• Attacking the HDTV Bandwidth Challenge Imagine Communications' Marc Tayer takes on the HD bandwidth challenge, and discusses end-to-end VBR with consumer-generated StatMux.

Products

Cisco Beefs Up Video and ITV Capabilities of IP NGN

Cisco expanded the video and IPTV delivery capabilities of its Internet protocol Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) architecture with the introduction of the Cisco Content Delivery System (CDS). This solution offers cable and wireline providers a platform for the delivery of VOD and time-shifted video services. It also is said to enable them to accelerate the creation and distribution of advanced entertainment, interactive media and advertising services to subs' TVs, PCs, mobile handsets, portable media players and other media-capable devices.

The Cisco CDS is composed of a network of appliances known as Content Delivery Engines (CDEs) that implement content storage, ingest, distribution, personalization and streaming capabilities. Groups of CDEs form a virtual platform for deployment of a variety of Content Delivery Applications (CDAs). In various combinations, CDAs enable ops to deploy multiple services such as targeted ad-insertion in broadcast video and VOD; program time-shifting; local programming; "long tail" content; and public, educational and government channels.

Charter and Time Warner Cable have already picked the Cisco CDS solution, and it's also in trials with a number of wireline providers around the world, according to Cisco.

Narad and Tropos Team for Backhaul Mesh Wi-Fi in Metro Areas

Narad Networks and Tropos Networks announced successful interoperability testing of their solutions.

The combined solution provides mesh network ops with a new option to backhaul mesh Wi-Fi traffic within the metro area. Tests using Narad's switched Ethernet-over-coax solution and the Tropos 5210HFC MetroMesh router demonstrated aggregate performance exceeding 20 Mbps of symmetric capacity with low end-to-end latency. According to the companies, this level of performance will enable ops to offer mobile broadband applications and services such as mobile video and instant messaging while avoiding the need for new fiber construction.

Antronix Rolls Out Fiber Node

Antronix announced its Antronix Fiber Node (AFN) that receives a full complement of video, data and telephony via a single optical fiber and converts the signal to RF for distribution. The unit is optimized for use in both single family and MDU apps.

The AFN is available in two versions: high (38 dBmV) and low (28 dBmV) RF output power. The product meets full specifications with optical input levels ranging from -8 dBm to + 2 dBm. The receive RF path includes provisions for Antronix's E-option plug-ins for sloped RF output as well as user adjustable padding for optimal forward path setup. A DC optical power monitor eliminates the need for an optical power meter during installation. Status LEDs indicate whether the device is operating within expected ranges. An optional return path optical transmitter is available in 2 versions: Fabry-Perot (FP) and Distributed Feedback (DFB). The AFN's small size and robust housing allows it to be placed in most locations that provide limited space, such as NID boxes.

CableMatrix Plays Around With IMS Video Gaming

CableMatrix Technologies announced what it is calling "the market's first IP multimedia subsystem (IMS)-based video gaming client application employing QoS and application management for end-to-end service quality across any network, utilizing any type of device." The technology will be integrated on an IBM platform intended to facilitate the deployment of new broadband services. The solution applies signaling for QoS while negotiating in real-time necessary bandwidth to ensure high-quality sessions over legacy applications such as PC games.

The two main components powering the IMS based solution are the CableMatrix XAM (eXtensible Application Manager) and software-based Smart Agents. XAM is an intelligent multimedia session controller that enables the dynamic allocation and management of QoS at the client level ensuring optimal use of network resources. Smart Agents are embedded software modules that optimize the performance of existing applications (such as multiplayer gaming) by requesting the appropriate levels of bandwidth, latency, and jitter for each session. XAM and the Smart Agents collaborate by monitoring individual user applications for bandwidth requirements and signaling in SIP for QoS when appropriate. XAM then authenticates and authorizes the requests according to the service op's policy settings forwarding on to the policy server where requests are fulfilled.

Want an IMS Primer? SCTE Has It

SCTE will present "An Overview of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)" as the subject of its next SCTE Live Learning event, which is set for Wednesday, Dec. 20 at 2 p.m. ET. The session will offer a technical discussion regarding the basic functions and requirements driving the IMS architecture. It also will review IMS's core components and their roles, key interface highlights, and examine how it has evolved to meet the specific needs of cable. The presenter for the event will be Jonathan Rosenberg, Cisco Fellow at Cisco Systems. Visit the SCTE site for more info.

• Jones/NCTI received a 2006 Superior Training Achievement Recognition (STAR) award for its LogiCALL Decision Tools product. The award -- in the external consultants category -- came from the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD). LogiCALL is an electronic performance support tool to guide customer service agents through the decision-making process. It uses decision tree methodology and is accessed through an agent's desktop, prompting him/her to follow a series of mouse click-through questions and answers with customers.
• Mega Hertz will become Volicon's exclusive VAR partner for sales to the U.S. cable industry. Volicon develops turnkey digital video archiving and streaming solutions, including the Observer multichannel video monitoring and logging systems. Volicon's proprietary video processing system, comprised of a video encoder and streaming engine, gives a large number of users simultaneous access to multiple channels of video content over a network.
• CableLabs opened a streamlined process under which retail plug-and-play devices can receive multiple streams of programming from new multi-stream CableCARDs (or M-Cards). This CableLabs effort was supported by TiVo, Motorola, Digeo, Solekai, Digital Keystone and ViXS. CableLabs published new testing procedures to verify M-Card compatibility. In order to speed the availability of M-Cards for plug-and-play devices, CableLabs will begin offering verification testing of the multistream interface beginning with CableLabs Certification Wave 49 in January 2007. After initial verification, manufacturers may self-verify that their M-Card-enabled devices are compliant.

Feature: Attacking the HDTV Bandwidth Challenge: End-to-End VBR With Consumer-Generated StatMux

By Marc Tayer, Imagine Communications

With U.S. HDTV penetration approaching the 20% threshold, the next battleground for premium video subscribers will revolve around HDTV content quantity and video quality. The day of 100 HDTV channels is on the horizon. And with HD-DVD and Blu-ray promising consumers unprecedented picture quality, expectations for improved video quality are on the rise.

Cable operators are moving VOD to the mass market, and HD-VOD is increasingly viewed as a competitive window of opportunity for a potential killer app. But the great promise of HD-VOD comes with a painful cost: HD-VOD is the king of bandwidth hogs.

The incessant demand for more and more bandwidth must be addressed in a cost-effective and scalable manner, minimizing disruption to the existing infrastructure while simultaneously moving up the video quality curve. Operators can't afford to leave low-hanging bandwidth fruit on the table in the face of such an impending market explosion in HDTV and VOD.

Since the dawn of digital, variable bit rate (VBR) video coding, together with statistical multiplexing (StatMux), has been widely adopted for digital broadcast signals, delivering the best video quality at the lowest bit rate. Today virtually all multiple-service-per-carrier digital broadcast signals (over satellite and cable) utilize VBR/StatMux. Furthermore, all DVDs (and now HD-DVD and Blu-ray) use VBR for the best video quality at the lowest storage rate. VBR is the natural state of digital video coding, optimally representing the continuously changing peaks and valleys of picture complexity.

It is therefore puzzling and alarming that advanced video services such as VOD, SDV, and IPTV are being deployed with constant bit rate (CBR) video coding, thereby wasting bandwidth and constraining video quality. As these services scale up, the deficiencies of CBR coding will become magnified, just when precious bandwidth is needed for expanded delivery of linear HDTV content.

What do these personalized TV services have in common that is causing them to be deployed with bandwidth-inefficient CBR? Not coincidentally, in each case it is the subscriber who determines which video streams flow down the last mile pipe.

Why would these advanced services use CBR in the first place? In a nutshell, because traditional VBR/StatMux systems, developed for digital broadcast services, are not viable methods for this new consumer-driven viewing paradigm. The legacy StatMux systems are fundamentally incapable of addressing the four major stumbling blocks imposed by a consumer-initiated streaming environment:

1. Economics (high cost/stream)
2. Rack space inefficiency
3. Consumer response delay
4. Incompatibility with pre-encryption

A radically different technological and architectural approach to video processing and statistical multiplexing is required to overcome these four hurdles. Any such approach must be based on "consumer-generated StatMux" dynamics rather than the traditional method in which the content provider or system operator determines which digital signals make up the RF mux.

The broadcast-oriented techniques of performing both the video processing and multiplexing functions in tight sequence, every time a mux is created, is inapplicable to the personalized TV environment. With a complete separation of the video processing and multiplexing processes, alternative compressed elements can be prepared in advance and indexed by quality measurement criteria. Then, the optimal elements can be selected on the fly for channel multiplexing in response to instantaneous consumer demand.

HDTV is finally on the fast track to ubiquity. Premium subs will gravitate toward operators offering the most HDTV content and the best video quality, along with groundbreaking and convenient services such as HD-VOD. For operators, attaining this pot of gold requires resolving the huge bandwidth challenges imposed by HDTV and VOD. By leveraging an end-to-end VBR/StatMux solution, ops will be able to massively scale their VOD and HD-VOD deployments, while providing better video quality to match or surpass competing platforms.

Marc Tayer is SVP, Marketing and Business Development at Imagine Communications.

Deployments

• TV Cabo, Portugal's largest pay TV operator, selected the ARRIS C4 CMTS for its network upgrade. "The ARRIS C4's wire-speed was a determining factor in our CMTS selection to improve our network capacity," Joaquim Fernandes, CMTS Specialist at TV Cabo, says. "Its deployment will help us deliver a higher quality of digital services, such as voice over cable and ultra high-speed broadband, to our customers."
• Charter selected C-COR for the first major market trial of dynamic on-demand advertising in St. Louis. The trial is a collaborative effort integrating C-COR's nABLE On Demand ad insertion solution with Atlas On Demand's automated campaign management, ad decision logic optimization and reporting tools, TVN's ad distribution system, and content from Hollywood.com and Vehix to bring to market a real-time on-demand advertising solution "from the ad agency desktop to the VOD system."
• Cisco announced that Numericable, the largest cable op in France, started a nationwide upgrade of its network based on the Cisco IP Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) architecture to bring ultra-high-speed (up to 100+ megabits per second) broadband services to more than 9 million households in France by the end of 2007. The upgrade will allow Numericable to offer customers a set of converged services, such as advanced video, voice and data services, over a single broadband connection.
  
  Numericable is deploying fiber to customer's premises nationwide and is increasing throughput of its existing network by using the Cisco Wideband solution, which applies downstream channel-bonding technology (defined in the CableLabs DOCSIS 3.0 specification) to logically combine several RF channels to achieve theoretical broadband data rates in excess of hundreds of megabits per second. The solution uses the industry-leading Cisco uBR10012 CMTS and high-density xDQA24 edge QAMs and EPC2505 wideband cable modems from Scientific-Atlanta, a Cisco company.
• TV Cabo, the largest pay TV operator in Portugal, is using Harmonic's portfolio of HFC broadband access solutions to optimize bandwidth efficiency in its cable TV network. TV Cabo has implemented Harmonic's METROLink forward and return path transmitters for narrowcast applications. Harmonic now provides a complete HFC transport solution for TV Cabo which includes MAXLink broadcast transmitters and receivers, PWRBlazer scalable nodes and Harmonic's newest return path solution.
• Comcast and Jones International University announced an agreement through which Comcast employees can receive tuition scholarships and be assisted through the process of furthering their higher education, including attaining bachelor's and master's degrees. About 29,000 Comcast employees have taken courses from Jones/NCTI. The agreement provides a path for these employees to apply credits earned from Jones/NCTI courses to JIU degrees.
• Level 3 Communications Wholesale Markets Group announced that it has expanded its relationship with BendBroadband, an Oregon-based cable operator, to serve as the underlying service provider for the op's new business voice service. Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, BendBroadband will use the Level 3 VoIP Enhanced Local service to provide small and medium-sized businesses with local and long-distance calling. BendBroadband Business Phone will include enhanced voicemail, E-911 service and calling features such as caller ID, call waiting and three-way calling.
• R Cable y Telecomunicaciones, a cable operator in Spain's Galicia region, selected Nortel's carrier VoIP solution and Nortel Global Services to deliver a suite of new voice, multimedia and advanced IP services such as video and IM to businesses and residential customers. This will allow enterprises to outsource their advanced communications to R, while consumers can get new multimedia services that make it easier for them to talk, IM, watch videos, listen to music, get news and play games.
• RGB Networks shipped its 1,000th VIA family video processor, a Simulcast Edge Processor (SEP), which was delivered to Time Warner Cable. The SEP was first introduced in April 2005 and has since shipped to "every major cable operator in the U.S.," as well as operators in Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean. The 1000 video processing units shipped to-date also include RGB's Broadcast Network Processor (BNP) and recently introduced Modular Media Converter (MMC).
• Sigma Systems was selected by Suddenlink Communications to deploy Sigma's Service Management Platform (SMP) 3.0, along with Sigma's Cable Solution 3.1, a fully-automated service management solution, to provision its high-speed data and VoIP subscribers.
• TV Cabo, the largest pay TV operator in Portugal, implemented Sigma Systems' OSS service management solutions and OSS technology to provide service management support across the country, including voice over IP (VoIP) services, digital video services, PPV, high-speed data and WiFi access.
• Vecima Networks announces that the company now has "full approval from all major MSOs in the United States to ship its CableVista family of edge decoder products targeted at digital simulcast deployments." The digital video product is now shipping to live operational sites throughout the country.

The Playing Field

• ARRIS TeleWire Supply appointed Leia Liberatore to the position of VP of operations. Liberatore has more than 15 years of experience in the cable industry, serving in various operations and supply chain management capacities. She previously held positions with Adelphia and Comcast.
• ARRIS announced that Dr. Hubert Wo joined the company to direct technical operations in China. Wo brings over 30 years of high-level engineering and management experience to his new position. He joins ARRIS after working several years in Hangzhou, China, where he helped UTStarcom build their Chinese R&D facilities.
• BigBand Networks appointed Jeff Lindholm as SVP of worldwide field operations. Lindholm will oversee the company's worldwide sales and customer service efforts in his new role. He joins BigBand from Juniper Networks, where he served as VP of worldwide sales, and most recently as chief marketing officer.
• Cedar Point Communications has formed a wholly owned subsidiary for the European market, and hired Michael Brunsveld as managing director, Europe. Cedar Point Europe Communications GmbH, headquartered in Meersburg, Germany, will oversee all activities involving Cedar Point, its European partners and its customers in conjunction with sales and deployments of the company's SAFARI C³ multimedia switching system. Brunsveld, who joins Cedar Point after more than a decade with Nortel Networks Germany, will be immediately responsible for all of Cedar Point's business development activity in the European market.
• 

  Lindly

  OpVista named Dale Lindly as SVP and CFO. He previously served as SVP and chief accounting officer at MagnaChip Semiconductor. Prior to MagnaChip, as CFO he concluded acquisitions for IC Media, Morphics Technology and Tioga Technologies.
• RGB Networks announced two additions to the company's management team. Nick Hutton, a 17-year veteran of the Asia Pacific telecom market, joins RGB as VP of sales overseeing the Asia Pacific region. Sarah Hackforth, a15-year cable industry sales and marketing veteran, was named VP of sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
• SCTE announced candidates for its 2007 board of directors. Each candidate is vying for one of the seven seats on the17-member board that are up for election.
  
  Region 1 (representing CA, HI, NV)
  • Roger L. Paul, Comcast (Incumbent)
  • Keith Vaughn, Time Warner Cable
  • Bob Weaver, Cox
  Region 2 (representing AZ, CO, NM, UT, WY)
  • Frank Eichenlaub, Scientific-Atlanta, a Cisco company (Incumbent)
  • Dan Murphy, Charter
  • Dick Rohm, Cable One
  Region 6 (representing MN, ND, SD, WI)
  • Alex Balander, Charter
  • Aaron Johnson, Cannon Valley Cablevision
  • Robert Schaeffer, Technology Planners (Incumbent)
  Region 9 (representing FL, GA, SC, PR)
  • Stephen R. Brazil, MCR Group Inc.
  • John P. Weeks Jr., John Weeks Enterprises
  • Ken Williams, Cox
  Region 11 (representing DE, MD, NJ, PA)
  • Gregory D. Allshouse, Comcast
  • Harland Bergstrom, Cable Services Company Inc.
  • Jim Brown, AFL Communications
  Director-At-Large (representing all SCTE members) (two elected here)
  • Thomas J. Gorman, Charter (Incumbent)
  • Mike Hayashi, Time Warner Cable
  • Patrick O'Hare, Comcast
  • Mark S. Williams, Cox
  • Ken Wright, C-COR
  • Rouzbeh Yassini-Fard, YAS Corp.
  SCTE members will begin casting their ballots in January. Election results will be announced by April 15. Newly elected directors will take office to begin their two-year terms on June 19 at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2007, which is set for June 19-22 in Orlando, FL.
• TANDBERG Television appointed Robin Main as SVP of application software development. He will lead the research and development of software technologies for TANDBERG. Main joins the company from Movaz Networks where he served as SVP of engineering.

Website | White Papers | Advertise | Subscribe/Unsubscribe | Calendar | Links | Advisory Board | Archive | Contact Us | Contact the Editor