www.csimagazine.com June 2016 • OTT, VoD, Cloud TV, Cable, Satellite, IPTV, DTT, IoT • Charting the TVindustry’s path beyond Covid TV Br oadcast •Str The l eading mediaf eaming •SatelliteCab The magazinefor global video or videodeliverytechnol le •Hybrid ogy The latest news, views andfeatures Spring 2021
Video compression Direct-to-consumer Piracy trends Remote production supplement streaming
Contents TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology
21 irect to cons mer video Sports represents the biggest new opportunity. CSI and MediaKind examine the trends ditor 2 Cable abs Goran Nastic Dr Curtis Knittle updates us on the group’s work into DOCSIS 4, DAA, the 10G Commercial Camilla Capece 0 C V ST Covid and media platform and other hot topics Examining the state of the media & esign and prod ction entertainment industry one year on from the 1 Compression s pplement ith Matt Mills (Manager) start of the pandemic V ova Jessica Harrington Deploying better compression opens new 10 ith Verizon edia business cases and brings cost savings to a eg lar contrib tors Adrian Pennington, Philip Hunter, Looking at innovation during and post- range of applications. What are the new David Adams, Stephen Cousins, codec options? pandemic Anna Tobin
12 nalyst corner V Stats corner Circ lation The evolution and consumer uptake of AVOD End-2020 European and US payTV figures Alina Susca and other streaming services from the informitv Multiscreen Index cco nts 1 iracy in loc do n Technology corner Smart cities Marilou Tait, Mohamad Saidani SCTE CTO Chris Bastian says the We talk to Irdeto about how pirates also ditorial adapted and changed their business models in pandemic has given rise to new smart tel +44(0)20 7562 2401 the last 12 months community initiatives [email protected]
1 emote prod ction B yer s ide dvertising Covid has accelerated and permanently A listing of key suppliers in the cable, telco, tel +44(0)20 7562 2438 [email protected] disrupted traditional sports production broadband and satellite sectors S bscriptions tel +44 (0) 20 1635 588 861 [email protected] ditor s report Spring 2021 Circulation manager: alina.susca@ perspectivepublishing.com Hands up who saw the AT&T-Discovery deal coming… if you did you are in a very small minority as the announcement took the market and analysts by S bscription rates complete surprise. The new company will have annual revenues of about $52 Per year: Europe £88; UK £68; billion and combine an extensive portfolio of brands — HBO, Warner Bros., Rest of World £98. Cheques payable to Perspective Publishing Discovery, DC Comics, CNN, Eurosport, Animal Planet to name but a few — Limited and addressed to the alongside studios and streaming businesses that are in various stages of embryonic growth. Circulation Department It could be messy and there may be some fat that needs to be trimmed but it marks a new breed of media mega-M&As that will define this decade. Meanwhile, most of this issue of rinted by B ton ress CSI is focused on assessing the effect that Covid has had on different parts of media and entertainment. GN anaging irector John Woods
erspective blishing blishing irector 3 London Wall Buildings London Mark Evans EC2M 5PD perspectivep blishing com SS 1
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03_Contents-V2.indd 1 21/05/2021 11:51:32 News
news in brief Streaming grows on the main screen as SVOD subs to hit 1.5bn multiple devices jostle for share There are forecast to be just under 1.5 billion Conviva’s latest report into watch when it’s convenient subscribers to video on the state of global streaming for them rather than demand services globally suggests that big screens following regularly scheduled by 2026, a growth of 591 dominating viewing might programming live.” million from this year. The become the new normal By platform, while Roku average SVOD subscriber for streaming. captured a significant 30% will pay for 2.14 SVOD Streaming on big screens share of global big screen subscriptions, according to accounted for 73% of global viewing time, this dominance new data from Digital TV viewing time and the State of was primarily driven by Research. The total is Streaming report for Q1 North America where it expected to cross the 1 2021 identifies big screen commanded 37% share in Q1 billion mark in 2021. viewing as the key trend. 2021. In Europe, the second Numbers were boosted last While people are streaming largest market for Roku, year by the pandemic, more, they are at home on Roku only accounted for 8% which saw a peak of 201 larger screens as smart TVs captured just 11% share share of the big screen, million subscriptions saw the biggest expansion of of viewing time in Asia trailing a number of other added. The number of viewership with a 115% while desktop and mobile devices including Samsung payTV homes is expected increase over Q1 of last year. phones dominated with with 19%, Chromecast with to remain flat during this In contrast, mobile phones, a combined 84% of 12%, Amazon Fire TV with five year period by tablets, and desktops saw viewing time. 10%, LG TV with 10%, and comparison. growth in line with the “Big screens are here Android TV with 9%. Roku global average. to stay,” said Conviva. “2021 does not fare any better in AWS for M&E In nearly every region, big came with some optimism for other regions, with 4% share Amazon Web Services has screens dominated streaming a return to normalcy but or less in Africa, Asia, introduced the AWS for as connected TV devices, there might be a new normal Oceania, and South America. Media & Entertainment smart TVs, and gaming for streaming. A new normal Some interesting leaders initiative featuring new consoles captured the lion’s that sees big screens emerged as the top big screen and existing services and share of viewing time. Big dominate viewing as people device in different regions, solutions from the compa- screens were most dominant watch less on smaller, mobile including the CanalPlus set ny and its partners, built in North America capturing devices. A new normal where top box with 54% share of specifically for content a massive 81% share, social investment is viewing time in Africa, creators, rights holders, however in most regions big paramount and the powerful Android TV’s 49% share in producers, broadcasters, screens accounted for at confluence of social, Asia, Chromecast in Oceania and distributors. It aligns least 50% of all viewing time. streaming, and advertising with 24%, or Samsung TV in nine AWS Services, 11 At the opposite end of the can no longer be ignored. A South America at 30% share AWS Solutions, dedicated spectrum, big screens new normal where viewers in Q1 2021. AWS appliances, and more than 400 AWS Partners against five dedicated UK TV football rights rollover solution areas. The Walt The Premier League will due to be auctioned in the comes despite rival Disney Company uses continue its existing UK coming months, but will broadcasters unhappiness. AWS to support the global television deal with Sky now automatically extend Due to the damaging impact expansion of Disney+. Sports, BT Sport, Amazon at the current value without the Covid-19 pandemic, the AWS is the preferred Prime Video and BBC Sport, an auction. The three Premier League said it was public cloud infrastructure rolling over the rights for broadcasters paid £5 billion able to demonstrate to the provider, helping improve another 3 years due to the to televise 200 games government exceptional and performance and reliability impact of the pandemic. a season between 2019 compelling reasons for the for Disney+ as the The domestic rights, which and 2022. Exclusion Order, a move that streaming service fell in value by around 10% The decision, approved received tentative approval continues to scale globally. in the previous auction, were unanimously by the EPL, from the government.
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RDK passes 80m deployed devices news in brief RDK Management has with RDK now deployed software stack has also Verizon sells media revealed the latest numbers across more than 30 leading evolved beyond cable set top unit detailing the continued service providers throughout boxes into telco but also US telco Verizon adoption of RDK open North America, Europe, IoT/smart home services. Communications has sold source software, which is Latin America, and Asia. For example, RDK software its Verizon Media business used to power customer- While the rival Android is available for IP-connected to private equity invest- premises equipment (CPE) TV platform is deployed in cameras. On the broadband ment management firm from broadband and video over 150 operators globally, side, RDK software now Apollo Funds for $5 service providers worldwide. they are smaller in scale, spans across DOCSIS, DSL, billion. Verizon Media is As part of its annual update, either found in Tier 2 or 3 and GPON gateways, which the global tech and media the organisation said there operators or restricted is particularly beneficial to arm of Verizon, which are now more than 80 million to small portions of service providers operating includes ad tech and device deployments across a customers in the bigger a mix of transport networks media platform businesses, variety of devices. The service providers. within their footprints. as well as the Yahoo and number of RDK devices By comparison, most RDK Indeed, during a recent AOL brands, which deployed globally rose from deployments are by Tier 1 webinar, Deutsche Telekom Verizon bought in 2015 60 million in spring 2020, service providers, and the revealed that it is ready to and 2017 for around $4.5 soon start deploying RDK billion each. Under the gateways. deal, Verizon will retain a RDK4, introduced late last 10% stake in Verizon year, is available as part of Media, which will rebrand the RDK Video Accelerator as Yahoo at the close of program, which provides the transaction. At close, development and the business will be led by deployment-ready set-top Verizon Media CEO Guru boxes from leading OEMs, Gowrappan. The transac- including CommScope, tion, which is expected to Humax, KAON, and close in the second half of Skyworth. These set-top 2021, also includes the boxes come pre-integrated sale of Techcrunch, with the Metrological App Engadget and Ryot. The Store, helping operators move effectively marks on-board apps like Android Verizon Communications’ TV does. exit from digital media and advertising.
TiVo buys bankrupt MobiTV Final chance for CSI Awards Xperi-owned TiVo outbid Cable One, and small cable which is highly complemen- This is your last chance to rival offers from Roku and operators represented tary to Xperi’s existing enter this year’s awards. By Amino in an auction to buy by the National Cable media patent portfolio. popular demand we have bankrupt company MobiTV, TV Cooperative. “The acquisition of the extended this year’s currently in chapter 11. Xperi sees the MobiTV s MobiTV assets immediately deadline to 1 June 2021. MobiTV, which entered olution provides an attractive expands our capabilities and There are 3 brand new bankruptcy in March, delivers extension of TiVo’s IPTV the addressable market for categories for this year white-label IPTV solutions payTV service offerings by our IPTV solutions, helping (sustainability, broadband and app-based video adding managed services to secure TiVo’s position experience and remote distribution technology cable with the ability to reduce as a leading provider of production), alongside companies, to cable and other deployment time and Pay-TV solutions,” said old favourites. For more payTV companies and was an onboarding costs. It said Jon Kirchner, chief and to enter now go to early pioneer in the space. Its the acquisition includes executive officer of Xperi, https://www.csimagazine. clients include T-Mobile and MobiTV’s patent portfolio, in the statement. com/awards
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4-5_Newsv3.indd 3 20/05/2021 14:03:49 Cover story: Covid one year on Beyond Covid: Where now for media and entertainment? Goran Nastic takes a look at how Covid has changed parts of media and entertainment and what we can expect going forward
s the world specifically the shift from broadcast to As Maria Rua Aguete, Senior continues to get to streaming and the adoption of cloud Research Director of Media and grips with the infrastructure for video applications and Entertainment at Omdia, observes: ongoing pandemic, workflows. “2020 has been a record-breaking the media industry Streaming services enjoyed year for SVOD, caused by unexpected can consider itself unprecedented growth in 2020, as uplift from Covid-19, but having lucky that it has people entertained themselves during exhausted the pool of new households Amanaged to not just survive, but in stay-at-home orders. It was popular to to sell to, SVOD services must brace some cases thrive during this time. suggest that Disney could not have themselves for a much slower 2021”. Taking stock a little over one year timed the launch of its new Disney+ From 246 million SVOD net on from the first wave of service any better, reaching over 100 additions in 2020, Omdia expects 139m widespread global lockdowns, the million customers in little over a year. SVOD net additions in 2021. picture is distinctly mixed when it Traffic on the major video streaming Nonetheless, while there is some comes to media and entertainment. sites continues to outperform pre- uncertainty from Covid-19 in the short While home entertainment boomed, pandemic levels, up 21% according to term, in the long-term, the rise of for example, it was a difficult time for Verizon’s Look Forward study from streaming to replace linear TV around cinemas, exhibitions, theme parks and March 2021. the world is the clear trend in other in-person events. Below we look However, as Netflix’s first quarter entertainment. at several sectors of the industry to results showed, last year’s growth is Aguete thinks that Netflix will still assess Covid’s impact, both in the short unsustainable, with the company have more subscribers than Disney+ in and long term. attributing weaker additions to the 2025 despite the latter’s impressive pandemic ‘pull forward’ effect seen in start, but it will be very close: both are Streaming exploded, but growth 2020. Even the meteoric rise of Disney+ forecast to have over 250 million subs has cooled off was unsustainable and Disney’s own by that point. In total by 2025, there The pandemic accelerated two key recent quarterly results showed a will be 1.6bn subscribers to SVOD trends that were already in motion, slowing down in customer growth. services globally, according to Omdia estimates.
Cloud migration The pandemic has seen the shift to cloud accelerate dramatically, and the broadcasters are on the whole benefiting from the efficiencies, flexibility, and scalability that brings. The last year has seen widespread adoption of remote and cloud workflows, even among the largest entities such as Globo and Univision, who both recently announced multi-year digitisation and migration projects with Google Cloud. “This year and into next we are seeing major efforts to accelerate migration of
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coverStory.indd 2 21/05/2021 12:33:53 Cover story: Covid one year on
the most complex production The return of live sports revenues, Dataxis thinks that the return environments from on-premise to the For a good chunk of the year, sports to pre-pandemic levels will depend on cloud,” says Neil Anderson of Codemill. broadcasters had been stripped of live whether sports fans have renewed their “Things will never be the same again, programming because of the whole appetite for sports content. we’re seeing studios and broadcasters cancellation of almost all live sports moving as much as possible to the events from March 2020. This forced Remote production is on the rise cloud, held back, only by online video many to turn to their library archives, Much like the news side of the editing, colour grading and audio giving people something to watch in television business, many of the finishing, which are still desktop based that absence. technology changes that sports and hardware dependent.” However, new figures from Dataxis broadcasters rapidly adopted in According to Shahar Bar of shows that the churn and the loss in response to Covid were already Harmonic, “The cloud performed subscribers did not hit as hard as one underway before the pandemic hit. exceptionally well during the pandemic might have expected, as it only When covering live events, broadcast- — proving it is able to handle the scale intensified an already existing trend due ers are increasingly turning to remote and the load required for complex and to other factors (such as cord- cutting or production. According to a recent heavy video workflows. As a result, for piracy). In Western Europe at the end- Haivision survey, 39% of those surveyed many media companies, the cloud is no 2020, the number of subscribers to are employing remote production or longer a niche, but rather an inherent premium sports channels has almost REMI workflows. Almost half of those infrastructure tool. Looking back at the returned to its pre-covid levels, surveyed (46%) also indicated that past 12 months, it is clear the shifts to according to the analyst firm. Of REMI/At-Home technology is one of streaming and cloud are in full motion course, revenues experienced a the most important trends for their and essentially unstoppable.” significant decrease, because of organisation in the future. But Jonathan Morgan of Object subscriptions being cancelled, frozen or It is expected that the cloud will play Matrix offers a word of caution: “Many downgraded to less premium packages a very big role in live sports production are pushing a narrative that widespread with lower ARPUs. into the future and that the big changes cloud-based infrastructure is inevitable The hardest hit in terms of churn to remote production caused by Covid in a post-Covid future. But that doesn’t were OTTs like Eleven Sports and here to stay after pandemic is over. take into account the variety of DAZN, whose offer relies mainly on offerings within the cloud environment, live sports, as well as flexible monthly Gaming also soars all with pros and cons and different subscriptions that are easily cancellable. Game streaming services have soared cost profiles. Under normal Others, such as Sky, either allowed their since the pandemic’s start. Microsoft circumstances, organisations making customers to freeze their subscriptions now has more than 15 million Game significant infrastructure changes would for free or compensated them with Pass subscribers, Nintendo more than have time to plan a roadmap and additional free content. 26 million paid online subs, and Sony’s implement a phased approach. In the Almost all competitions have PlayStation Plus now has more than 45 wake of Covid, some media returned from September, even if a large million. organisations are making hasty majority have been behind closed doors. eSports, too, increased 2020 revenues decisions which could see them locked This has at least given broadcasters an by about 15% over 2019 and is expected into unsuitable cloud contracts for years opportunity to innovate, through areas to keep growing as in-person to come.” such as co-watching. But in terms of competitions return.
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New network patterns minutes per day watching TV, which is time high, it seems natural that TV will With the rise in streaming, gaming up 6 minutes on 2019. Even young remain an important platform for and home working came a big rise adults’ viewing time increased by 2 advertisers,” adds Craig Buckland of in network usage. Looking at what minutes, with an average of 1 hour 49 Broadcast Traffic Systems. happened immediately when the minutes a day. These AVOD and FAST services pandemic first struck, internet usage “Viewers have been keen to watch are increasingly also being added soared and many ISPs saw double-digit TV live in 2020, notably following to the overall streaming bundle as growth in broadband usage in March. news and country leaders addresses. an important hybrid business Akamai saw global traffic on its In most countries, the levels of daily model component. platform grow 30% in March 2020 as viewing time have remained high even Internet usage soared around the world after restrictions linked to the New piracy trends in lockdown amid the coronavirus crisis, compared pandemic were eased, especially Piracy has always been a problem for to 3% growth in a typical month. among young adults,” said Frédéric the industry, and the pandemic has only In the UK, as the country approached Vaulpré of Mediametre. worsened it. Covid has kept audiences the one year anniversary of the first But it may be the renaissance was from gathering in-person, forcing lockdown in March 2021, Virgin Media short lived, with the latest data festivals and live events to deliver revealed that the country’s appetite for suggesting that live and same-day content through online channels. As a data shows no signs of slowing down. viewing is once again on a result of this digital shift, a major surge Analysis of more than five million downward slope. in online piracy has been observed Virgin Media broadband customers since the outbreak of the pandemic, across January and February revealed a AVOD with an increase in traffic to illicit sites. marked shift in behaviour, with weekday In a recession, marketing budgets A case in point is the release of afternoons becoming the busiest time of are typically the first expense cut Wonder Woman 1984 and its almost- day for upstream traffic for the first from a company’s budget. As a result, immediate appearance on torrent sites. time ever. The peak period for people free ad-supported services found Two months since its release in sending data is now between 2pm and themselves in a curious juxtaposition December 2020, it was still among 4pm, and represents a shift away from where revenues did not mirror the the top downloaded and pirates the long-established pattern of evenings increase in viewership. movies, according to the data on being the busiest time on the network. Indeed, ad-based OTT services saw torrentfreak.com “Fuelled by a pandemic that forced a huge increase in traffic, much more The European Intellectual Property millions to work and school from home, people watching the service, but a Office (EUIPO) conducted a study into 2020 was one for the history books in huge decrease in revenue because the impact of piracy across member upstream data consumption,” said advertisers were not purchasing ads states, estimating that 13.7 million OpenVault in its latest Broadband any more; they spent less money as people across EU countries are Insights study, which found that total people watched more. accessing illegal pirate services of upstream consumption surged 63% “A major opportunity that emerged differing flavours. in 2020, roughly 350% higher than from this explosion in ABR streaming Interestingly, among the new historic growth rates. “Pandemic during Covid-19 is targeted advertising. piracy trends observed is that pirate lockdowns changed the nature of There’s a high degree of interest in services also changed their business upstream usage – in all likelihood, targeted ads from OTT service models to adapt to new circumstances, forever,” OpenVault added. providers and pay-TV operators that tailoring their offers to attract viewers. want to broaden viewership and boost Much more on these can be seen in Linear TV made (a short) comeback revenues. Whether this is to launch new our piracy in lockdown feature on There was something of a mini- services, attract new consumers, or page 14. resurgence in live TV viewing, especially subsidise premium content rights, news, and the EBU was quick to targeted advertising is the next big Chipset shortages and supply point out how important the output growth area for streaming,” says side issues of its broadcaster members was Broadpeak’s Xavier Leclercq. Last year, Technicolor guided CSI during this time. “I strongly believe that linear through the various challenges and Data from audience measurement transmission will remain important for complexities of navigating the supply firm Mediametre’s shows that TV the foreseeable future, but it is certainly side during the pandemic. An important viewers in 91 countries around the being augmented by FAST and AVOD. lesson learned is making sure the flow globe spent an average of 2 hours 54 With consumer consumption at an all- of components, especially
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coverStory.indd 4 21/05/2021 12:33:53 Cover story: Covid one year on
semiconductors, is uninterrupted. And their doors, there is now a big debate as the ‘pre-Covid’ period.” that semiconductor supply chain to cinema’s existential crisis post covid. Similarly, work and other live events remains a huge issue. Some chains have not survived the will all likely continue to be hybrid post- The global chip shortage has hit crisis, and the question now is will pandemic, with Covid permanently everything from automotive industry to cinema goers ever flock back in the changing how we live our lives and Apple MacBook and iPad production, same numbers, especially as release entertain ourselves. so much so that a group of large windows continue to shrink? technology companies formed the While many can operate profitably Innovation ahoy Semiconductors in America Coalition at 50% capacity, the cinema crisis All in all, last year brought about (SIAC), while the new Biden is exacerbated by a complex considerable changes to the broadcast administration ordered a review of the environment where studios are landscape, forcing broadcasters to be global semiconductor supply chain. experimenting with new distribution more creative and innovative than ever. Set-top maker Amino says it is seeing models, not least Warner Brothers’ A recent Haivision survey found that wait times for semiconductor orders decision to release its entire 2021 Covid has usurpingly accelerated IP expand by as much as six months. movie slate simultaneously in movie adoption and how broadcasters are Harmonic warned that part of its theatres and on its streaming service operating. While the transition towards supply chain problems extend HBO Max. IP was already in progress, 71% of through 2021 and possibly into More locally, Insys Video those polled stated that Covid has the start of 2022. Technologies worked with accelerated the adoption process MOJEeKINO.pl, a VOD platform within their organisation. Production delays also to continue connecting more than 40 arthouse According to Bitmovin’s Annual The production of new content has cinemas to bring the cinema to viewers’ Developer Report, 43% of respondents proved a challenge. Many series homes across Poland. The company believe viewer engagement presents the rapidly ended production in March also worked with music and arts most opportunity for innovation within 2020, curtailing their current seasons. festivals, helping them deliver some of the industry. And whilst production has resumed the content they would normally be able “This is indicative of changing under strict health guidelines, there to present live. consumer habits brought on by the remains a significant lag in new content The growth in TVOD (transactional pandemic. Additionally, we will which has resulted in many video on demand) is interesting and continue to see streaming platforms broadcasters raiding the back catalogue while it cannot replace the whole adopt new technology such as to air repeats, and bringing these to a cinema experience but can still be a HDR and next-generation surround new audience demographic. shared experience, according to John sound to enhance the at-home Production activity began to Griffiths of Spicy Mango. “It’s a viewing experience,” says Bitmovin’s accelerate during the fourth quarter of different experience to the cinema but Stefan Lederer. 2020, following a virtual standstill. the studios could consider launching in In the final analysis, it is just as Furtherm ore, a number of countries this window for TVOD, alongside the well that the media and entertainment like Canada, France and the UK have cinemas and then licencing to SVOD,” industry has been used to its fair launched and/or extended pandemic- he suggests, adding that the idea of share of disruption over the previous related support programs including guests having to be in a studio decade. While question marks remain wage subsidies and production everytime is a thing of the past. as to some long-term impacts of the insurance/indemnity schemes that This hybrid approach is expected to pandemic on specific sectors such as provide pandemic-related coverage. continue going forwards, helping to cinemas, most insiders are confident of There continue to be production engage a more global audience a healthy rebound going forward. stoppages/delays as the latest waves of alongside physical events. “Despite enormous setbacks, our the pandemic temporarily restrict “We’ve been hearing a lot of industry proved once again to be as production activity or limit international discussion about when in-person trade adaptable and innovative as it was travel for talent and crew. Nevertheless, show attendance will resume as well as resilient,” said Charles Rivkin, chairman the industry is optimistic about a steady the role hybrid events will play in the and CEO of the Moton Picture return to normalcy during the second future. Right now, the context of the Association in the group’s annual half of 2021. situation is unclear,” says Atika Boulgaz THEME report. “Innovation will help at Viaccess-Orca. “Events organisers us meet those audiences where they are What now for cinemas? need to prepare the in-person events and help restore the vibrant creativity With many cinemas finally opening bearing in mind it will not be similar to that fuels our industry.”
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coverStory.indd 5 21/05/2021 12:33:53 Covid special Q&A Ariff Sidi of Verizon Media shares his thoughts and insights with CSI into the impact of Covid on media and entertainment
Would you identify any key trends things or learnings we can take that Covid has significantly from these as we slowly move accelerated, bringing about long- forward post-pandemic? terms structural changes? Verizon’s PayItForward LIVE initiative, New types of immersive experiences are powered by the Verizon Media making their way into the OTT Platform, offered live-streamed streaming world and are evolving sports entertainment from some of the biggest fans’ viewing experience. Real-time names in the industry, to financially streaming technology, like that offered support small businesses in need. Large by Verizon Media, sets the stage for a global organizations, such as Verizon Ariff Sidi, General Manager Ariff Sidi, General Officer, and Chief Product Media Platform Verizon new reality of how sports content can and Verizon Media, have the be consumed and provides viewers with capabilities to be part of positive new ‘watch together’ social experiences, community solutions. It’s important to such as co-viewing synchronized live us and our team members to contribute streams and in-game trivia. Sports fans to local communities and provide can now host virtual watch parties with support not just when it’s desperately family and friends. These capabilities needed, but as much as possible. are highly valued now and will continue he media to be in the future as they make live Zooming in on networks and entertainment viewing a more interactive experience. streaming, the pandemic has industry has seen The acceleration of cord-cutting in brought about new peaks and its fair share of favor of OTT has led to both traffic patterns. Looking at your disruption in past broadcasters’ increased need for own data (and perhaps on a wider years, but those in operational stability and a focus on level), how do these look in 2021 the last year have revenue, which is now a significant, if compared to last year but also Tbeen the biggest so far. From a not critical, part of the business’s pre-pandemic? very high level, how would you bottom line. The pandemic brought a boom in assess Covid’s effects on our Additionally, the rapid acceleration of streaming due to most people being industry so far? OTT in an increasingly crowded market at home. In March 2020 there was a The pandemic created a turning point is forcing providers to think about how huge spike in internet traffic, with for video streaming. Behavioral and they price their products in ways that broadband providers experiencing a lifestyle changes led to digital media create flexibility through a variety of traffic surge between 30% - 50% across consumption hitting record levels, price points that appeal to the broadest their mobile and fixed networks. In forcing streaming providers to further audience. Peacock, as a recent example, Europe, the spikes were as high as 70%. innovate and evolve the viewer has three tiers from totally ad-supported We’re still seeing high levels of traffic experience. The increase in content to fully-paid without ads. This across our network and while we streaming, game downloads, and consumer-first approach will be around expect these to level off, the overall at-home activities accelerated trends for the long-term. trend for internet traffic is heading in around OTT already underway. The an upwards direction. industry was already heading towards Service providers in the US and more widespread adoption of cloud- Europe have undertaken various Do you think these new patterns based technologies, particularly in live community initiatives during this will stay with us post-pandemic? sports, but the pandemic served as a period to assist families and other Despite the initial spike in catalyst for these trends. people. In your opinion, are there consumption, we anticipate traffic
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Verizon-QandA.indd 2 20/05/2021 14:06:31 Covid special
phishing attacks used to steal account credentials and financial information to using platform names and their original programming as bait to trick users into downloading a variety of threats, including malware and adware. As a result, there’s been an increase in OTT platforms evaluating their approaches and moving to cloud-based solutions for security. Verizon Media patterns to flatten as we begin to return philosophy is to partner with our Platform’s Security Services protects to normal life. We still expect to see customers and provide them with streaming services from the latest YoY growth as global streaming services the flexibility and ability to tailor infrastructure and application-layer continue to increase in popularity. The the products they deliver. Doing so attacks. Built on Verizon’s global huge increase in traffic, caused by the empowers service providers to network with high-capacity PoPs around pandemic, caught a lot of providers off deliver the best possible experience the world, our WAF DDoS and bot guard, which is why it’s vital for to consumers, given the current management solutions provide scalable streaming services to be prepared to constraints. protection at the edge of the Internet, handle unexpected peaks. The sheer amount of video traffic and stopping advance threats before they’re consumer demand for high-quality able to reach critical web infrastructure The EU notoriously brought in streams mean that media companies and impact users’ experience. measures during the first can no longer rely on a single content lockdown to limit network delivery network (CDN) to deliver Live sports have suffered but congestion by downgrading video content to a global audience. Verizon events have come back, in many quality. What are the main ways in Media has pioneered a multi-CDN cases without crowds. How do you which Verizon Media works with approach. By spreading traffic over see sports streaming adapting to service providers in terms of the multiple CDNs, broadcasters are new realities and do you think the technology options to guarantee a protected against slowdowns and overall market (payTV and OTT) top QoS/QoE? Is there any one- downtime; if one provider’s network will be significantly different as we size-fits all advice you can give? experiences an outage, traffic can be move out of the pandemic? At Verizon Media, our CDN is routed through another network. As The increase in demand for interactive optimized for video delivery while more content owners start to adopt a features will continue to accelerate, maintaining best-in-class QoE regardless multi-CDN approach, consumers especially from live sports broadcasters of demands. We are working with our around the world will be able to enjoy who want to continue to evolve the customers to move key video workflow the best quality streams with sub-second match-day experience for viewers at capabilities such as video ingestion, latency on multiple devices. home. Even though fans are beginning video encoding, and ad-insertion closer to return to stadiums, as we’re seeing in to where users physically are by utilizing Cybersecurity has been on the rise the English Premier League, a CDN Edge Compute platform. in the last 12 months. What trends interactivity will continue to play a Computing at the CDN Edge has has Verizon Media seen at this time significant role in sports and events the potential to meet the challenges and how do you assist your OTT streaming as OTT providers utilize of a network tasked with delivering and broadcast customers to technology to go beyond just replicating more data at higher quality to protect themselves from these the traditional TV-watching experience. end-users with minimal latency, new threats? Based on the conversations we’re having guaranteeing quality and reliable The increasing frequency, severity, and with customers, features I mentioned experiences for broadcasters sophistication of cyber-attacks have left above, like “watch together” and looking to enhance or reinvent the video streaming services open to in-game trivia, are here to stay. viewing experience. constant threat. The spectrum of For more information go to Verizon Media’s one-size-fits-all malicious activity is broad - from verizonmedia.com
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Verizon-QandA.indd 3 20/05/2021 14:06:32 Analyst corner
VoD is AVoD…except when it’s SVoD; Most studio D2C is both It’s all just TV in the end AVoD and SVoD… u isson ecutive irector or is that hybrid? Acronyms aside, Ampere Ana sis whether we are Btalking about local or global subscription model that has so the technicality of delivery is removed Subscription Video on Demand dominated streaming TV (and TV from the equation and TV is again (SVoD) services, Broadcaster full stop) to date. But the streaming divided simply into free or pay, Video on Demand (BVoD); environment is growing so quickly differentiation becomes the challenge. international Ad-supported and the choice of services expanding Differentiation, of course comes Video on Demand (AVoD) or so rapidly that this won’t be the case down to content and audience…two studio Direct to Consumer (D2C) for long. things that are anyway intimately streaming, it’s all streaming TV, Our latest consumer research shows related. What’s becoming very obvious or more accurately still, just TV. that more than one in four US online is that distinct segments of viewer are Increasingly the only difference a homes now watches one of the major emerging for the different streaming TV consumer will be aware of when international AVoD services (Tubi, services and that audience segmentation consuming these services is the Pluto, Vudu, IMDBtv or Roku is not based simply on a free vs. pay difference in business model. And Channel). In the UK, 63% of homes model. Broadly, paid streaming services if we accept that it is all just TV regularly watch one of the main like Netflix and Amazon still skew anyway, that boils down to free TV, broadcaster (free) streaming services. In towards the under 45s in their audience; pay TV or a combination of both. I both countries just under 60% of homes free international streaming services think we’ve been here before! watch either Netflix or Amazon in any like Tubi, Vudu, Pluto TV and the Roku The distinctions between the various given month. In other words, all forms Channel skew heavily towards over 35s types of VoD that we in the industry of streaming TV are becoming (and older); and local broadcaster-led talk about so freely today are red ubiquitous. That’s an important free or hybrid ad-carrying services are herrings. AVoD was seen as the new inflection point, taking us as it does somewhere in the middle (although trend to watch last year and into this. from thinking about streaming TV, to they profile more closely for age to Today it is indeed growing fast, although that point I described earlier, of Netflix and Amazon). As the presence still calling second fiddle to the thinking just about ‘TV’ again. Once or absence of advertising cannot explain
12 spring 2021 www.csimagazine.com
6-7_AnalysticCorner.indd 2 19/05/2021 22:09:05 Analyst corner
the difference, it leaves content quality GROWTH OF VIEWING US SVOD SERVICES as the main determining factor. Analysis shows it’s not so much about the breadth of content; with the exception of Tubi and Amazon which have particularly large content offers all of the US streaming players have catalogues that run to between 15,000 and just under 40,000 hours. What is clear is that regardless of catalogue size or business model, audience segmentation falls strongly along content quality lines (judged on average popularity of titles). To take the analogy of ‘it’s all just TV’ further then, studio streamers and Netflix are the premium TV channels of new; international AVoD fills the thematic channel space; local broadcast- led streamers fill the role they always have: offering quality content with a AGE PROFILE OF US STREAMING SERVICES local twist. Original content will continue to play into the strategies of all players, and volumes of new original production also align well with the quality and audience continuum illustrated here, with Netflix, Apple, Amazon and studio streaming platforms leading the charge to the benefit of their content popularity ratings. Going forward, ad-supported services will simply be constituent part of the increasingly voluminous in-home streaming bundle, watched and interacted with on the basis of the content they provide. Our latest round of consumer research shows that 40% POPULARITY VS. CATALOGUE SIZE of US online homes now take four or more streaming services. As AVoD is subsumed into the overall streaming bundle, the packaging, combining and discounting of bundles of streaming services will be the new industry trend in a development I’m dubbing ‘Compounding’. That brings with it technical, navigation and data challenges as well as the need for new routes to sharing viewing information as well as challenges around security. We just need to remember that TV is streaming; streaming is TV.
www.csimagazine.com spring 2021 13
6-7_AnalysticCorner.indd 3 19/05/2021 22:09:06 Covid special
Video piracy in lockdown Irdeto’s Mark Mulready talks to CSI editor Goran Nastic about the ways that video piracy has changed during the global lockdowns, sharing some key trends and findings
explains. “They supplemented the lack from social media (Facebook, Twitch of sport by accessing the library of and YouTube), which is probably due content that many of the sports to the fact that many of the signposts organisations made available. They for live events are being placed on basically put those archive games into those sites. their OTT libraries to supplement and Because a lot of people are working maintain their customer bases. They remotely that has extended the attack also became savvier in terms of how surface for cybercriminals, who have they market themselves and how they exploited this. connect with their customers and keep “We’ve seen a massive increase in Mark Mulready is Vice is Vice Mark Mulready of Cyber President Irdeto Services, them sticky throughout the period. ransomware attacks on organisations. There was a lot of Covid-19 discounts We’ve seen the continuation of being offered, a lot of outreach to credential thefts and ongoing credential customers, use of encrypted stuffing attacks occurring. That’s he media and communications like WhatsApp to important in the context of video entertainment reassure customers they will continue because a lot of the pirates are using industry finds itself in with their service, and to notify them those compromised credentials to an interesting they are improving their VoD offering access the content and re-distribute it.” position at this to supplement the lack of live sport.” Irdeto has also seen things like moment in time. This is because in the case of live session ID sharing, where the pirates On the one hand, sport, piracy dropped off in the same are piggybacking off the CDN TCovid-19 has accelerated ongoing way as all broadcasts when leagues shut infrastructure of legitimate digitisation and D2C streaming down in the immediate Covid aftermath broadcasters. So rather than having services. In doing so, it has of the first wave. their own hosted streaming servers they heightened the security and piracy “With live sports, the piracy there simply redistribute the session IDs to risks for those platforms. dropped right off, but it came back end-users who are then piggybacking off What the last 12 months or so of immediately as soon as the major the legitimate operators’ CDN intermittent global lockdowns have sporting leagues came back we saw a infrastructure. confirmed is that video pirates have return to levels we experienced prior to “Attacks on OTT platforms will found new ways to reach and engage the pandemic — and it has stayed increase because there is a real financial with their customers, being forced to consistent or even increased in some motivation there because they don’t adapt in much the same way as cases since then as the leagues have have to pay for that hosting infrastruc- legitimate broadcasters and other continued mostly without live ture. They can piggyback off legitimate service providers. audiences. People still want that live operators,” explains Mulready. “What we saw with pirates was that sports fix and there’s a real demand In terms of the scale of the problem, they took advantage in some respect of there,” Mulready observes. different studies have highlighted the the captive audience and the increased When the sports leagues came back, numbers. Parks Associates estimated demand for content, particularly when Irdeto saw an 18-fold increase in traffic the revenue lost to piracy at around $61 it comes to P2P. We saw an immediate to the popular streaming sites in May billion in 2020 and predicts close to spike in P2P traffic,” says Mark and June of last year. The company $70bn globally by 2023. Mulready, VP of Cyber Services, Irdeto. also saw a 50% increase in searches Another big trend that Covid has “The pirates also became a bit savvy for sports streams between June and accelerated is studios more aggressively in terms of the content supplied with July 2020. experimenting with direct-to-digital their illicit streaming devices,” Mulready Additionally, it saw links originating releases, which has shrunk — in
14 spring 2021 www.csimagazine.com
IrdetoPrivacy.indd 2 20/05/2021 14:08:51 Covid special
some cases completely — cinema-to- digital windows. “That, again, heightens the piracy risk and if people don’t put the appropriate protections in place, then this could be kind of a new piracy bonanza,” warns Mulready. For content owners, because there’s no box office revenues during COVID- 19, the digital revenues and D2C play becomes increasing important. So the value chain here has become considerable expanded, as has once again the potential surface area of attack for pirates. An interesting by-product of this development has been a decrease in piracy spikes. With new titles, P2P, are multi-jurisdictional in nature, with for ads from pirate services on the first traditionally there would be multiple hosting servers and payment platforms page of results. spikes as the title moves through the in different countries. “It’s right there in your face. If you’re various windows and marketing “As a result, we still see this a consumer you don’t have to look very campaigns, but what Irdeto is seeing discussion between the rights owners far to find pirate services. It’s a multi- now with the short windows is a huge and operators as to whose responsibility million dollar business and pirates are spike in P2P piracy on first release, but it is to address piracy, but I think now very savvy in reaching their market,” there isn’t the same duplication of those the licensees are almost using piracy as Mulready observes. 2nd and 3rd spikes seen before. a negotiating point contractually. We’re “The pandemic has grown the starting to see more cooperation and streaming market, but it has also Countering a big business collaboration in that regard,” says created billing fatigue because for some To address these issues, media Mulready. “That type of cooperation we people you need to access multiple OTT companies need a combination of good need to see more of, between rights services to watch the content you want,” technologies – a combination of robust owners, operators, enforcement Mulready surmises. “That in a way is CA, DRM and watermarking. They can agencies and industry bodies like the giving people the motivation to also use tools like AI to identify and MPA,CAP and AAPA,” adds Mulready, purchase an illicit streaming device track suspicious behaviours. who also currently serves as where you have thousands of channels “I don’t think there’s a broadcaster, Co-president for AAPA, a leading pan- from premium broadcasters around the studio or OTT business that doesn’t see European anti-piracy industry world and tens of thousands of VoD piracy as a risk to their business, but association. titles available on the same device. That there is no silver bullet,” says Mark, “The trouble is the legislative change has become quite attractive for people. who recommends concurrent stream is very slow and pirates are very quick But what people don’t realise is that’s management and CDN tokenisation as in their ability to adapt. We need to exposing them to a criminal two important techniques open to OTT move as an industry at the same pace as organisation with access to their operators. Irdeto provides these abilities the pirates,” Mulready argues. personal data or a malware risk.” to its customers to help act quickly and Security companies like Irdeto What all this shows is that the pirates manage the problem. The company also work closely with agencies like Europol have, once again, adapted to how the provides 2.7bn DRM licences, and and Interpol and local police to market is moving. Piracy and that battle growing, monthly. coordinate actions. In fact, Interpol will always be there. Technology, While the technology piece is very in April this year launched a new business models, enforcement and important, the industry can’t just rely digital piracy unit. education all play a part. Moving on the technology to address the piracy Moreover, pirated content is very forward, demand – for legitimate and issue. It also needs consumer education, compelling: it’s cheap and of good pirated content - will continue to legal accessibility to content and quality in many cases. That is why the increase and security needs to be front enforcement, on both the criminal and education piece is hugely important. of mind, evolving as threats evolve civil side. All of these pirate networks Typing ‘IPTV’ into Google gives paid- over time.
www.csimagazine.com spring 2021 15
IrdetoPrivacy.indd 3 20/05/2021 14:08:51 Covid special – Remote production Out of chaos comes new order The pandemic permanently disrupted traditional sports production, accelerating distributed workflows and pushing live further into the cloud, says Adrian Pennington
igital transformation use of distributed production models, This transition was already in play is usually gradual, particularly for esports and high-value before COVID-19 but broadcasters who meticulous and tied live sports would not have even considered moving up in corporate red “The broadcasting industry to remote production “are doing so very tape and pivoted to remote, cloud, and digital quickly, either out of necessity or from conservatism. The workflows almost overnight, showcasing a desire to reduce costs and maintain global health crisis its resilience and innovation,” says quality,” says Szabo-Rowe. The Switch, Dchanged this dramatically. John Denison, VP of Innovation, for example, have supported a major “COVID-19 has pushed broadcasters LTN Global. North American sports league by to embrace more remote production “There’s been a huge acceleration in keeping its commentators on-air using models, a trend that would otherwise this space for Tier2/Tier3 content with remote production. have taken many years,” says Robert full integration of end-to-end workflows “The ability to assemble a team, Szabo-Rowe, SVP Engineering and for OTT and social media distribution,” situated anywhere in the world, and Product Management, The Switch agrees Per Lindgren, CTO and collaborate on video production has which has seen significant spikes in the co-founder of Net Insight. been a key factor in keeping shows on-air, enabling publishers to deliver at scale without any geographical restrictions,” says Scott Lunn, head of content, Grabyo. “This highlighted other benefits to the industry including environmental sustainability and the option for more people, and importantly more women, to remain in the workforce when the demands on travelling are removed for production staff.” There’s been a rise in models where the different constituents of a control room are distributed. This involves having crew such as graphics, an EVS operator, programme mixer all in different locations and remotely connected to centralized
16 spring 2021 www.csimagazine.com
RemoteProduction.indd 2 19/05/2021 22:15:43 Covid special – Remote production
jitter can destroy the content and the ability to remotely manage and control the production.”
ST 2110 and compression It is the transport links from site or between ST 2110 facilities requiring compression which can be problematic. For top tier events, JPEG2000 which displays near lossless compression has been equipment. BT Sport worked with available by consumer contributors led the most common. JPEG-XS is Timeline to do this in the UK and is media companies and producers to becoming increasingly popular due to intent on keeping similar arrangements accept webRTC streams onto the air,” its ultra-low latency below 10 ms and its permanent not least for the benefits to says Denison. emergent integration into ST 2110 staff work/life balance. Cloud-based workstations using workflows. A variation on the model retains all PCoIP, and low-cost low bandwidth “For the time being, most people the processing and hardware within an video transmission has become the don’t use 2110 for remote production,” OB truck at venue with control remoted norm. Business teleconferencing tools, says Szabo-Rowe. “However, JPEG XS to operators who could be situated in a smartphone cameras and webcams are can be applied to deliver ST 2110 in central control room or at home. The in routine use in at home scenarios for an uncompressed format, which ‘remote surface’ model means only both production crew and on-air talent. reduces the bandwidth by a factor lower resolution feeds need to be routed “The use of off-the-shelf collaboration of five to ten and could see 2110 over the internet to software panels tools keeps the media factories become more widely embraced for while uncompressed media can be kept running,” finds the IABM in its recent contribution feeds.” locally for processing. trends roadmap. “Audiences started to As ST 2110 is bandwidth-heavy, it is Outside broadcast provider Arena is accept glitches, streaming issues and for difficult and expensive to use broadly proving how low the round-trip latency that matter more often than not poor for transporting a large number of can be with a new set-up based on video and audio quality; our signals. Denison explains that LTN Grass Valley’s DirectIP solution and the expectations for more 4K UHD in 2020 Global’s centralised production facilities Net Insight Nimbra media acceleration turned into Covid Quality.” have ST 2110 capability, “but we lower platform. DirectIP requires only the As the internet and cloud is the cost of ST 2110 by using SDI in camera heads to be deployed on increasingly used for cost-efficiency and a digital format and J2K to move location while reducing the bandwidth flexibility, Automatic repeat request uncompressed signals into the end by 90 percent. (ARQ) protocols such as SRT and of the ST 2110 workflow with as RIST are used to provide a high-quality little compression as possible. With Covid-quality production stream. However, redundancy, security computers and networks getting Trade-offs between picture quality, and synchronization need to be handled faster and more powerful, ST 2110 latency and reliability, however, become properly for high quality, high will become more usable for unavoidable when dedicated fibre is availability workflows. backhaul transport.” unavailable or customers prefer to use “For broadcast quality production, One of the complications of 2110 is the internet for camera contribution for PTP support in ST 2110 is required at the control plane and connecting cost or convenience. COVID-19 gave both end-points,” says Lindgren. “100 systems together. Although NMOS many productions no choice. percent quality of service in the specifications address this, The Switch “The challenges the pandemic networks is critical for all remote finds it best to connect at one location presented and the lower standards workflows. Packet loss, latency and with 2110, transport it to another site
www.csimagazine.com spring 2021 17
RemoteProduction.indd 3 19/05/2021 22:15:44 Covid special – Remote production
using a different technology format, and together in the cloud, while we but we will see the studios move into deliver it back in 2110. It expects this use the LTN Transport network for becoming more of large data centres to change with the wider deployment of final transmission. using cloud production technology with JPEG XS. The Switch’s own cloud-based dedicated architectures and 100G links production platform, MIMiC, can to allow for big live remote productions. Moving to cloud handle small to medium-sized The media transport architecture gets productions in the cloud, with AWS CDI more complicated as productions significantly larger projects being Amazon Web Services accepts that mild inevitably move to the cloud where executed over the past year. “Scalability video compression is likely to remain operator can achieve greater resource or the profile of the event isn’t the between ground and cloud for the near efficiencies, not least in being able to issue,” says Szabo-Rowe. “Rather, it’s term, but asserts that broadcasters scale up or down for events. about the size and complexity of the “shouldn’t have to compromise by “When you start moving to the cloud, event, determined by the number of accepting unnecessary concatenated you’re looking at internet-type input sources.” compression passes when building contribution and compressed video Lindgren agrees, “The compute multi-vendor live production feeds,” says Lunn. “While this offers resources are here today to handle large- architectures in the cloud.” good video quality, the compression scale productions. The obstacle lies in This was part of the rationale behind and transmission process takes time the cost and quality of bringing the AWS Cloud Digital Interface (CDI), an and results in delay. Ultimately, there feeds into the cloud for broadcast uncompressed video transport solution is a trade-off between efficiency and quality productions. Handling for cloud broadcast applications. quality, with the producers needing to 40-camera productions, even if “Although a perfectly good standard, make adjustments depending on the compressing them down to a few ST 2110 doesn’t take into account the production needs.” hundred Mbps, means redundant 10 unique and unpredictable nature of Live production can be done entirely Gbps feeds into the cloud per event and cloud networking,” says Claire Southey, in the cloud today. LTN Global says it’s the price models and architectures of Principal Solution Architect. “AWS responsible for creating 18 hours of live public clouds are not optimised for that CDI supports UHD up to 60 fps and production entirely in the cloud for a today.” combines the scalability and flexibility (unnamed) TV channel. The production The largest T1 productions are likely of the AWS cloud with the raw workflow leverages WebRTC and to be produced in the large production performance of on-premises standards SRT to bring signals and mix them studios for some years to come, he adds such as SDI or ST 2110 to enable new applications previously inaccessible in the cloud.” There are no additional charges beyond normal EC2 compute costs for using CDI, she says. AWS’ largest instances support 400 Gbps allowing broadcasters to acquire more than 100 uncompressed 1080p video streams on a single compute node today. AWS is proposing CDI for standardisation. It has made the AV and metadata layers available as an open-source project “to ensure that broadcasters don’t feel
18 spring 2021 www.csimagazine.com
RemoteProduction.indd 4 19/05/2021 22:15:45 Covid special – Remote production
locked in,” says Southey. “Customers will likely move to mainstream sports the virtual point cloud we are shooting can take CDI, modify it, and even use it and entertainment soon.” against,” Wharton says. “With cameras on premises instead of, or in addition There are others who question in the cloud the only latency you’d have to, their ST 2110 networks.” whether the industry should be holding to manage is between cloud and Grabyo’s live production platform, onto legacy concepts of latency at all. operators [the virtual camera]. which runs on AWS infrastructure, is “Live production in the cloud doesn’t “By recreating the entire playing field one of the first to support AWS CDI. work unless you build it end to end,” using volumetric cameras as a point “This year we will see cloud productions argues Peter Wharton, Director, cloud with an eSport observe camera I deliver broadcast-grade video to every Corporate Strategy, TAG Video could position, pan, control and move screen, including your TV,” says Lunn. Systems. “The problem is that we’re any way I want.” “For large scale events across multiple always battling latency. For that reason, Not only might this engage locations, with multiple video feeds, we can’t move the cameras and the millennials who are used to the cloud production services can enhance camera-ops to the cloud.” participatory nature of eSports but workflows rather than restrict them. personalised feeds could even be offered Video and audio mixing, operating Virtualise the playing field to vans viewing on headsets. graphics and distribution in the cloud But what if you could? Wharton’s It would still need massive amounts removes the need for equipment and answer is volumetric camera arrays. of compute power but Wharton crew, creating opportunities to set up In this model, stadia are ringed by estimates that the approx. 8000 cores production environments in new dozens of cameras with all feeds being needed to run 32 UHD cameras to locations, and manage production in home run to the cloud. The feeds create the point cloud could be rented one centralized workflow, enabling would be centrally processed to create for $640 an hour on AWS. teams to work more efficiently. a point cloud array from which the “That’s throw away money in live He adds, “The cloud also means director can create slice any virtual production.” Such ideas are already productions and broadcasts can be angle they wanted. being brought to CTOs. “US TV groups replicated at scale, enabling localised By virtualizing the playing field, this are already looking at how to migrate presentation and programming, or the model trades the old concept of latency their live production control rooms option for multiple participants to in order to create a far more immersive to the cloud. Until recently they’d be create their own version of the event, coverage of a game. “Event to cloud kicked out for even contemplating which is a growing trend in eSports and latency is now irrelevant because it is the idea.”
www.csimagazine.com spring 2021 19
RemoteProduction.indd 5 20/05/2021 14:14:17 Opinion Exploring rapid advancements in TV targeting and measurement direct-to-consumer brands – stands to By Bob Ivins, Chief Strategy Officer, gain from it. TVSquared Advancing cross-platform TV he TV industry has time, with the most popular platforms measurement been predicting being Netflix, Amazon Prime and When it comes to measuring TV’s better targeting and Disney+. Hours watching streaming also effectiveness, each brand has its improved jumped in 2020 to an average of 1 hour own marketing objectives, and needs measurement “next 11 minutes per day – 37 minutes higher the business-specific metrics to year,” for at least the than in 2019. demonstrate success. The ultimate past 10 years. While these shifts were in motion goal for many marketers is to have a THowever, 2020 was the year TV prior to 2020, the pandemic accelerated holistic, unified view of ad impressions was reinvented almost overnight, as them. This sudden change from legacy and be measure the true impact of their media companies and consumers fully TV to IP-delivered premium video campaigns. This requires a cross- embraced streaming services throughout content, across multiple platforms and platform solution that accounts for the pandemic. These dramatic shifts devices, enabled TV to dramatically reach and frequency, reach extension, in audience behaviours meant brands improve its targeting and measurement outcomes and audience, at scale and wanted to connect with consumers no capabilities. With impression-based in a privacy-compliant manner. Brands matter the time, platform or device. measurement implemented at scale – can then unlock the one-to-one In tandem, with privacy a rising which builds identity resolution across deterministic matching and highly concern, Google announced plans platforms without the use of third-party effective ad targeting capabilities that to sunset third-party cookies – the data providers – in effect, it neutralises TV now has to offer. mechanism digital advertising’s any advantages that digital had and Informed by in-depth, real-time targeting and measurement creates a level playing field for all insights, brands are able to make capabilities rely heavily on. media. in-flight optimisations to ad campaigns, So, how do these two events using the intel to go beyond age, gender combine to make 2021 the best The cookie crumbles, but TV and ratings to activate audiences. To do time to be on TV? continues to thrive this is in a compliant, privacy-first In early March 2021, Google officially environment, always-on analytics links Uniting the best of linear and announced its timetable to sunset the census-level media exposure data to digital utilisation of third-party cookies, audience response, allowing TV With digital and linear colliding, positioning the move as a consumer advertisers to attribute their ad marketers are now motivated to rethink privacy initiative. However, with the investment to tangible outcomes. This TV. To paraphrase Hemingway, “change UK’s online population visiting a also helps brands better understand the happens slowly … until it doesn’t.” Google-owned site for an average of customer journey, so they can deploy The number of streaming services 47 minutes each day in 2020, Google’s effective frequency capping and ad on offer has grown dramatically in walled-garden approach will likely suppression, and identify where to the past few years. Specifically, in the neuter the digital targeting and invest ad spend. last 18 months, the UK has seen the measurement capabilities of all sites With digital advertising’s targeting introduction of BritBox, Disney+ and not named Google. and measurement capabilities in Discovery+. Add to that increased Luckily, for the TV ad industry, question, and advances in TV’s consumer adoption – it is estimated the traditional measurement model targeting and measurement capabilities that 12 million British adults gained functioned without a single cookie. gaining momentum and scale – there access to a new subscription video-on- Today’s cross-platform TV measurement has never been a better time for brands demand (SVoD) service during has also successfully merged the best of to use TV to reach the right consumers, lockdown, while around 3 million linear and digital; and everyone – from at the right time, on the right platform accessed SVoD services for the first traditional advertisers to emerging AND quantify results.
20 spring 2021 www.csimagazine.com
opinion.indd 2 19/05/2021 22:21:30 ponsored by www.csimagazine.com
pecial focus
irect-to- onsumer streaming
MediaKind_FocusV2.indd 6 21/05/2021 16:36:04 D2C
weekend passes and even subscriptions Tapping into the that focus on a particular team. “The PGA Tour continues its quest to serve golf fans wherever they are, and potential of D2C sports however they want to consume our content,” said Luis Goicouria, SVP of digital platforms and media strategy at With the shift towards direct-to-streaming the PGA Tour, at the launch of the league’s OTT channel. well underway in general entertainment, A recent report by Variety argued that CSI editor Goran Nastic assesses the sports are at a critical point. While TV viewership is in a clear state of decline opportunity for the sports sector (though still sizable), younger fans are embracing new ways of engaging with t some point during still commands a presence in over a leagues with decreasing importance the last 12 months, billion households worldwide - the placed on watching games live. streaming reached number of payTV subscribers passed “This brings opportunities to leagues an important the 1 billion mark in 2018 - that but also risk. Tweaking competitions milestone when number is shrinking or at best flat as and game structure to attract more it passed over streaming takes hold. Look at the younger viewers comes with the one billion financial results of any large media possibility of alienating older fans, Asubscriptions globally. According company, and their executives but what’s clear is that things to the Motion Picture Association, frequently refer to their D2C services as cannot remain the same for much 1.1 billion accounts subscribed to growth engines. This is mirrored in the longer,” it stated. online video services by the end of wider landscape, where streaming Video software technology company 2020 and in its annual report the accounts for an overwhelming part of MediaKind argues that the most MPA was quick to credit the role technology R&D budgets and billions significant opportunity in D2C is in the that new direct-to-consumer (D2C) are invested into content. sports market. offers played in driving Ad-supported video (AVoD) is the “Sports rights-holders are heading subscriptions, which increased other major streaming shift of the towards the OTT sector in a very big by 26%, or 232 million, compared 2020s. The international rollout of way. Most leagues and other content to 2019. major global AVoD platforms, and the owners understand the importance of For films and episodic content, the fact that some of the studio direct going D2C to reach their fanbases shift to D2C is well underway. Content streamers are adopting hybrid strategies directly,” says Dheeraj Ravula, Head traditionally delivered via aggregators, that embrace AVoD as part of the of Product for D2C Video Solutions, MVPDs, and proprietary networks is business mix, means that ad-supported MediaKind. either partially or entirely delivered streaming TV is on a similar trajectory “Arguably sports D2C is the sector D2C. to SVoD. with most untapped potential,” agrees Studios from Sony Pictures to David Sidebottom, Principal Analyst - Paramount are supplying significant The sports D2C opportunity Entertainment Media, Futuresource. amounts of content for their own or Then there is sports, where social media “But the rights fragmentation, other streaming platforms, with the platforms like Facebook and Twitter localisation, legacy arrangements and market now increasingly crowded not have made tentative moves into sports sheer scale of some of these rights just by smaller, niche OTT players, but rights acquisition, as has most notably means that there is still a long way to go also such heavyweights as Paramount+, Amazon and the likes of DAZN. in this sector, although some smaller HBO Max, Peacock and Disney+. The major US sports leagues all sports have found considerable success The market is now charactered and operate their own successful platforms, in reaching their core fanbase directly.” shaped by major content producers as do some smaller sports and leagues, The bi-directional nature of internet going direct. such as golf, cycling and martial arts. delivery allows for a far richer and more Streaming dominates the business They operate a range of business immersive experience for fans than is agenda and many leading media models, from annual package (the most possible with linear broadcast coverage. executives have labelled the 2020s the popular type of subscription), through Meanwhile, it enables rights-holders to ‘streaming decade’. While payTV also monthly subscription, PPV, daily or gather valuable insights into their fans’
22 spring 2021 www.csimagazine.com
MediaKind_FocusV2.indd 2 19/05/2021 22:23:29 D2C
viewing behaviour and preferences, sports streaming services. is currently exploring transactional according to Ravula, who adds that the A recent report* from MediaKind interactive video solutions for some of monetisation opportunities in the space found that only around 8% of rights- its digital content. are ripe but mostly untapped. holders currently engage with some Interestingly, when announcing its “With D2C, there will be a lot more form of advertising on their OTT latest broadcast and streaming mega content consumed, driven through the service. Given the promise it offers deal value at over $100 billion, the NFL brands themselves or in the context of towards bringing ARPU for ad-revenues, noted that its media partners will now sports, driven by specific leagues and MediaKind expects personalised have greater ability to innovate around teams. This will benefit the end-user advertising to take off soon. The their productions and provide experience,” he asserts. company also identified betting as interactive elements such as stats/data, Ampere Analysis identifies niche another ‘open target’. No rights-holder chat and integrated social feeds as part sports as a clear opportunity for D2C has an integrated betting offering of their digital presentations. streaming. Martial arts and other within its D2C service at present. Lasting into the next decade, the combat sports have a low interest Despite this, all major sports bodies 11-year deal also had many overall within the population, but a in the US are currently developing commentators questioning what the particularly high willingness to pay services that will enable fans to place various agreements mean for the future within the fan base, according to bets around the live content they of television (the deal gave Thursday research from Ampere. Given low are streaming, according to the night rights to Amazon and allows relative interest, rights are also far MediaKind survey. NBC, CBS and ABC to stream the more affordable. Perhaps the most vocal player on this games they have the rights to, even At the same time, with millions of front has been live sports streamer the Super Bowl, meaning good news viewers often tuning in to watch a live fuboTV, which recently entered the for Peacock, Paramount Plus and game, streaming performance concerns online sports betting market with the ESPN Plus). are critical factors. A high-profile glitch acquisition of Balto Sports, a move Unfortunately for fans, the problem during a major event can cause that will create many opportunities. of fragmentation is not likely to go away dissatisfaction among fans and damage Through the deal, Balto will help any time soon. the sports body’s image, which is why fuboTV expand into both free to play “Super aggregation and pan service streaming performance concerns are gaming and online sports wagering. search remain the holy grail in the TV critical factors in the R&D strategy of “fuboTV sees the online wagering viewing experience and our research companies like MediaKind. space as complementary to our sports- highlights that having to navigate It is also important to point out that first live TV streaming platform. We across different services, coming in D2C may not be the best fit for every believe there are significant synergies and out of different apps etc is a market and situation. Even an between consumers who enjoy wagering major bug bear for consumers,” says organisation the size of the English and our subscribers who enjoy Sidebottom at Futuresource, whose Premier League (EPL) warned when it streaming live sports, creating a latest ‘Living With Digital’ consumer announced it was exploring a D2C play flywheel opportunity. As we’ve research shows that 30% of SVoD that the balance will be in favour of previously expressed, one of our goals subscribers say they will take more territorial broadcast rights deals for with wagering is to expand our total services in 2021 than currently (only some time to come due to localisation available market (TAM) by developing ~10% say they will take less). and other challenges. another important revenue stream for For now, sport just about remains the As a result, the EPL, one of the fuboTV, as we are doing with our jewel in the traditional payTV crown, world’s most popular and valuable growing ad sales business,” says fubo but it will ultimately follow the same sports leagues, will continue to rely TV’s CEO David Gandler. “We’re trajectory as general entertainment mainly on lucrative sports rights deals excited to launch sports wagering, services, inevitably transitioning to with local broadcasters despite integrate it into our core offerings and OTT and all the benefits that offers. developing its own D2C proposition, deliver what we believe will be a truly “The shift towards D2C for the expected in 2022, which would give the ground-breaking live TV streaming most valuable live content is in its league new flexibility and technology to platform to consumers.” early phases, but this transition will reach fans globally. The online sports wagering market is continue over the next few years,” says expected to reach $155 billion by 2024, MediaKind’s Ravula. “D2C for sports The next frontier according to Zion Market Research. will become mainstream, and the cost Further personalisation, interactivity Another potential route to efficiencies will probably parallel those and betting are the next frontier for monetisation is ecommerce. The NFL of broadcast.”
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with studios have provided essential Learning Lessons for short-term revenues in the absence of physical movie screenings. The announcement of the April 2021 the D2C Future content partnership between Sony and Netflix – which will see the latter exclusively streaming Sony’s By Dheeraj Ravula, Head of Product for D2C blockbuster releases through its OTT Video Solutions, MediaKind platform - is a further demonstration of the continued appetite for premium D2C content delivered through popular However, others are still playing catch consumer apps. up when it comes to tapping into the capabilities of cloud-first streaming Overcoming obstacles to D2C solutions. There is now low-hanging To date, the most common fruit these organisations can capture; apprehensions around D2C-driven live their opportunity lies in exploring D2C content centre on fears surrounding delivery routes and opening up their sub-quality video streaming. A glitch in business strategies to embrace flexibility the feed during a high-profile live game and resilience. will, at best, frustrate watching fans
Dheeraj Ravula, Head of Dheeraj D2C Video for Product Solutions, MediaKind Event websites and basic apps have, and, at worst, irreparably damage a until now, acted as the ‘central hub’ for league’s brand image. Similarly, the audience engagement. With significant, likely outcome of a latency-ridden recent developments in digital media keynote speech at a major virtual trade technology, brands now have an show is thousands of laptop lids he turbulent period of enhanced pathway to offer their slamming shut and a reluctant wait for disruption compelling live content in a way that the on-demand recording to emerge. experienced within ignites a two-way conversation with The bottom line? Robustness, quality, the live event their fan base. and cost savings are prerequisites for industry over the past Production houses and film studios any D2C offering. year has led to some are already reaping significant benefits MediaKind had all three of these core fundamental shifts in from D2C, with its uptake being tenants in mind in our response to the Thow brands reach their fanbases catalysed during the pandemic with the live event market over the past year. and deliver their content. One temporary closure of cinemas and Working alongside our long-term thing has now become clear; theatres. Its impact is well documented technology partner Microsoft, we having direct relationships with through the indomitable rise of OTT developed an innovative video-streaming audiences is an important way for services such as Disney+, HBO Max, blueprint that has enabled the rights holders and event and, more recently, Discovery Plus. successful transformation of live organisers to future-proof their D2C film releases and partnerships physical events into virtual offerings. business models. As a result, D2C (direct-to-consumer) delivery models have become an increasingly important element in brands’ media strategies, enabling them to deliver richer experiences to their audiences while also gaining important fan data and potential new revenue streams for the brand. Most entertainment landscape segments are gradually shifting towards D2C delivery models, particularly for on-demand movie and film content.
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MediaKind_FocusV2.indd 4 19/05/2021 22:23:29 D2C
We first implemented our highly scalable and flexible platform to deliver the 2020 Chattanooga Film Festival, partnering with Evergent, Slalom and VisualOn. The unique collaboration enabled the festival organisers to reach its 30,000 strong audience of independent movie lovers, delivering 50 independently made short feature films, several feature-length films, and a series of presentations and panel sessions both live and on-demand. This blueprint’s strength was then taken to heightened levels when we produced a unique technology-driven solution to bring the first all-digital CES trade show to life. The project, which was delivered in just 60 days, had to holders currently operate a subscription services. Despite this, all major sports now scale to an audience of millions, D2C service of some kind, with varying bodies in the US are presently spread across many time zones and degrees of content offerings and developing services that will enable fans continents. monetisation approaches. These include to place bets around the live content MediaKind’s end-to-end media annual (60 percent), monthly (58 they are streaming. Following the processing and delivery solution formed percent), or multi-game options, legalisation of betting in the US in a deep integration of technologies individual purchases (18 percent), and 2018, this momentum will continue as within a highly interactive, cloud-based even packages covering small portions its popularity increases, leading to fan engagement platform. MediaKind of a game. These models each present greater experimentation. This was tasked with providing security and unique challenges, mainly to do with momentum is likely to encourage scalability to the CES 2021 D2C scale and sharp peaks in audience further experimentation in European platform and supporting fast VOD viewing. Yet, with OTT technology markets, where sports betting is already ingest and transcoding for hundreds of becoming prevalent in entertainment largely embraced. assets. Prominent production pieces, viewing, the sports market has reached such as keynote speeches, were an inflection point. Looking beyond lockdown recorded via Microsoft Teams and The internet’s bi-directional nature There is still a lot of room for delivered into the Microsoft Studios means rights holders can deliver more experimentation and creativity within workflow before the event. immersive experiences than is possible the D2C landscape, and those willing to with linear broadcast coverage. With far capitalise on it can reap significant Opportunities in live sports greater insights into viewing behaviour, benefits. Looking back to the example Attention is now turning towards sports the monetisation potential is ripe yet of Disney+, the service launched in the rights-holders, who are still remains mostly untapped. For example, UK in March 2020 and has already predominantly focussed on securing the same MediaKind report found that become a D2C mainstay; it’s now the Pay-TV broadcast rights. Within live just 8 percent of sports rights-holders UK’s third-biggest streaming platform sports, D2C is a developing market incorporate advertising within their with a 16.8 percent market share. currently reminiscent of Pay-TV in the OTT service. The revenue potential for The re-opening of some studios, early 1990s. The percentage of sports targeted ad-insertion is immense, even stadiums, and arenas will partially rights-holders now operating a D2C likely to surpass the revenue from compensate for the losses experienced OTT service with rich content remains subscriptions in the coming years – during the imposed restrictions in 2020 small. But all sports rights-holders, even making this a missed opportunity. and 2021. Still, the truth of the those without their own platform, are Sports betting is also emerging as a situation is that rights-holders must look exploring the commercial possibilities valuable and engaging addition to the to engage their audiences beyond brick that emerge with D2C OTT. fan experience, particularly micro- and mortar, embrace new digital A recent report conducted by betting and fantasy sports. There are technology innovations, and evolve their MediaKind and The Sports Playmaker currently no integrated betting business models. For those that get it found that 70 percent of sports rights- capabilities within rights-holders’ D2C right, the rewards are significant.
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MediaKind_FocusV2.indd 5 19/05/2021 22:23:29 Stream BIGGER with Sports D2C
The MediaKind 2021 Sports D2C Forecast is the most significant analysis ever undertaken of the direct-to-consumer (D2C) OTT platforms owned and operated directly by sports rights-holders.
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www.mediakind.com/insights/2021-sports-d2c-forecast Q&A Q&A Dr Curtis Knittle, Vice President of Wired Technologies at CableLabs, talks to CSI about the progress being made with the 10G platform and low latency DOCSIS, while also revealing the industry group’s roadmap and upcoming interoperability events
For those that may be unaware, can you explain what cable’s 10G project is and how it started? We’re going on two years now since we defined the 10G platform. I think the motivation behind the platform was really to put a framework, a name, to everything that the cable industry does really around the globe. They invest
billions of dollars every day to continue Dr Curtis Knittle, Vice President of Wired at CableLabs Technologies to increase capacity and improve reliability and other enhancements to specifications. That, of course, is a the networks. And it tended to go key component of the evolution of unrecognised in the sense that it was the network, which all in all helps money invested, but never really talked increase the capacity and improve about. So I think the 10G platform the latency even more so over the We’ve enhanced authentication and embodies all of the activities from our RF signalling defined in the encryption capabilities. cable operators. DOCSIS specs. Finally, on reliability, we have a more Also on the speed front, the robust proactive network maintenance Where are we now on the road to cable industry really led the completion activity than we ever have had at 10G? How have things evolved of the 25Gbps PON technology. CableLabs and the industry. One of the since then? We finished that at the IEEE in key outcomes of all this proactivity is I think it’s actually coming along very July 2020 and that is not only what we call our ‘Profile management nicely. When you look at the four pillars 25Gbps but also 50Gbps. application’. This is an automated of 10G — speed, lower latency, security On the low latency front, we just last method for setting the profiles on each and reliability — I think that we’ve month (in March 2021) certified our of the sub-carriers in DOCSIS 4.0 and made tremendous progress over the first cable modem that supports the low 3.1 networks. On the downstream, this last 12-24 months. latency DOCSIS requirements, so that’s has increased capacity by 20-40% and On the speed front, of course, we a tremendous milestone for the on the upstream it’s showing promise of have DOCSIS 4.0, under development industry. We’ve also undertaken the doing the same thing. At the same time, right now, offering 10Gbps downstream definition and corresponding it increases the stability of cable and up to 6Gbps upstream, which will architecture to measure latency from an modems. We call it ‘flapping’ when a allow for multi-gigabit symmetric end-to-end perspective, so no longer is it modem is going back and forth between services over the HFC network. I think about a single hop, for example. It’s not these profiles and this profile 15-20 years ago I’m not sure anyone finished yet, but we will be capable of management application improves that really would have thought that was measuring latency end-to-end. That’s a as well. possible. great amount of progress there. From an architectures perspective, On the security front, there’s So 10Gbps is not the final goal with the flexible MAC architecture (FMA) ‘Micronets’, which allows a refinement 10G as far as speed is concerned? released the first set of issued of networks within a home or business. On the PON front, and even on the
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HFC front, we’re not finished at PMA I mentioned earlier now has a 10Gbps downstream. The 10G platform singular focus on the upstream. But though, really spoke about ten times overall, the cable networks have current speeds, since the table stakes handled both the upstream and service tier today is 1Gig. But I don’t downstream capacity increase quite think anyone thinks that 10Gbps will be well. I think everybody is feeling good the end-game for the cable industry, about the networks, but they don’t whether it’s over HFC or fibre. expect consumption and service tiers to The 25GS-PON MSA group seems to level off any time soon. be aiming for something similar. Yes, there’s a history behind that. In How far ahead are you with low fact, CableLabs is part of that latency DOCSIS? organisation as well. That activity is The low latency DOCSIS spec is part of similar to the XGS-PON where they DOCSIS 3.1 and 4.0 family of specs, marry the 10Gbps PON physical layer it’s not separate. So that’s finished and from the IEEE with the transmission for the last 6-12 months we have been convergence sub-layer of the ITU. The holding interoperability events. 25GS PON is basically the same thing. Following that, we’ve moved that They will marry the 25Gbps IEEE capability into our certification physical layer with an ITU flavour programme, and just last month we had transmission convergence sub-layer. our first cable modem that supports low That trajectory continues to go from 10 latency DOCSIS successfully complete to 25Gbps. Whereas CableLabs has the certification process. focused mostly on the IEEE EPON we have an abundance of members who similar speed tiers across their various use the GPON technology, the ITU access technologies. What DOCSIS 4.0 “I think HFC defined technology, so it just makes does at its full capability is it exceeds sense for CableLabs to embrace all the service tier capability of 10G PON, continues to be the passive optical networking flavours for whether it is XGS-PON or 10G EPON. the benefit of our membership. It’s very complimentary and we have main focus but I The argument there seems to be that operators that are deploying 10G PON it makes more sense to go to 25G first in both flavours (10G EPON and XGS- think PON will start than straight to 50G. PON) and they are doing it strategically. From a standard and operator I think HFC continues to be the main ramping up.” perspective, when they make a leap in focus, but I think PON will start capacity, while Ethernet historically has ramping up. When do you think that DOCSIS 4.0 made the leap more or less in factors of deployments will start to ramp up? 10, but in access network technologies Have some of the shifts that have Deployments at scale are probably still you don’t necessarily have that benefit happened during the pandemic, a couple of years away, but at any more. Getting an improvement such as upstream growing a lot CableLabs we are anticipating factor of five, for example, is actually more strongly, affected CableLabs interoperability events hopefully later pretty good. work? this year and certainly in 2022 we will It has impacted some of our work, but be holding interop events on DOCSIS And do you see XGS-PON as in the sense that we’re trying to be more 4.0 cable modems, chipsets and complementary to DOCSIS 4.0? aggressive with DOCSIS 4.0, which will reference designs, as well as the CMTS Most operators would love to have improve that upstream capacity. That portion of that.
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Has Covid derailed some of this were released at the end of September as both a potential threat and interop work? and we will release another set of issues opportunity for the industry. The rural Covid put a stop on our ability to specs here at the end of May. We communities, FWA could become very hold interoperability events, but we anticipate by the end of the year we will important there. From an ability to modified our labs to allow for remote be starting interoperability events for meet the same speeds as through wired interoperability testing and we had the FMA, which initially is around connections, that’s where the challenge vendors that took advantage of that. Remote MAC-PHY. is for wireless. To get to 10Gbps It actually turned out to be very What FMA does, if you look at symmetric, you need a lot of wireless successful and productive under the the two extremes of distributed CCAP, spectrum and you’re talking about circumstances. We have other is that there may be something in millimetre wave (mmWave) spectrum, technologies besides DOCSIS 4.0, between Remote PHY and Remote but everyone is starting to find out that like Low Latency DOCSIS and MAC-PHY that is actually beneficial deploying mmWave at scale is more Remote-PHY interoperability activities. according to whatever virtualisation challenging than what people may have and distributed architecture they (the thought a few years ago. I think the On the subject of Remote-PHY, operators) have. Flexible MAC is not threat will come 5 years from now as what’s your sense of the progress just about having the MAC at the edge, opposed to immediately. cable is making with DAA? but also somewhere between the hub Obviously the entire cable industry and the edge. It’s about having the Finally, during these times, is still evolving towards distributed MAC capability somewhere in the it has been good to see some access architectures, and of course network that makes the most sense for of the community projects and DAA doesn’t just mean Remote PHY an operator and that’s where the other initiatives that cable or Remote MAC-PHY. DAA is the flexibility comes in. (It’s a similar operators have engaged in. bigger picture of remote OLTs or situation with extended spectrum What have been your takeaways multi-gigabit symmetric to enterprise DOCSIS, where operators can trade about the recent role of cable? or celltower xHaul. It’s really about off trade-off downstream and When the pandemic first started, we fibre-deep with intelligent devices at upstream spectrum.) held weekly calls with our membership. the edge that are doing the final Then there is DOCSIS 4.0 They started with our members talking conversion to whatever the final few interoperability, ramping up towards about the performance of their hundred metres or yards is to the the end of this year and into 2022 networks, but beyond that we had subscriber premise. and 2023. stories told that conveyed the value of I think everyone wishes that progress the network to subscribers. Not just and deployments were at a higher rate, How important is the wireless video, but to continue to make a living but I don’t think anyone would have element to 10G? from their homes and have their kids estimated the impact that the pandemic The wireless activities are very being schooled from home. would have. Having said that, I think complimentary, even from an MNO, Before the pandemic people our operators have done a fantastic job MVNO and WiFi perspective. You need recognised this was possible but I don’t of maintaining the normal node to have that robust wired network think anyone realised to what extent our segmentation and then there have been behind it for all the backhaul. We have networks are able to provide those plenty that have succeeded in lots of activity with WiFi and 5G capabilities to consumers. I personally continuing with their distributed access mobile and are also focusing very never thought I would do well working evolution even during the pandemic. heavily convergence — wireline/wireless from home and actually I want to keep convergence is a big focus for working from home. What can we expect from CableLabs right now. We have There’s a lot of people, not just CableLabs in the next 12 months operators that are very interested in within cable, that our proud of what or so? that and an who recognise that it is they have been able to develop in terms There’s two main things. The first is the important for their subscribers. of these capabilities for the general FMA. Our first set of specifications I’m not the wireless guy, but I see it population.
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26-27_CableLabsQ&A.indd 4 19/05/2021 22:28:13 Fibre update More fibre in European diet The latest report from the FTTH Council Europe shows progress being made in the region, but lots of work still to do
he EU 39 region FTTH architecture over FTTB (63% passed a milestone in vs 37%). Alternative internet service September 2020 providers still make up the largest when more than half part of FTTH/B players, with a of total homes could contribution of around 57% of the connect to fibre. The total fibre expansion. FTTH Council Europe In terms of competition, 5G in the Tadmitted that while fibre roll-outs high spectrum bands (26GHz) will are taking place at an increasingly directly challenge FTTH in the fixed faster pace in Europe, the EU is residential market, said the Council. making significant – though And gigabit-capable fixed wireless uneven – progress in meeting its (60GHz) is becoming more common in connectivity targets. isolated areas, which will delay fibre There were 182.6 million homes deployments in some places. G.fast connectable with fibre to the home or and cable were also identified as building (FTTH/B) in September, competitive technologies compared with 172 million a year The Market Panorama report was before, for a penetration of 52.5%, pulled together by analysts IDATE. according to the latest FTTH Council Eric Festraets, president of the FTTH Europe. Council Europe, said: “The data of this Iceland came on top with 70.7% of new edition of our Market Panorama households having fibre connections, confirms that fibre rollouts are taking followed by Belarus (70.4%) and Spain place at an increasingly faster pace in (62.6%). Europe, and the EU is making a very The main movers in terms of homes significant - though uneven - progress in passed in absolute numbers are France meeting its connectivity targets.” (up by 4.6 million), Italy (+2.8 M), Germany (+2.7 M) and the UK (+1.7 M). The top 5 of the annual growth rates in terms of homes passed is headed by Belgium (+155%), Serbia (+110%), Germany (+66%), United Kingdom (+65%) and Ireland (+49%). The number of FTTH and FTTB subscribers in Europe increased by 16.6% in EU39 in the year since September 2019 with 81.9 million FTTH/B subscribers in September 2020. France, Russia and Spain added the most susbrcibers. The ongoing pandemic has demonstrated the necessity of both FTTH deployments and adoption. Fibre technologies have been continuously evolving during the last few years with a predominance of
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Special supplement
Improving user experiences with better compression LCEVC and next-gen codecs come to the fore
CompressonSupplement.indd 1 19/05/2021 22:37:50 Compression supplement
Superior video experience with better compression Following MPEG’s recent release of LCEVC verification tests, CSI editor Goran Nastic investigates how LCEVC stands to ease the stress on broadband networks and create transformative user experiences increasingly complex media world that downstream traffic in 2020 increased is pivoting towards streaming. It is also approximately 38% over 2019 levels and helping drive impressive innovation. peak upstream traffic increased by One of the most recent promising around 56% over the same period. video compression solutions is MPEG-5 Despite the growth in upstream traffic, part 2 LCEVC. By acting as an traffic patterns remained highly enhancement layer for other video asymmetrical, as downstream traffic codecs, LCEVC promises significant volumes were 14x higher than upstream bandwidth savings, in turn enabling traffic volumes throughout 2020, compelling user experiences and according to the US cable operator. Goran Nastic, Editor, Editor, Nastic, Goran CSI unlocking new business cases. By European networks experienced enhancing their compression efficiency similar figures, and the EU suggested and simultaneously reducing the in the early days of lockdown that processing cost of encoding, LCEVC called video services to limit bit-rates, hat do streaming, improves the business case for legacy throttling the quality of their service broadcasting, video and upcoming codecs. LCEVC can be to cope with demand. The decision communications, used to deliver higher video quality in was not wholeheartedly welcomed by cloud gaming, file limited bandwidth scenarios, especially encoding vendors, who argued that sharing, virtual when the available bandwidth is low for the same effects could have been Wreality and other immersive media high-resolution video delivery and reached through better compression, have in common? They all rely to encoding or decoding complexity is a thereby not downgrading the quality some extent on compression to challenge. of experience (QoE). work smoothly and efficiently. The EU recommendation also The Covid-19 crisis has radically Pandemic drives shift to large highlighted the fact that network quality amplified its importance to the world. screen streaming is not just an issue for developing More video traffic results in the need The relentless growth in streaming has countries. Even pre-Covid, studies such for more bandwidth and better been the main driving force behind as those from Conviva show that video compression. This cycle has repeated next-generation codec development quality and/or buffering affect many itself time after time in the past, but this over the last few years. As a result, it users in advanced markets, while time there is a lot more stress on the is no coincidence that the last few service outages during major sports network. Life during the pandemic years have seen an influx of new events are not uncommon. demonstrated how useful and valuable codecs that have shaken up a once Interestingly, Conviva’s latest State of compression is from many perspectives, stable landscape (more on this in our Streaming report, found that streaming including cost reduction, bandwidth article on page 38). on big screens accounted for 73% of saving, quality improvement, and even The pandemic has driven further global viewing time in Q1 2021 and the environmental sustainability. acceleration in downstream and report identifies big screen viewing as Video compression technology is upstream traffic growth. According to the key trend. While people are generating a lot of interest in an recent data from Comcast, peak streaming more, they are at home on
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CompressonSupplement.indd 2 19/05/2021 22:37:50 Compression supplement
MPEG completes LCEVC verification tests Official test results just released by MPEG show in detail the extra savings afforded by LCEVC on top of base MPEG codecs. Following the 134th MPEG meeting, held online at the end of April this year, MPEG announced verification tests of the LCEVC standard by measuring the benefits of enhancing four existing codecs of different generations, namely AVC, HEVC, EVC, VVC. A first set of tests compared LCEVC-enhanced encoding with full- resolution single-layer anchors. The average bit-rate savings produced by LCEVC when enhancing AVC were determined to be approximately 46% larger screens as smart TVs saw the Germany and Singapore,” explains for UHD and 28% for HD. When biggest expansion of viewership with a Guido Meardi, CEO and co-founder of enhancing HEVC approximately 31% 115% increase over Q1 of last year. In UK-based compression specialist for UHD and 24% for HD. Test contrast, mobile phones, tablets, and V-Nova. results also indicate an overall benefit desktops saw growth in line with the V-Nova says that operators can use when using LCEVC to enhance EVC global average. LCEVC in combination with codecs and VVC. Compression efficiency is extremely like AVC/H.264, HEVC and AV1 to A second set of tests confirmed that useful in this context. And because of transmit live UHD video at under LCEVC provided a more efficient its ability to combine with any codec, 10Mbps, 1080p50 HD at under 4 means of resolution enhancement of LCEVC boosts the performance of Mbps, full HD at under 2 Mbps, and half resolution anchors than unguided compression further (by around a acceptable quality services for a football up-sampling. Comparing LCEVC full- third), thereby increasing its value to match under 500 Kbps. This can triple resolution encoding with the various applications and use cases, the audience that can be served in many up-sampled half-resolution anchors, including, of course, streaming. territories and guarantees a good quality the average bit-rate savings when using of service even to those with low LCEVC with AVC, HEVC, EVC and Bandwidth savings, but improved bandwidth, thereby reaching a higher VVC were calculated to be picture quality percentage of their customer base. approximately 28%, 34%, 38%, and Fibre, 5G and high-speed cable Official test results just released by 33% for UHD and 27%, 26%, 21%, DOCSIS 3.1/4.0 networks are all MPEG bear testament to these claims and 21% for HD, respectively. coming, but they will take years to (see boxout). become widespread and by the time These numbers are important because people are still connected via ADSL that happens 4K video could well of the legacy broadband infrastructure, technology, depending on market. become mainstream, with more 8K even in Europe and North America. Moreover, connectivity in the last mile, content emerging to put even further Looking at the infrastructure available due to the length of the copper line, is strain on networks. in many countries, being able to push very often below 5Mbps peak “For at least the next 20 years HD and UHD at lower bandwidth while connectivity. A further 15-20% are capacity will not be enough, preserving quality would make a huge FTTC (fibre to the cabinet, but copper underserving relevant portions of the difference to the addressable audience, to the home) with the household far market. Very often, the problem is allowing operators to serve more from the cabinet, which gives prime much bigger than many people think, viewers demanding even higher quality. time peak connectivity below 10Mbps even in countries like the UK, the US, In Europe today, some 35%-45% of to the average home. It is estimated that
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ones; that may be over ten years with current replacement cycles. With a hybrid broadcasting approach, LCEVC can instead be used to deliver a single backward-compatible channel, such that compatible receivers receive pristine Ultra HD HDR while legacy receivers just ignore the LCEVC enhancement and still receive HD. This allows service providers to enhance their offering without either leaving any customers behind or duplicating their services. In turn, greater availability of high-quality content may incentivise customers to buy newer devices with better screens, in a virtuous cycle. Broadcast operators will also never transmit 8K at a bit-rate of 80-100Mbps per channel en masse as NHK is doing in Japan. Encoding experts believe that only 5-10% of homes in most countries compression brings a better customer the new VVC standard will be the have connections over 50Mbps. These experience, quality, market reach, dominant codec for 8K, with AVS3 numbers are important because watching time and, ultimately, revenues. used in China (AVS3 is optimised for 50Mbps is what a home needs to have a And just as more HD channels entice 8K video and is the Chinese alternative reliable video stream at 25-30Mbps, people away from SD to better quality, to VVC). Enhancing next-gen codecs which is the current requirement for so once everyone is able to receive like VVC with LCEVC makes 8K linear UHD, without maxing out the full HD, then a much larger number transmission much more practical peak connectivity for the entire of people will want UHD, 8K and because bit-rates are reduced and less transmission. even volumetric video. Counter processing power is required in devices Live sports streaming services intuitively, greater capacity requires to decode the streams. typically recommend 2-3 Mbps for SD even better compression. By But V-Nova has also been working and 8-9 Mbps for full HD (and support significantly increasing the number of together on an integration of LCEVC passable video down to around 800 people that can receive full HD or with MainConcept codecs initially kbps). With on-demand, the Netflix UHD, LCEVC stands to bring extra focused on HEVC/H.265 and primetime average bit-rate in reported revenues and reduce churn. AVC/H.264. The two companies for the UK is 3.5Mbps, in the US it is Because spectrum is a finite resource, collaborated on an analysis of 8K 3.3Mbps, in Germany it is 3.4Mbps and similar arguments hold true for DTT H.265 encoding with and without in Singapore it is 3.7Mbps. In India, broadcast as they do for streaming, but LCEVC that was presented in one of the biggest markets for video with a twist. Resolutions above HD will September 2020 during MainConcept’s streaming, it is 1.7Mbps. never take off with broadcasters unless 8K webinar. By definition, therefore, there is a bandwidth can be reduced. At the same “We have been happy with results significant revenue growth opportunity. time, receivers will not be replaced of our LCEVC evaluations and will At home, at least a third of fixed anytime soon, so deploying a more address it by adding this to our 2021 broadband customers receive sub- efficient stand-alone codec would still product mix,” said Thomas Kramer standard quality, even in the best require the transmission of two conditions. On mobile, the problem is channels per service, one for backward “Fact: The first use of even worse, because the median compatibility and one for the new connectivity is estimated at 300- receivers. This ultimately defies the LCEVC was in search 500kbps even in advanced countries purpose of saving bandwidth until with good 4G coverage. enough viewers have the newer devices and rescue drones.” For the majority of customers, that you can stop supporting the legacy
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of MainConcept, a company whose codecs are used by many in the video LCEVC and sustainability production space. Reducing the processing requirements emissions (more than 2% of those Another potential use case can be of encoding is important from a cost of the US), and grows faster described as ‘HDR democratisation’. perspective, especially for the hyper- than Moore’s law. By providing Here, LCEVC can be used to bring scalers, and is especially important in notable transcoding costs (and higher bit depth to 8-bit codecs and the current climate of increased focus environmental) benefits along with situations where HDR has never been on environmental sustainability, where quality uplift, LCEVC is pitched as possible before. Ten billion decoder people are realising that transcoding one of the infrequent technologies devices in the world do not support costs are skyrocketing, as is power with so-called “negative green 10-bit decoding. However, with LCEVC, usage in data centres, mobile phones premium”; in other words, they operators can use any 8-bit base codec and other devices. help the environment while also like a H.264 or VP9, and then use Video streaming alone accounts for improving the economic bottom line, LCEVC on top to carry the 10-bit over 1% of all global carbon dioxide rather than costing more. information including HDR, delivering viewers higher impact content. sustainable processing power. SHAREit (social networking and file Beyond UHD: Immersive media in As with 8K, VVC is often mentioned sharing), Xilinx (semiconductors) and superior quality or associated with immersive VR and the media giant Al Jazeera Media Then there is virtual reality and other AR video beyond 8K, but the encoding Network. immersive media, seen as key is 10 times more complex than HEVC. “People are familiarising themselves applications for next-gen codecs. The Here, too, the promise of LCEVC is to with the multi-faceted positive impact of cable industry, for example, is putting a bring 8K/16K VR down to more LCEVC, as well as its many use cases. lot of work into preparing its networks manageable complexity, which should Whilst operators will mostly deploy it to to be ready to carry low latency, high help these applications scale. improve quality, customer reach and bandwidth applications over the next On the decoding side, LCEVC profitability, the growing relevance of few years, especially once VR on 5G enables resolutions that go beyond the environmental sustainability may also becomes a reality. hardware decoding capabilities of the be an accelerator,” says Meardi. Immersive media and volumetric device, using the CPU and GPU to Once some of these projects are out video – whether VR, AR, 6DoF (6 decode even higher resolutions. in the open over the next few months degrees of freedom), 360-degree video, V-Nova will soon release a LCEVC and beyond, it will be very interesting to FOV (Field Of View) or any demo app for Oculus Quest 2 see how some of these companies are combination of these - are all set to showcasing ground-breaking VR using LCEVC, for which specific use figure increasingly in trials over the next experiences with very high quality and cases and on top of what combination few years, which requires more efficient manageable bandwidths. (For more of base codec. codecs because in these scenarios in-depth detail on developments and Independent studies and anecdotal bandwidth requirements very quickly requirements with immersive media, see evidence suggest that LCEVC makes for add up. article on page 36.) a good fit with both legacy and next-gen Volumetric 6DoF requires very codecs. It may well be that HEVC + high bandwidth even at the best LCEVC in action LCEVC or even AVC + LCEVC proves compression. But even more traditional It seems that LCEVC’s promise of good enough for most scenarios. But stereoscopic 3DoF 8K immersive improved picture quality, bandwidth with the so-called streaming decade experiences at high fidelity, which are savings, low latency and reduced upon us — combined with the onset of feasible already today with devices such processing requirements is proving a higher resolution video and bandwidth as the Oculus Quest 2, will be combination that is attracting intensive-applications — customers challenging in real time and with widespread support. deserve the best possible user sensible bandwidths even in a few years’ One look at the official LCEVC.org experience. Now is the time for newer time. LCEVC makes them more website reveals testimonials by codecs to step up and deliver, which efficient and much faster, so developers companies as diverse as Mediaset is a theme we explore in more detail can use the best compression in real- (broadcast), Eleven Sports (sports in the next CSI article of this time, with available bandwidth and streaming), Proximie (healthcare), supplement.
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How LCEVC makes high-quality VR immersive video a reality, today By Guendalina Cobianchi, Business Development & Partnerships, V-Nova
Uniquely to immersive video, users codecs does become available, it is very are watching only a small portion of the likely that we will need resolutions four entire video at any one time, requiring times as high or more to take full extremely high resolutions (roughly six advantage of the display capabilities of times the resolution of a viewport) and the VR devices that will be available by absence of impairments (mezzanine-like that time. quality levels, since the user is watching In order to address these challenges the display from a very short distance) we’ve been working with a team of to provide a viewing experience in line visionary engineers from our partner in
Guendalina Cobianchi, & Development Business V-Nova Partnerships, with that of normal rectilinear video. In this project. They have coined the term order to view 4 megapixels per eye (the Hybrid Video Delivery to describe a resolution offered by the Quest 2), we combination of hardware and software must find a way to transmit video at processing that addresses the feasible bitrates (e.g., lower than 30 requirement for sky-high resolutions. R headsets are great Mbps) and decode approximately a 48 It means combining the sensible use for gaming. Megapixel (beyond 8K) stereoscopic of available hardware decoding with However, if you have immersive video in real time. If this street-smart usage of available general- ever tried a VR already seems challenging, note that purpose parallel processing resources headset and watched upcoming devices with even higher via software. immersive video you resolution displays are expected over On the device side, most VR video might have been a the next 2 years. developers use ExoPlayer and the Vlittle underwhelmed by the VR cameras can now support available hardware decoder for playing experience. The excitement of resolutions beyond 8K and recent immersive video: as a consequence trying one of the most advanced headsets increasingly support high- significant amounts of general-purpose pieces of tech just did not deliver resolution viewports. However, the processing power available in the CPUs the expected level of quality and maximum decoding resolutions offered and GPUs of today’s VR devices goes engagement. Maybe it was the low by the device may not match the unused during video playback. Why not resolution and high pixelation. displays, and every increase in put it to good use with a smart hybrid Maybe it was the jerky timing. resolution comes at the cost of both approach? Maybe it was the lack of increased transcoding processing and MPEG-5 Part 2 LCEVC (Low interactivity that you would expect bandwidth requirements. The problem Complexity Enhancement Video having controllers in your hands, is that watching a 4K stereoscopic video Coding) is a great example of this or something else? on a Quest 2 can be an underwhelming approach and has great potential to At V-Nova we have been tackling the experience: a bit like watching a 720p become an important tool for VR video challenges facing high-quality VR video on a 100 inch 4K TV, a few technology, not just today by immersive video. We collaborated with centimetres from the display. augmenting codecs such as h.264 and a global social network with the aim of Advanced codecs, such as AV1 or HEVC, but also tomorrow when upgrading the quality on existing VVC, could provide material benefits to hardware decoding of AV1 and/or VVC devices to the point where everyone can address the bandwidth issues, but they will be available. finally enjoy a superb immersive are not viable from the encoding and The outcome of our collaboration – experience. decoding standpoint, at least for the showcasing ultra-quality 5120x5120 Today I share with you some details foreseeable future. In addition, when stereoscopic immersive video at less of our latest work. 8K hardware decoding with those than 30 Mbps – is embedded in a demo
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that are outside the field of view (not supported by the current version of the demo, but coming soon). 3. For a given resolution and quality, LCEVC-enhanced video requires lower bandwidth than the enhanced codec used natively. On 2560x2560p60 immersive content, LCEVC-enhanced x264 achieves equivalent quality to x264 at approximately 45% lower bitrates (6-7 Mbps for LCEVC vs 12-13 Mbps x264) and ~35% lower for x265. In the demo, all ultra-high resolution content (up to 5120x5120) are encoded at high quality between 20 and 30 Mbps, while – even assuming feasibility of decoding – native h.264 and HEVC would require well beyond 50 Mbps which is simply not viable for streaming. 4. For a given resolution and quality, LCEVC-enhanced video has a much higher transcoding throughput than the enhanced codec used alone without LCEVC. For instance, to encode a 5120x5120p30 stereoscopic video on a six core app that you can download from the resolutions that you typically find in I7-9750H platform, LCEVC HEVC Oculus App Lab, searching for ‘LCEVC today’s VR video applications. required just a third of the time demo’. You can also find more details Of course, LCEVC requires updates compared to native HEVC. and updates on this topic by reading to both ends of the workflow, i.e., to our blog post. The demo app lets you also add software add-ons on the VR video is typically a closed ecosystem enjoy the pleasure of immersing encode side. But luckily this provides decoded by native apps, so LCEVC is yourself in the African savannah faster rather than slower transcoding. relatively easy to adopt. For this initial watching elephants gathering right in In a nutshell, using LCEVC for VR application, we used V-Nova’s cloud front of you (content courtesy of Blend video has multiple advantages: transcoding platform to prepare the Media), or joining a virtual robot fight 1. LCEVC enables efficient decoding of content and worked with the social with realistic Hollywood-like pre- the high resolutions required to network team to integrate the LCEVC- rendered quality (content courtesy of achieve a truly immersive experience, enabled ExoPlayer extension into the PresenZ). Thanks to the capabilities of since it combines the hardware compare player. a comparison player upgraded with decoder of the device for the ‘base These are exciting times in the world LCEVC decoding capabilities, the app layer’ with GPU processing for the of VR with device sales soaring and the also allows you to compare the additional pixels of the ecosystem of apps and services growing unprecedented LCEVC-enhanced ultra- enhancement layer. alongside. Hopefully LCEVC along with high resolution (up to 5120x5120 for 2. LCEVC supports partial region-of- continued great collaboration in the now, but expected to increase further in interest decoding of the enhancement industry will help video experiences future) against equivalent streams that layer, avoiding wasting decoding keep up with those provided by gaming just use native video codecs at 4K processing on regions of the video on these incredible new devices.
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Bridging the codec divide
Leveraging on the Goran Nastic takes a closer look at MPEG-5 LCEVC (Low capabilities of existing Complexity Enhancement Video Coding) integration decoder hardware and working within existing and royalties. Gaining momentum in a fractured codec streaming formats like HLS landscape, can it also help accelerate the adoption of and MPEG-DASH, LCEVC also maintains compatibility next-gen codecs? with existing devices, which ultimately eases deployment. s the first article of similarities end. Its licensing terms will further enable this supplement There is currently a lack of visibility quick adoption (see box-out at the end suggested, the into EVC, but industry experts see it of the article). relentless growth more as a back-up in case VVC fails to All this combines to make for a in streaming, take off. If things go according to plan, uniquely powerful business case. But combined with the the expectations are that the licensing will LCEVC take off, and will its pandemic, is terms for VVC, which was standardised success rely on piggybacking on a Adriving codec innovation and in July 2020, will be made available in particular codec to do so? evolution, while at the same time the middle of this year, triggering the opening the door for new first deployments in 2022. Bypassing the codec wars applications and business cases. LCEVC works extremely well in There has been much talk of the ‘codec While it is true that the strategic combination with all codecs, both wars’ in the last few years, but it is not a importance of video compression is inside and outside the MPEG family. battle that any one codec is likely to magnifying, the increasingly crowded CSI understands that many experts win. This is because each codec has landscape of the last few years — where were positively surprised when they saw different strengths and weaknesses for several next-gen codecs are battling for the first results of the combination different use cases. position — is equally the result of between LCEVC and VVC (the official While AV1, VP9 and HEVC are licensing and royalty problems. MPEG test results were made public in slowly gaining traction, H.264 remains The formally tight royalty pools mid-May 2021). The MPEG results the workhorse among codecs due to its associated with MPEG patents, confirmed that LCEVC improves the simple licensing and widespread device whereby technology developers recoup compression and power efficiency of all support (licensing and adoption are their investment, disintegrated after the codecs, including modern codecs like closely linked). Standardised in 2003, arrival of H.265/HEVC. The formation VVC and EVC, but also older ones like H.264 is today deployed inside an of the Alliance for Open Media AVC and HEVC. estimated 10bn+ devices, compared to (AOMedia) in 2015 and its subsequent This is because strictly speaking, 2bn for the technically superior HEVC release of the AV1 royalty-free codec LCEVC is not a codec, it is an even though it has had almost a decade shook up a once stable industry to the enhancement layer that improves any on the market (it was released in 2013). point where MPEG alone created three underlying codec. Using a unique Google’s VP9 is in around 4bn devices. new standards last year. hierarchical encoding approach, For the newer and more efficient One of these is Low Complexity LCEVC is an add-on that can be codecs, browser and device makers are Enhancement Video Coding (LCEVC), employed alongside existing codecs to fragmented in their support. For also known as MPEG-5 Part 2, which yield a performance boost, bringing instance, Apple’s Safari browser became an official MPEG standard in further bandwidth savings (eg, of supports HEVC but not VP9, while October 2020. around 30% for HEVC) and improved Google and Firefox are behind VP9 but LCEVC shares a similar name to quality on top of each individual codec, not HEVC. another MPEG compression standard while also helping reduce transcoding The 2020 Video Developer Report approved earlier last year, called power requirements by over 60% and from Bitmovin shows that H.264 is still Essential Video Coding (EVC) MPEG- preserve battery consumption for overwhelmingly in use, by 91% of 5 Part 1 — but that’s where the mobile devices. respondents, followed by HEVC,
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MPEG-2, VP9 and AV1. The survey that LECVC could actually accelerate looks miniscule in comparison. In found that most respondents plan to AOM and push AV1 out faster and addition, because LCEVC does not implement HEVC in the next 12 more efficiently, by making it run on require changes to the silicon of these months, followed by H.264, AV1, VP9 mobile handsets at full HD resolutions. end devices, with the underlying codecs and then the decades old MPEG-2. “As both AV1 (from whichever source doing the heavy lifting and then In parallel, business goals will you choose) is mostly a software LCEVC acting as that enhancement continue to drive the use of multiple encoding and decoding option and layer on top, V-Nova does not have to codecs, and most developers and LCEVC is a software encoding and court the silicon providers. In theory, organisations will take a pragmatic decoding option, why doesn’t Google LCEVC can just be baked into the approach to adopt codecs depending on and V-Nova combine the two together? applications and browsers that access their business criteria. In a single software upgrade swoop, we the video services’ libraries,” says Alex AV1, despite having some of the could have full HD WebRTC, web Davies, Senior Analyst at Rethink TV, world’s largest technology companies conferencing, and entertainment of all part of Rethink Research and author of behind it, has seen adoption slowed kinds play back on our phones. Let the report, entitled Media & down by a vicious hardware cycle. Some software be king, collaboration prevail, Entertainment Transcoding Workload chipmakers have now finally and have ‘MPEG-5 LCEVC enhanced and Device Royalty Forecast 2020- implemented AV1 and they are AV1’ deliver better, higher-quality 2030. expected to support VVC. Demand for services, sooner,” Rayburn wrote. “As for our forecast, we believe AV1 in a live streaming environment is Intriguingly, a new report from LCEVC will come to the fore in the expected next year, as device support Rethink TV sees LCEVC’s close ties to period. It will be used by those in the proliferates and its complexity reduces AV1 propelling its initial growth and the AV/VP ecosystem, and will chalk up a (the codec has so far predominantly two technologies being somewhat series of wins with video services and been used for some VOD streams in interlinked, reaching about a 30% broadcasters – targeting satellite YouTube and Netflix). penetration by 2030. bottlenecks and countries where New codecs like AV1 and VVC “The sales pitch is that LCEVC will consumer broadband speeds act as require roughly seven years for device help reduce the operational costs of bottlenecks for next-gen video services. support to be there in volumes, meaning running these video services, to such a It will eventually encroach into MPEG that implementation via software degree that the licensing fee for LCEVC workloads, but we expect this will be a playback is required to break this cycle. harder sell than in the AV/VP LCEVC, meanwhile, operates as a ecosystem. Consequently, at the software update that can be applied to “FACT: There is no beginning, it is mapped closely to the any encoder or player and has no need penetration of AV1. Over the period, for dedicated silicon. correlation between this extends to AV2, and eventually In a blog, V-Nova CEO and extends considerably beyond where we co-founder Guido Meardi recently LCEVC and EVC apart expect AV1 and AV2 to finish – at just outlined — with test data on dropped over 30.23% of the total transcoding frames and battery measurements — from sharing the market, compared to 19.89%,” Davies that, beyond its compression efficiency predicts in the report, adding that AV1 benefits, LCEVC can help AV1 be same acronym. The will be bolstered by Google’s mandate deployed sooner as software (and for the codec inside Android TV. It similar rationales may apply to VVC, for fact that they share expects VVC to arrive in smartphones more, see https://www.v-nova.com/blog/ the MPEG-5 moniker in 2023, followed by TVs and set tops yes-we-should-deploy-next-gen-codecs- in 2024, but also anticipates VVC’s high today/). is also a coincidence, royalty fees stalling adoption, ceding To what extent LCEVC can facilitate ground to both AV1 and its successor the adoption of AV1 is now the subject due to how the AV2 (see chart). of discussion and debate inside Rethink’s outlook also suggests that compression circles. A blogpost by MPEG numbering AVC/H.264 will finally begin to decline Streaming Media’s Dan Rayburn earlier in earnest from 2026, after a more this year succinctly summarised AV1’s system works.” gradual decline, with no single codec general adoption delays and suggested reaching the same dominant position
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our interview with Faggin). Now wrapped inside an MPEG standard, LCEVC is in effect the fourth version or iteration of the original technology in a newly standardised form, more sophisticated and evolved with better tools. “During the collaborative phase of standardisation we had the chance to put in all of the ideas that we had generated based on the feedback from years of pilot deployments, plus all of the helpful feedback that we received from the MPEG community,” Meardi says. Source: Rethink TV / Rethink Technology Research Rethink TV / Technology Source: Over the last 12 months, V-Nova has been working with partners on several different projects, optimising that AVC once enjoyed. realisation that, no matter how good the the technology. The company has If Rethink’s forecast holds true, the technology is, getting the backing of developed libraries for Android, iOS, transcoding market is set to undergo a healthy ecosystem matters. HTML5, Windows, Linux, Mac along a period of substantial disruption, the Looking at groups beyond just with reference integrations at chipset, biggest since MPEG-1 came onto MPEG and AOMedia — like the OS and application level. the scene in 1991 — and this is not Streaming Video Alliance, SRT For simple end-to-end video necessarily a bad thing. In a streaming- Alliance and DPP, each with hundreds workflows, the integration of LCEVC first world, the 2020s is the decade for of member companies — shows that the can be done in a matter of weeks, new codecs to finally step up to the industry loves a good standard. Indeed, including A/B testing, involving plate and start eroding the base of V-Nova will hope that as in the case of only minor modifications, such as legacy codecs, aided in some cases SRT, originally a proprietary low swapping libraries and changing the by LCEVC. streaming protocol developed by scripts. For services delivering to more Haivision and Wowza, that openness complex device ecosystems, deploying Ecosystem integration and and interoperability act as a further LCEVC is still conceptually simple, but deployments — at scale catalyst LCEVC, triggering a new wave requires commitment, and often the The design principle of LCEVC was of growth. involvement of third-party vendors. to create a software technology that is “Working collaboratively at MPEG V-Nova claim that benefits are well complementary to what was already was a great experience and improved worth the effort, and in fact a recent there. The rationale is that it is valuable the standard in many ways. Many industry survey conducted by Dan to use hardware blocks that are already experts from multiple corporations and Rayburn indicated that double digit available and thus far used for graphics academic institutions must be as proud improvements in profitability are and other things, but not for of LCEVC as we are, because the possible with LCEVC (see https:// compression. Therefore, the design standard was indeed a product of www.v-nova.com/download-gate/ principle was about looking to reuse effective collaboration and teamwork,” download-id/8490/). hardware that is already there and Meardi suggests. With the new licensing model, finding ways to efficiently and reliably One investor, Federico Faggin, who is V-Nova is making its libraries readily do things in software, even for also an influential figure in Silicon available for integration in many open- something as real-time as video Valley with extensive technical and source applications, which bypass the processing. As the hurdles faced by entrepreneurial experience, points out need to perform custom latest-gen codecs have shown, that is the in a Q&A after this article that V-Nova implementations. On the decoder side, only way to unlock faster progress. has succeeded in creating a new libraries and reference integrations are The other determining factor behind international standard entirely backed provided, both for applications that use the concept of LCEVC was the up with home grown IP (see page 42 for standard players without customisation
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and those that are customised. This will include pre-integration with the likes of Licensing and royalties ExoPlayer, for example. When it comes to codecs, licensing is technology companies. Together with There is also an important integration as important, if not more important, its partners, V-Nova has designed a programme coming for smart TVs. than the underlying technology. model that tries to respond to industry All this is creating a wide and Simplicity, transparency and fair costs needs – one achieved extensive inclusive ecosystem — enabled with are key ingredients for success and consultations with AOMedia things like open-source players, widespread take-up. One look at the members, MPEG members, industry operating system components, adoption curve comparing legacy vendors as well as IP companies. televisions and so on — that makes it codecs demonstrates this point. It is “Low-complexity licensing, not just more attractive for an OTT provider to also a lucrative business, with the low-complexity coding, is very embrace LCEVC. recent Rethink Research report important because nowadays when Since independent validation and projecting over $30 billion in total you mention the word “codecs” many standardisation, a variety of companies royalties collected by all codecs people immediately think of a from a breadth of different sectors - through 2030. Mexican standoff, with everyone social networks, esports, VR, video “The industry needs to work pointing guns to one another and communications and even healthcare – harder on the commercial aspect of ultimately standing still. We wanted to are actively working on deploying licensing than promoting the technical be as innovative in licensing as we LCEVC. It is telling that the official benefit, we need better licensing were on technology,” Meardi said. LCEVC website is littered with quotes terms,” Thierry Fautier of Harmonic To this end, LCEVC combines an of endorsement, including Asian social argued in his recent online element of royalty free and an element network SHAREit, health provider presentation on codecs. of monetisation that are, in theory, Proximie and Al Jazeera Media So, while independent tests have both fair, simple, capped and Network among others. validated that LCEVC delivers in allow for monetising the codec, Equally significantly, LCEVC is also terms of technical performance, while leaving enough royalty-free winning support from professional can it also deliver from a licensing incentives to trigger rapid usage encoding vendors, with Harmonic, one perspective? and ecosystem adoption. of the largest of them all, publicly Expected later in May, they are The hope is that everyone has some confirming integration work. believed to be the fastest license terms benefit from LCEVC adoption and “With LCEVC we are working in a to hit the market after standardisation. that this model may help and inspire strategic partnership with V-Nova since The initial signs are that LCEVC those of other technologies in the we see some market traction for this proponents have taken past lessons future, since it is simple, fair and codec, so we are quite interested by this on board. Key LCEVC patents are allows IP owners to monetise. technology,” said Thierry Fautier of held by V-Nova and the company’s The market will soon be the judge of Harmonic in an online presentation on CEO, Guido Meardi, is promising a these ambitions: Details of LCEVC codec developments in late April 2021. simple and novel approach to the licensing and pricing are expected to “Because it’s a software upgrade of issue of royalties, involving the be publicly revealed and announced existing devices, we think that LCEVC collaboration of some of the largest on May 20. adoption will happen faster on TVs and set-top boxes, and maybe on mobile, with no guarantees that a commercial positioning and share. For all the why not?” deployment will follow. But Meardi is in attention placed on the ‘streaming It is also notable that some early an upbeat mood, confident that LCEVC wars’, the stage is also set for one of the LCEVC projects involve big numbers. momentum is strong. most compelling sub-plots over the next One large digital tech company is pilot- “With all the things happening decade, when we will see which codecs ing LCEVC for over 0.5 billion users, now and in the next few months, make their presence felt in a highly claiming “very positive” results to date. LCEVC is confirming momentum fragmented landscape. And with the Many trials and projects are at this and will be quite transformational,” next generation of codecs set to be stage confidential and pre-commercial, Meardi surmises. more costly, the stakes have never but they are expected to be made public Whatever happens, this is an been higher. over the next few months and beyond. interesting time for the codec market, Of course, trials are just that — trials, with multiple codecs jostling for For more details see LCEVC.org
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Q&A An investor’s viewpoint With Federico Faggin, a V-Nova investor and influential figure in Silicon Valley, best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. Here, we get Federico’s thoughts on Federico Faggin Federico video codecs and V-Nova’s impact on the market
video codecs today? previously needed. If furthermore the Any time you come up with a new data compression can transfer substantially better way of doing an information with gradually increasing ow did you end up essential task—by increasing the speed, intelligibility as the information transfer working in Silicon lowering the power dissipation, reducing progresses—which is the case with Valley and can you the physical volume, or decreasing the V-Nova’s technology—there are great tell me about your cost of designing and/or performing an advantages because the response to the breakthrough important function—the existing markets information can be worked out in innovations? grow, and new applications and markets parallel with the data transfer. I was sent to Silicon are empowered by the improved Each application has different HValley in 1968 in an engineer exchange technology. requirements that need to be optimized. between Fairchild Semiconductor R&D, Microprocessors allowed replacing The higher the video compression the Palo Alto, California and SGS-Fairchild dedicated hardware solutions with gen- more “room to maneuver” there is in R&D, Agrate Brianza, Italy (now eral-purpose computers plus software at trading off video quality, transmission STMicroelectronics). I was supposed to lower cost and faster time to market cost, response times, power dissipation stay six months, but then I invented a than with the previous methodology. etc. V-Nova technology is truly new way of making integrated circuits This basic change from hardware to exceptional in this regard. (ICs), called MOS silicon gate software design revolutionized how to technology. That technology made solve problems, empowering millions of Why did you invest in V-Nova and possible the fabrication of all the new applications. how do you see V-Nova fitting into missing circuitry necessary to make a More efficient video codecs – espe- the future of video? computer in a single chip. Silicon gate cially if they are rapidly deployable like I have been an angel investor since the was eventually adopted worldwide for V-Nova’s, will accelerate the penetration early 1980s I am interested in compa- the fabrication of nearly all ICs. of high-quality video services, and nies that are developing new technolo- In 1970-1971, I designed the world empower new applications. gies/products that significantly advance first microprocessor - the Intel 4004. I the state of the art. This requires a then founded Zilog, Inc. in 1974, where Why does video compression strong and creative management team I invented the Z80 microprocessor. In matter so much in a time of heavy that cares about intellectual property. 1986, I co-founded and led Synaptics, investments in fiber connectivity, V-Nova fit all my criteria and has sur- Inc. to work on artificial neural in 5G and so on? passed my expectations for they have networks where we invented the The crucial point of video compression succeeded in creating a new internation- touchpads and the touchscreens that is to substantially reduce the amount of al standard entirely backed up with have changed the way we now interface data necessary to transfer the same home grown IP. I expect the future of with our mobile devices. amount of information. If the speed of this technology to be outstanding. the network doubles and the amount of Federico is also Chairman Emeritus of What are the similarities between compression also doubles, the same Synaptics, Inc., and President of Federico the radical innovation that you amount of information can be and Elvia Faggin Foundation (www. spurred in silicon and the field of transferred in one quarter of the time fagginfoundation.org)
42 spring 2021 www.csimagazine.com
CompressonSupplement.indd 12 19/05/2021 22:37:52 ay- V stats
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www.csimagazine.com spring 2021 4
Stats.indd 3 19/05/2021 22:44:41 Tech corner: Smart cities Smart communities and the cable industry, a natural fit ith services that make The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted cities or the need for greater connectivity and gave communities run more rise to new smart community initiatives. efficiently for residents, By Chris Bastian Wvisitors and administrators, everyone can reap the benefits of Smart technologies in action smart street lights will be deployed the Smart City vision. While the From energy and resource management across the world leading to significant focus has largely been on cities, a to transportation and environmental reductions in energy usage. smart community can be a monitoring, smart city technologies are Smart water technologies are another corporate campus, stadium already being deployed globally in form of resource management that is complex, small town, or thriving innovative ways. In addition, the past being used today in smart communities. metropolitan city. What unites year has underscored the opportunities The solutions can be used to monitor these communities is that they are that exist in this space and highlighted reservoirs and water treatment, track using a high-speed network and interesting use cases for smart consumption, and reduce waste by widely-deployed connected technology. The COVID-19 pandemic identifying leaks faster. Similarly, smart technologies, and are leveraging highlighted the need for greater technologies can be used to improve advanced data collection to make connectivity and gave rise to smart waste management to streamline waste quality of life improvements. community initiatives such as contact removal while reducing costs and The Smart Cities movement has a tracing and geofencing to enforce public environmental impacts. For example, relatively short history, but has caught health restrictions. after a city-wide campaign to drive more fire in the past few years with early Resource management is one of the people to their Main Street, College successes being seen in communities most common ways that smart city Park, Georgia found that the increased around the world. This has been driven technology is being deployed in flow of people was also causing issues through a combination of factors communities today. IoT sensors can be for their trash management efforts. including wide-spread access to high used to measure energy usage and They partnered with Comcast to install speed networks, the reduction of data improve energy efficiency in a specific its MachineQ Gateway and smart storage costs with the rise of cloud community, or across entire cities. One sensors to address the issue and computing, and the expansion of example we have seen of this is a improve the efficiency of their waste technologies like machine learning, partnership between Henderson, management efforts. advanced Internet of Things (IoT) Nevada and Cox2M, the IoT business Smart city technologies are also being sensors and mobile devices. line of Cox Communications, to deploy deployed to improve transportation Building on the early momentum, smart street lighting. The pilot program including monitoring and managing smart cities are expected to become is intended to reduce energy and traffic congestion and flow, improving increasingly prevalent with the global operating costs for the community’s parking, synchronizing traffic lights, smart city industry expected to double lighting. Just the initial phase of the and improving safety. For example, from $410.8 billion in 2020 to $820.7 program, this partnership with Charter Spectrum partnered with St. billion by 2025. In response to this Henderson will provide civic leaders Petersburg, Florida on a smart city pilot opportunity and their unique position with the analytics needed to make more with several components including a in the market, many cable operators informed decisions about the city’s smart intersection project. The effort around the world have launched smart infrastructure and resource usage. For was aimed at understanding and community divisions or partnered many communities looking to dip their reducing the high level of pedestrian on innovative smart city initiatives toes into the smart cities water, smart and bike fatalities in the county. By to offer IoT services to new and street lights are a common entry point. using sensors on smart light poles, existing customers. By 2026, it is estimated that 73 million the town was able to better understand
44 spring 2021 www.csimagazine.com
smartCities.indd 2 19/05/2021 22:49:11 Tech corner: Smart cities
use cases being used to address common societal problems. It can be expected that more large, global cities will initiate or expand smart city initiatives, while the technologies will also begin to be deployed in smaller cities, towns and even rural areas. I also expect to see an expansion of video and immersive services, artificial reality and virtual reality, and autonomous transportation as smart cities take hold globally. All of these advancements will draw heavily on the availability of a high-speed, low-latency network that is widely available across entire communities.
Cable: Positioned for success Cable network operators are well- positioned to support this smart cities boom, as we have already seen based on the number of operators who are currently serving the space. Unlike startups and OTT service providers who are trying to break into smart cities, cable operators already have a robust, reliable, and secure network infrastructure with service to millions of homes, businesses and public spaces. In addition, they have the real estate to mount the sensors, reliable power sources and connectivity backhaul to allow the sensors to feed data back to the data center, and a highly trained, in-market workforce for deployment and servicing needs. As existing projects prove the value of smart city technology and communities continue to expand their appetite for investing in these initiatives, the cable industry is uniquely the traffic flow to improve the other smart city initiatives like positioned to take advantage of its intersection design to reduce accident- parking management and pollution existing infrastructure to address these related fatalities. reduction efforts. market needs. Another example comes from the United Kingdom where Liberty Global Looking to a smarter future Chris Bastian is the is nearing completion of an effort to With the smart city movement still in chief technology officer build a massive network of electric its infancy, the potential for how smart for SCTE, the not-for- vehicle charging stations as part of a technologies can be deployed to profit membership joint venture called Liberty Charge. improve communities is nearly limitless. organization leading the Widely seen as the first step of a larger In the coming years, we can expect not acceleration and deployment of plan, Liberty Global’s network could only a proliferation of smart cities and cable technology. For more then be used as the foundation for communities, but new technologies and information, visit www.scte.org
www.csimagazine.com spring 2021 45
smartCities.indd 3 19/05/2021 22:49:12 AWARDS CEREMONY September 2021
The CSI Awards 2021 Established in 2003 the awards are among the most prestigious and competitive technology awards in the industry, designed to recognise and reward innovation and excellence in the cable, satellite, broadcast, IPTV, telco, broadband/OTT video, mobile TV and associated sectors.
2021 Categories
1. Best digital video processing technology 12. Best data & analytics innovation
2. Best network delivery technology 13. Best cloud or virtualisation innovation
3. Best customer premise technology 14. Best TV user experience
4. Best monitoring or network management solution 15. Best data storage solution
5. Best content protection technology 16. Best use of AI or Machine Learning in video
6. Best VoD or content-on-demand solution 17. Best Cybersecurity product or service
7. Best live OTT technology or service 18. Best AdTech technology or solution
8. Best interactive TV technology or application 19. Best use of Blockchain in media
9. Best 5G or mobile video technology or service 20. Remote production
10. Best ultra HD TV technology or project 21. Sustainability
11. Best TV everywhere or multi-screen video 22. Best broadband customer experience www.csimagazine.com/awards
The winners will be announced in September 2021.
For the latest news and updates follow us @CSI_Magazine #CSIAwards
page forty six www.csimagazine.com Awards 2021 CSI magazine • Awards AWARDS CEREMONY
The CSI Awards now in their 19th ear will this ear be ta ing place in September
Shortlist Announced e re delighted to announce the finalists who made it onto this year s shortlist chec them out here www.csimagazine.com/awards
In association with
For awards or entr en uiries Olivia ichardson amilla apece 0 20 2 2 13 0 20 2 2 3 olivia.richardson perspectivepublishing.com camilla.capece csimagazine.com
page forty seven CSI magazine • Awards Awards 2021 www.cable satellite.com
CSIAwards.indd 3 19/05/2021 22:51:42 TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology Buyer’s Guide 2021
The essential listing of cable, broadband, telco and satellite suppliers Buyers Guide 2021
TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology
A
3 Screen Solutions (3SS) Germany Broadpeak C: Thilo Herbst (CSO) HDMI Licensing Administrator, France T: +49711219508 0 Inc. C: Fabrice Bellanger E: [email protected] United States T: +33222740350 https://3ss.tv C: Valerie Robbins E: [email protected] Satellite, Cable & Broadband T: +14088614884 https://broadpeak.tv E: Accedo [email protected] Satellite, Cable, Broadband www.hdmi.org Sweden Cable C: Alex Wilkinson Broadpeak designs and T: +44 7921 724664 manufactures video delivery E: [email protected] HDMI Licensing Administrator, components for Content Providers https://www.accedo.tv Inc. (HDMI LA) is the agent and Network Service Providers Broadband appointed by the HDMI Forum, deploying IPTV, Cable, OTT and Inc. to license Version 2.x of Mobile services. Its portfolio Agama Technologies the HDMI Specifi cation and of solutions and technologies Sweden is the agent appointed by the powers the delivery of movies, C: Anna Amnell HDMI Founders to license all television programming and T: +4613240330 earlier HDMI Specifi cations. other video content over managed E: [email protected] HDMI LA provides marketing, networks and the internet for www.agama.tv promotional, licensing and HDMI viewing on any type of device. The Satellite, Cable & Broadband Adopter services. It also provides company’s systems and services education on the benefi ts of the Anevia help operators increase market HDMI Specifi cation to adopters, France share and improve subscriber retailers, and consumers. loyalty with superior quality of C: Silvia Candido experience. T: +33141983240 +33181945095 Broadpeak supports all of its E: [email protected] customers worldwide, from www.anevia.com simple installations to large Satellite, Cable & Broadband delivery systems reaching Asia Satellite capacities of several million of Telecommunications Co. Ltd. Axonista simultaneous streams. Hong Kong Ireland C: Raymond Chow C: Claire McHugh Broadpeak is headquartered in T: +85225000888 T: +35316766251 Cesson-Sevigne, France. E: [email protected] E: [email protected] www.asiasat.com www.axonista.com Satellite Broadband
page forty nine CSI magazine • Buyers Guide Buyers Guide 2021 www.csimagazine.com
CSI-BuyersGuide-2021.indd 3 24/05/2021 16:38:53 Buyers Guide 2021
TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology
B D MwareTV BBright Netherlands Dejero France C: Frans Blommestein Canada C: Guillaume Arthuis Dial Code*** C: Aislynn Cooper T: +33678900255 T: +1 813 536 4096 T: +51197724824 E: [email protected] T: +31 851 303 803 E: [email protected] www.bbright.com E: fmg.blommestein@ www.dejero.com Satellite, Cable, Broadband iptvmiddleware.com SatelliteBroadband iptvmiddleware.com Black Box Broadband Diversifi ed Germany United States C: Daniel Prax MwareTV is the world’s leading C: Phil Bernal Dial Code*** cloud-based multi-tenant T: +19082454833 T: +49811 5541 325 TV platform for ISPs, Mobile E: pbernal@diversifi edus.com E: [email protected] operators, TV Service providers www.diversifi edus.com www.blackbox.eu and Publishers all over the globe. Cable Broadband MwareTV provides turn-key DOTSCREEN end-to-end solutions to make all Blonde Robot France content ready for IPTV/OTT use. Malaysia C: Stan Leridon With multi-screen support, C: Azrina Jane T: +330684608196 seamless and highly interactive T: +60124870487 E: [email protected] user experiences and services E: [email protected] www.dotscreen.com like LiveTV, the fastest Electronic www.blonde-robot.com.au Satellite, Cable, Broadband Program Guide, Catch up-, Pause- Satellite & Broadband & Replay TV, Video on Demand E C with Movies and Series (VoD), radio channels and music. Edgeware Cerberus Tech Managing your content and Sweden United Kingdom related business is easy through C: Andy Hooper C: Chris Clarke our multi-tenant and fl exible T: +46736126840 T: +44(0) 239 303 2017 MwareTV Platform. This cloud- E: [email protected] E: [email protected] based solution brings and keeps https://www.edgeware.tv/ https://www.cerberus.tech everything together in one Broadband Broadband centralized place. It is the most comprehensive platform in the Ekioh Ltd Cleeng market today that handles all United Kingdom Netherlands your business requirements, T: +447799765095 C: D.S. Serafi mov from content management, E: [email protected] T: +31611473502 confi guration of user interfaces, www.ekioh.com E: dime.serafi [email protected] product management, subscriber Satellite, Cable & Broadband Broadband management and billing to analytics.
page fifty www.csimagazine.com Buyers Guide 2021 CSI magazine • Buyers Guide
CSI-BuyersGuide-2021.indd 4 24/05/2021 16:38:55 Buyers Guide 2021
TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology
Envoi J United States C: Nicholas Stokes Jump Data-Driven Intelligence T: +1(310) 800-2587 Spain E: [email protected] Plume C: Silvia Werd Elías http://envoi.io United States T: +34 633 42 19 19 Broadband C: Mark Goodburn E: [email protected] T: +14084985512 www.jumpdatadriven.com G E: [email protected] Broadband https://www.plume.com/ Globecast Jump Data- Driven Solution Broadband France Spain C: Bazeli Mbo C: Jerónimo Macanás T: +331 5595 2604 Plume® is the creator of the T: +34605938091 E: [email protected] world’s fi rst SaaS experience E: [email protected] www.globecast.com platform for Communications www.jumptvs.com SatelliteBroadband Service Providers (CSPs) and Broadband their subscribers, deployed in I more than 25 million locations globally. As the only open and JUMP Data-Driven Video INKA ENTWORKS hardware-independent solution, España C: Korea Plume enables the rapid delivery Jeronimo Macanas T: C: Govindraj Basatwar of new services for connected +34605938091 E: T: +822262785717 homes, small businesses, and [email protected] E: [email protected] beyond at massive scale. On the https://www.jumptvs.com/ https://pallycon.com front end, Plume delivers self- Satellite, Cable & Broadband Broadband optimizing WiFi, cyber-security, K access controls, and more. INSYS VIDEO TECHNOLOGIES CSPs get robust back-end Kinow Switzerland applications for unprecedented France C: Krzysztof Bartkowski visibility and support. C: Pierre ANTOINE T: +48601469479 Visit plume.com and opensync.io E: [email protected] T: +33972464710 https://insysvideotechnologies. E: [email protected] com/ www.kinow.com Broadband Broadband
IRIB Kurb Kut Studios Iran, Islamic Republic of Irdeto United States C: Fahmi United Kingdom C: Darryl B. Dalton T: +9809121125474 C: Jeremy Maddocks T: +18508128905 E: [email protected] T: +447881918132 E: darrylbarkleydalton@yahoo. www.irib.ir E: [email protected] com SatelliteBroadband www.irdeto.com ww.kurbkutstudios.com Satellite, Cable & Broadband Broadband
page fifty one CSI magazine • Buyers Guide Buyers Guide 2021 www.csimagazine.com
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TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology
L O
Lindsay Broadband OMNIWAVE Ltd. Canada Greece C: David Atman TiVo C: Nectarios Labadarios T: +17057421350 Global T: +302102834000 E: [email protected] E: [email protected] E: [email protected] https://www.lindsaybb.com https://business.tivo.com www.omniwave.gr Cable Satellite, Cable, Broadband Satellite & Broadband
LTN Global TiVo brings entertainment One World Technologies, Inc. United States together, making it easy to fi nd, United States C: Michael Armstrong watch and enjoy. We serve up C: Lynn Rowe T: +447764 884852 the best movies, shows and T: +15614147650 E: michael.armstrong@ltnglobal. videos from across live TV, E: [email protected] com on-demand, streaming services www.oneworldtech.com https://ltnglobal.com/ and countless apps, helping Satellite & Broadband Cable, Broadband people to watch on their terms. Outdoor Sportsman Group For studios, networks and United States advertisers, TiVo delivers a M C: bill osborn passionate group of watchers T: +1469-426-1033 to increase viewership and M2A Media E: bill.osborn@outdoorchannel. engagement across all screens. United Kingdom com In June 2020, TiVo became a C: Lizzie Lawrence Satellite, Cable, Broadband wholly-owned subsidiary of T: +4402038138580 Xperi Holding Corporation. E: [email protected] R www.m2amedia.tv RealEyes Media Broadband United States Matrix Solutions Medicinatic C: David Hassoun United States Algeria T: +1303-872-0442 C: Brenda Hetrick C: TAREK ABDOUCHE E: [email protected] T: +14126973020 T: +213770311969 https://www.realeyes.com/ E: [email protected] E: [email protected] Broadband www.matrixformedia.com Satellite, Cable, Broadband Satellite, Cable & Broadband S N MediaPower S-CONN ENTERPRISE CO., LTD. Italy nanocosmos Taiwan, Province of China C: Francisco Fronda Germany C: Irene Kuo T: +390105530177 C: Oliver Lietz T: +21586-7-3733588 E: [email protected] T: +493043032411 E: [email protected] www.media-power.it E: [email protected] https://www.s-conn. Satellite, Cable & Broadband https://www.nanocosmos.de com/?lang=en Broadband Cable, Broadband
page fifty two www.csimagazine.com Buyers Guide 2021 CSI magazine • Buyers Guide
CSI-BuyersGuide-2021.indd 6 24/05/2021 16:38:58 Buyers Guide 2021
TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology
T Satcoms Innovation Group United Kingdom TELEWIZJA POLSAT LTD C: Helen Weedon Poland T: +441570 434632 C: ARTUR CICHOWICZ E: [email protected] Wiztivi T: +48225144207 https://satig.space France E: [email protected] Satellite C: Chris Jurgens T: +330180969460 www.polsat.com.pl SDVI E: [email protected] Broadband United States www.wiztivi.com THEO Technologies C: Rose Sponder Broadband Belgium T: +15302631644 C: Steven Tielemans E: [email protected] Wiztivi is a worldwide leader in T: +32477973641 http://www.sdvi.com providing high-end cross-platform E: [email protected] Satellite, Cable, Broadband user interfaces and cloud gaming https://www.theoplayer.com solutions. The company works Shubha Media Broadband along with media, IPTV/OTT India groups and manufacturers in ThinkAnalytics C: Shrirang Nargund order to offer them the best United Kingdom T: +919820547148 user experience for set-top C: Head offi ce E: [email protected] box, TV set, mobile, tablet and T: +441415723030 Broadband gaming console. E: [email protected] Suitest s.r.o. www.thinkanalytics.com Czech Republic Wiztivi offers both customized Satellite, Cable & Broadband C: Mirko Nedeljkovic and turn-key solutions and transteluniversal.pt T: +420739811228 answers its customers’ needs Indonesia E: [email protected] with unmatched precision, C: saeful anwar https://suite.st optimizing time-to-market and T: +62811926215 Broadband operation cost. Its expertise is E: [email protected] based on the deployment of Satellite, Cable & Broadband SUNLEY TECHNOLOGY more than 300 innovative CORPORATION services used by millions of TTI Philippines people around the world. Taiwan, Province of China C: Stephen J Whitworth C: Woody Liu T: +63288371216 Synamedia T: +88607010160688 E: stephen.whitworth@sunleytech. United Kingdom E: [email protected] com C: Head offi ce www.tti.tv Broadband T: +441784774774 Cable, Broadband E: globalmarketing@synamedia. com www.synamedia.com Satellite, Cable & Broadband
page fifty three CSI magazine • Buyers Guide Buyers Guide 2021 www.csimagazine.com
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TV Broadcast • Streaming • Satellite • Cable • Hybrid The leading media for video delivery technology
V Veset Y United Kingdom V-Nova C: Igor Krol Young Hollywood United Kingdom T: 2+442081234916 United States C: Adriana Martinez ciutat E: [email protected] C: Barry Cohen T: +447799289802 https://www.veset.tv T: +13104812282 E: [email protected] Broadband E: [email protected] www.v-nova.com www.younghollywood.com Broadband W www.younghollywoodtv.com Broadband Velocix Witbe United Kingdom France C: Jane Allan C: Etienne Hoegeli T: +442087983603 E: [email protected] T: +33606637511 www.velocix.com E: [email protected] Cable, Broadband www.witbe.net Satellite, Cable & Broadband
Contact us
To be included in the 2022 Buyers Guide, please contact:
Camilla Capece +44 20 7562 2438 [email protected]
page fifty four www.csimagazine.com Buyers Guide 2020 CSI magazine • Buyers Guide
CSI-BuyersGuide-2021.indd 8 24/05/2021 16:39:01 CSI Awards Ceremony September 2021
ENTER NOW Extended deadline: 28th May 2021
For the latest news and updates follow us @CSI_Magazine #CSIAwards
In association with www.csimagazine.com/awards