As broadcasters and multichannel providers look to expand their multiplatform delivery of content while controlling or cutting costs, cloud-based solutions will be a particularly hot topic, with Cisco, Digital Rapids, Chyron and a number of other vendors interviewed by B&C pushing solutions.
“Pretty much the entire customer base is interested in moving to cloud network and device strategies” to handle the complexities of multiplatform delivery, which can require encoding and formatting content for many different types of devices, notes Ken Morse, CTO of Cisco Service Provider Video Technology Group. At IBC, Cisco will be offering a number of solutions for multiplatform delivery and cloud-based technologies.
“Very similar to North America, there is a lot of interest in Europe in the cloud as service providers like Sky in the U.K. introduce a TV Everywhere product,” Morse adds.
Chyron launched its Axis cloud-based solution for graphics four years ago in the U.S. At this year’s IBC, the company will be launching its Axis World Graphics solution into international markets. For the first time, Axis will be able to support Unicode language recognition, which means that it can be used with many different languages around the world.
“We understand that Europe is different [than] the U.S., where Axis has been very successful, but we really think it is a game-changer,” notes Phil Carmichael, VP of product marketing at Chyron. “Not only does it move capital off the balance sheet and reduce costs, but it makes their businesses more agile.”
At IBC, Digital Rapids will be launching a new version of its high-volume media processing solution, Transcode Manager 2.0, which the company believes will provide a more simplified, automated approach to transcoding and cloud-based solutions, while also demonstrating its new Kayak platform.
“It really allows customers to take more control over work flows and solve bigger problems with one system that will allow them to better control capital and operational costs,” says Brick Eksten, president and CTO of Digital Rapids.
There will also be a number of launches of new products to help with the multiplatform delivery of content.
Thomson Video Networks, for example, will be showing its ViBE VS7000 video system for the delivery of Web TV and over-the-top services, notes Eric Gallier, Thomson VP of marketing.
“Over-the-top service and convergent media will be a hot topic at IBC,” Gallier says. “With this product, we are supplying superior picture quality.”
In early August, Harmonic launched its ProMedia family of software solutions to enable high-quality multi-screen video services. The company also made some significant additions to its Omneon Spectrum media server product line, which will be shown at IBC, according to Tom Lattie, VP of product management.
Also at IBC, NDS will be showing its newly launched VideoGuard Connect digital rights management (DRM) product that has been deployed at BSkyB in the U.K. and DirecTV in the U.S. for TV Everywhere-type services.
A major provider of conditional access and DRM technologies, NDS is billing VideoGuard as a nextgeneration service that extends traditional pay-TV content protection and security technologies from the TV to multiplatform delivery.
“As operators face more competition from over-thetop providers like Netflix and Amazon, VideoGuard allows them to provide an over-the-top service to a media-ready device at a security level equivalent to broadcast,” notes Nigel Smith, VP and chief marketing officer at NDS.
Also during the show, BlackArrow will be working out of the NDS booth, demonstrating enhancements to the BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System and talking to international operators and programmers about its work with Comcast and some other major U.S. operators.
“We can now show that advanced advertising has moved out of the laboratory and into the field,” says Nick Toroiano, president of BlackArrow. “It will be our first IBC where we can talk about what we are doing with operators.”
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