ActiveVideo, the Silicon Valley based cloud TV software vendor, will demonstrate at IBC 2014 how its platform can deliver premium online video to traditional Pay TV subscribers without having to replace legacy set-top boxes. The message will be that the cloud can unite the increasingly fragmented Pay TV world by enabling the same service package to be made available via existing set-top boxes of all makes, as well as new boxless deployments. The company has been associated with set-top box virtualization at several major telcos such as Deutsche Telekom, which is looking to migrate Pay TV wholesale to the cloud. Now the company is trying to set out its stall as a partner for more conservative Pay TV operators as well. At IBC it will be offering to work with operators to apply its CloudTV platform to bring entire libraries of web-based “TV Everywhere†content to their whole subscriber base. This is using the same ‘virtual set-top’ technology that decouples the User Interface from the limitations of device resources.
ActiveVideo will be highlighting some specific recent deployments, including the launch by Liberty Global’s UPC Hungary of a full YouTube service without new STBs, along with US cable operator Charter Communications’ robust and scalable Sky UI, which the company claims was the first guide to be delivered entirely from the cloud. Indeed the company’s main focus remains to use its CloudTV product family, including CloudTV GuideCast, CloudTV StreamCast and CloudTV AdCast, to spare Pay TV operators and online video providers the CapEx, OpEx and time-to-market associated with deploying new set tops or having to author content for multiple boxes.
