Mucho Content Across Beaucoup Devices

By Laura Hamilton

Cable operators know that the number of subscriber devices will continue to explode, and that being able to efficiently deliver a wide variety of content across all those various pieces of equipment will be a key competitive point. Whether it's TVs, PCs or mobile devices, seamlessly distributing content around the sub's premises is a paramount and sticky technical challenge.

Best New Idea

That's why it's not a huge surprise that solutions that promise to tackle that engineering conundrum have received a lot of attention at recent CableLabs Innovation Showcases. At the latest CableLabs Summer Conference in Keystone, CO, Silicon Image's new digital connectivity technology was voted the "Best New Product Idea" by an audience of more than 200 cable operators. This follows the 2008 Winter Conference winner, an 802.11n system from Ruckus Wireless, which streams HD to IPTV set-tops using the wireless system.

Silicon Image's digital connectivity architecture with Echocast Technology would allow HD quality video/audio and remote user interfaces to be distributed to any consumer electronics device. "Silicon Image's product comes at the right time as the number of TVs and other consumer-facing devices capable of receiving video over an IP network continues to grow," Tony Werner, CTO at Comcast, says. "While Silicon Image's technology could be used to enable multi-room DVRs, its real benefit could be its ability to help get cable providers' content and applications to multiple consumer devices."

Innovation Showcase Demos

The 2008 Summer Conference's Innovation Showcase also featured other established vendors as well as venture capital-stage companies demonstrating cutting-edge broadband technologies:

ARRIS showed off its Fair Bandwidth Management (FBM) solution, which is said to appease net neutrality concerns through a usage-based approach, rather than a protocol-based approach, to manage the network and traffic. It combines comprehensive edge monitoring with protocol-agnostic policy management to temporarily mediate network traffic - only during times of peak congestion, thus eliminating potential bottlenecks and service interruptions across the network. Even as large files are transferring, customers will still see a significant improvement in performance with the implementation of FBM, according to ARRIS.

Aster Data Systems' presentation was based on two specific questions: "How does cable prepare for the data growth?" and "What can you do with that data once it is captured?" The company presented a case study demonstrating how MSOs can incrementally scale a system in minutes to grow with their terabytes of data growth. The company also reviewed a case study where Aster was employed to analyze terabytes of data for behavioral patterns over time.

BroadSoft demonstrated three solutions. First was a business application, BroadSoft Unified Connector for SalesForce.com, which allows business users to integrate their communications with their CRM tool, including capturing logs of calls that occur with clients and prospects. Secondly, the company showed a residential app, Facebook "Click2Message," which allows Facebook users on BroadWorks-based networks to download an application that allows friends to call them by clicking an icon on their Facebook page. Lastly, the company showed a MarketPlace Demonstration, illustrating the Web portal available to subscribers for reviewing and downloading applications.

itaas displayed a mobile products and TV (MPTV) platform that provides MSOs a single point of convergence to deliver content and applications seamlessly between the TV, Web and wireless devices. The itaas MPTV gateway is a plug-and-play cross-platform communications and delivery framework that reportedly requires no additional MSO infrastructure investment providing multi-screen experiences to the TV viewer on tru2way and EBIF platforms. The platform is designed and architected to provide seamless integration with existing MSO infrastructure on all fronts-broadband, digital video and wireless.

LG Electronics highlighted new edge devices that enable cable operator HD content delivery to the hospitality market. The demonstration showcased content received at the hotel using a residential HD STB with an IEEE 1394 output. The single program stream content from the STB is sent to LG's HCS6600R and converted to a Pro:Idiom 128-bit AES encrypted transport stream. Digital modulation and upconversion of each desired channel provides the hotel channel offering. The HCS6600R is said to allow for seamless integration with PPV operators such as LodgeNet as well as standalone operations.

PeerApp reviewed its Intelligent Media Caching. The company's solutions cache and accelerate content delivery including P2P and HTTP downloads and video streams. PeerApp products reportedly allow ISPs to meet the bandwidth and service quality challenges of the video Internet and satisfy the demand from their subscribers.

PerfTech showed its Internet Watermark, a new application that allows MSOs to display their logos or other static or animated images semi-transparently on the browser screen. Similar to video-based watermarks or "bugs" seen on television to identify the channel or, in animated form, to announce upcoming programming, Internet Watermark can be used to achieve ISP branding; support cable initiatives such as usage-metering with a "gas gauge" watermark icon; fulfill the need to deliver national and local emergency alerts by displaying special-purpose watermark icons; and drive subscribers to desired portals by displaying live icons related to new content

Sigma Systems demonstrated its implementation of the Subscriber Information System (SIS) interface in the SCTE 130 standard. The functionality demonstrated how information from multiple repositories (subscriber, services, usage trends and subscriber demographics) is aggregated and federated to expose a common subscriber profile as a series of Audience Qualifiers (AQs) as defined in the standard. The ability to rapidly define the source data and derivation of the AQs from existing information repositories also were shown. The SIS system app also demonstrated how external access to the AQs can be controlled through related policies.

This Technology explained how its solutions enable advanced advertising ad units (or placement opportunities) within digital video streams. The company's software is vendor- and system-agnostic, offering dynamic delivery of playlists, advertising avails and related metadata via SCTE and CableLabs specifications. It is compatible with industry-wide advertising sales and delivery systems, including campaign managers, content streamers, and traffic and billing systems.

VeriSign showed a next-generation digital content ecosystem designed to enable MSOs to launch multi-screen digital content services. VeriSign also demonstrated a prototype that enables an MSO to offer content retailing services to their subscribers. This prototype showcased a new digital content ecosystem that allows consumers to "seamlessly experience any digital content from any retailer across any device they own."

Laura Hamilton is editor-in-chief at BGR. Reach her at laura.hamilton@comcast.net.