create a but for some, the situation was worse. and foster one-on-one engagement. At valuable connection with a new Using our World Cup example, the same time, the team must have the community of viewers.

30 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

30_VDMS_sports.indd 1 16/05/2019 12:25:06 CONFERENCE | 13-17 SEPTEMBER 2019 EXHIBITION | 13-17 SEPTEMBER 2019 RAI AMSTERDAM

The world’s most influential media, entertainment & technology show Join over 1,700 exhibitors showcasing the latest technological innovations, 300+ speakers sharing industry insights and over 55,000 attendees providing unlimited networking opportunities at the world’s most influential media, entertainment & technology show.

Book before 16 August to secure your free exhibition pass show.ibc.org

IBC_flattened.indd 1 16/05/2019 16:52:33 Events diary 2019

Date Name Location Website

12-14 March CabSat Dubai www.cabsat.com

12-14 March FTTH Council Europe Amsterdam www.ftthconference.eu 6-7 March Cable Congress Dublin cablecongress.com 11-13 March DVB World Dublin dvbworld.org 26-27 March EBU’s Broadthinking Geneva tech.ebu.ch/events/broadthinking2019 27-28 March Connected TV Summit London connectedtvsummit.com

6-11 April NAB Las Vegas nabshow.com 8-11 April MIPTV Cannes www.miptv.com 30 April - 1 May SportsPro Live London live.sportspromedia.com

6-9 May Satellite 2019 Washington DC http://2019.satshow.com 9-10 May TV Connect London Olympia https://tmt.knect365.com/tv-connect 8 May DTG Summit London dtg.org.uk/dtg/summit.html

4-6 June ANGA Com Cologne angacom.de/en 10-13 June NEM Dubrovnik neweumarket.com 18-20 June Broadcast Asia Singapore broadcast-asia.com

6-11 September IFA Berlin https://b2b.ifa-berlin.com 13-17 September IBC Amsterdam ibc.org

30 September-3 October Cable-Tec Expo New Orleans expo.scte.org 9-10 October AI World Summit Amsterdam worldsummit.ai 14-17 October MipCom Cannes mipcom.com

13-14 November Cable Congress Berlin https://tmt.knect365.com/cable-congress 26-27 November 2018 OTT TV World Summit London ottworldsummit.com 26-27 November 2018 CDN World Summit London cdnworldsummit.com November 2019 SportsPro OTT Summit Madrid www.sportspro-ott.com

For a full list of events taking place in 2019 please go to http://www.csimagazine.com/csi/events.php

32 June 2019 www.csimagazine.com

32-EventsDiary2019_new.indd 2 15/05/2019 15:21:37 Buyers Guide 2019

Media in the cloud

The essential listing of cable, broadband, telco and satellite suppliers

BuyersGuide_Cover.indd 1 15/05/2019 15:24:36 TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology Buyers Guide 2019 Buyers Guide 2019

A Asia Satellite Bitmovin Telecommunications Co. Ltd. Austria ACCESS Hong Kong T: +043463203014 Germany T: +85225000888 E: [email protected] T: +492088271010 E: [email protected] www.bitmovin.com E: [email protected] www.asiasat.com Broadband eu.access-company.com/ Satellite Satellite, Cable & Broadband Boulder Creek International AXINOM GMBH United Kingdom Agama Technologies Germany T: +442032035173 Sweden T: +3726661399 E: matt@bouldercreekinter T: +4613240330 E: [email protected] national.com E: [email protected] www.axinom.com www.bouldercreekinternational. www.agama.tv Broadband com Satellite, Cable & Broadband Axinom OTT Solutions Cable AJA Video Systems Estonia Bridge Technologies United States E: [email protected] Norway T: +13108043489 www.axinom.com T: +4722385100 E: [email protected] Broadband www.aja.com E: [email protected] Broadband B www.bridgetech.tv Satellite, Cable & Broadband Alticast BBright United States France T: +17208871700 T: +33299121765 E: [email protected] E: [email protected] www.alticast.com www.bbright.com Cable Satellite & Cable Anevia Beamr France United States T: +33181945095 T: +16509613098 E: [email protected] E: [email protected] www.anevia.com www.beamr.com Satellite, Cable & Broadband Broadband

page thirty four www.csimagazine.com Buyers Guide 2019 CSI magazine • Buyers Guide

CSI-BuyersGuide-V2.indd 2 16/05/2019 14:22:17 TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology Buyers Guide 2019 Buyers Guide 2019

C CRYPTOGUARD Sweden CASTLABS GMBH T: +4697110735 Germany E: [email protected] T: +00493060984870 Broadpeak www.cryptoguard.com E: [email protected] France Satellite, Cable & Broadband www.castlabs.com T: +33222740350 Broadband CTU SERVICES LTD E: [email protected] United Kingdom www.broadpeak.tv CBC T: +441257477060 Satellite, Cable & Broadband Germany E: [email protected] T: +4922145643020 www.ctuservices.com Broadpeak designs and manufactures E: [email protected] Broadband video delivery components for Content Satellite, Cable & Broadband Providers and Network Service Providers deploying IPTV, Cable, OTT COMET ENTERTAINMENT INC and Mobile services. Its portfolio of Canada solutions and technologies powers T: +16472902117 the delivery of movies, television E: raquelb@cometentertain programming and other video content ment.com over managed networks and the www.castlabs.com internet for viewing on any type of Satellite, Cable & Broadband device. The company’s systems and services help operators increase COVATIC market share and improve subscriber T: +442030967431 loyalty with superior quality of E: [email protected] experience. Broadpeak supports all of www.covatic.com its customers worldwide, from simple Broadband installations to large delivery systems reaching capacities of several million of simultaneous streams. Broadpeak is headquartered in Cesson-Sevigne, France

page thirty five CSI magazine • Buyers Guide Buyers Guide 2019 www.csimagazine.com

CSI-BuyersGuide-V2.indd 3 16/05/2019 14:22:20 TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology Buyers Guide 2019 Buyers Guide 2019

D E INTELSAT United Kingdom EKIOH LTD T: +442030366700 United Kingdom E: [email protected] T: +447799765095 www.intelsat.com E: [email protected] Satellite DVEO www.ekioh.com J United States Satellite, Cable & Broadband T: +18586131818 Jet-Stream ENCODING.COM E: [email protected] Netherlands United States www.dveo.com T: +31508003300 T: +18005131740 Broadband E: [email protected] E: [email protected] www.jet-stream.com Broadband DVEO® is now your end-to-end Broadband provider for OTT and IPTV. We JUMP Data-Driven Video provide cloud or premises- H España based encoders, decoders, HAIVISION T: +34605938091 transcoders, ad insertion Canada E: [email protected] solutions, live media servers, T: +0015143345445 www.jumptvs.com stream delays, analyzers, and E: [email protected] Broadband packet recovery technology… with www.haivision.com CMAF compliant HLS fragmented Broadband fMP4, plus optional H.265/HEVC. VIDEO PLATFORM II™: IPTV I and VIDEO PLATFORM II™: OTT are comprehensive "Cloud" or IHSE USA "On Premises" platforms. They United States provide multiscreen video content T: +17327388780 delivery, operator-managed E: [email protected] uploads, transcoding/ad insertion, www.ihseusa.com geofencing, delivery, and player Broadband support.All solutions feature INTELSAT DVEO-developed software for United States customizability and upgradability. T: +14043812318 These ultra-reliable Linux®- E: [email protected] based products are matched by www.intelsat.com outstanding post-sales service- Satellite support and affordability.

page thirty six www.csimagazine.com Buyers Guide 2019 CSI magazine • Buyers Guide

CSI-BuyersGuide-V2.indd 4 16/05/2019 14:22:23 TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology Buyers Guide 2019 Buyers Guide 2019

K L MediaPower Italy LaunchSquad T: +393356269422 United States E: [email protected] T: +12125643665 www.media-power.it E: [email protected] Broadband Broadband Kinow MediaPower Srl France Lindsay Broadband Inc. Italy T: +33972464710 Canada T: +390105530177 T: +17057421350 E: [email protected] E: [email protected] E: datman@lindsaybroad www.kinow.com www.media-power.it bandinc.com Broadband Satellite, Cable & Broadband www.lindsaybroadbandinc.com Kinow offers clever video platforms Cable N to deploy live and on-demand OTT services instantly and engage M Norigin Media their audience. As the most Norway M2A Media advanced back-end and back- T: +4791522108 United Kingdom ofﬁ ce cloud video solution, Kinow E: alexander.ramberg@norigin- T: +4402038138582 brings together all the required media.com E: [email protected] technologies: video encoding and www.NoriginMedia.com E: [email protected] distribution, catalog management, Broadband www.m2amedia.tv monetization and subscription, video Broadband analytics, business intelligence, P EPG... Propel an entire video Make.TV platform or plug our solution to United States PatchAmp, Inc. your existing infrastructure and E: [email protected] United States applications (set top box, smart TV, www.make.tv T: +12014571504 mobile, ...) to improve your workﬂ ow Broadband E: [email protected] and your ROI. With more than 200 www.patchamp.com video platforms deployed, Kinow MEDIAGENIX Broadband is perfect for broadcasters, media Belgium companies and telecom operators T: +447340696944 who own and broadcast video E: stathis.paraskevopoulos@ content. mediagenix.tv www.mediagenix.tv Cable & Broadband

page thirty seven CSI magazine • Buyers Guide Buyers Guide 2019 www.csimagazine.com

CSI-BuyersGuide-V2.indd 5 16/05/2019 14:22:25 TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology Buyers Guide 2019 Buyers Guide 2019

Q S Technetix Group Ltd T: +31318585978 Qligent Scala Advisors E: francois.giraud-sauveur@ United States United States technetix.com T: +13219563454 T: +15105790173 www.technetix.com E: [email protected] E: [email protected] Broadband www.qligent.com www.scala-advisors.com Satellite, Cable & Broadband Satellite, Cable & Broadband

SEO Ranker Agency R United States RAM Business Group T: +14808092275 Canada E: [email protected] TiVo T: +16047795309 www.seorankeragency.com United Kingdom E: [email protected] Broadband E: [email protected] Broadband business.tivo.com Simplestream Satellite, Cable & Broadband Rohde & Schwarz GmbH United Kingdom & Co. KG T: +442079307809 TiVo Corporation (NASDAQ: TIVO) Germany E: dan.ﬁ [email protected] is a global leader in entertainment T: +4989412913818 www.simplestream.com technology and audience insights. E: [email protected] Broadband From the interactive program www.rohde-schwarz.com guide to the DVR, TiVo delivers Skyline Communications NV Satellite innovative products and licensable Belgium technologies that revolutionize Rycote Microphone T: +491728699846 how people ﬁ nd content across a Windshields Ltd E: [email protected] changing media landscape. TiVo United Kingdom www.skyline.be enables the world’s leading media T: +441453759338 Satellite, Cable & Broadband and entertainment providers to E: [email protected] deliver the ultimate entertainment www.rycote.com T experience. Explore the next Satellite, Cable & Broadband TAG V.S. generation of entertainment at Israel business.tivo.com or follow us on T: +33186269400 Twitter @tivoforbusiness. E: [email protected] www.tagvs.com Satellite & Cable

page thirty eight www.csimagazine.com Buyers Guide 2019 CSI magazine • Buyers Guide

CSI-BuyersGuide-V2.indd 6 16/05/2019 14:22:27 TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology Buyers Guide 2019 Buyers Guide 2019

Verimatrix United States T: +0016192241261 E: [email protected] www.verimatrix.com Cable & Broadband

Verimatrix United States T: +16196777800 E: [email protected] www.verimatrix.com Cable & Broadband

Viaccess-Orca France T: +33144456460 E: press-relations@viaccess- orca.com www.viaccess-orca.com Broadband

Video Clarity United States T: +14083791381 Contact us E: [email protected] www.videoclarity.com To be included in the 2020 Buyers Guide, Satellite, Cable & Broadband please contact the team: W Camilla Capece +44 20 7562 2438 Wiztivi [email protected] Argentina T: +541166207182 T: 5491168475141 Daniel Torelli +44 20 7562 4382 E: [email protected] [email protected] www.wiztivi.com Satellite, Cable & Broadband

page thirty nine CSI magazine • Buyers Guide Buyers Guide 2019 www.csimagazine.com

CSI-BuyersGuide-V2.indd 7 16/05/2019 14:22:28 Your benefits:

✓ TV Service is easy to implement, short time to market ✓ No investment in hardware/ software as TV Service is The Multiscreen TV Service of 1&1 – one of fully hosted & managed Germany’s largest internet service providers ✓ Vast experience since 2005 with several million unique users per month ✓ Guarantee of maximum operating stability of ZATTOO platform

No.1 UNICAST IPTV PLATFORM IN EUROPE

TV-AS-A-SERVICE FOR IPTV, TV EVERYWHERE, HYBRID TV & OTT

Thrill your customers with your individually branded and customized TV Entertainment Service across all devices! We provide you with a TV Service including Live TV, Time Shift and Catch-up TV, network PVR and Video on Demand. Our end-to-end platform covers applications for Big Screen devices such as Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Android TV operator tier, Smart TVs and mobile devices (iOS / Android / Windows 10).

For more information, go to zattoo.com/solutions