Opinions

Boosting quality of experience with peer-assisted delivery OTT service providers can use peer-assisted video delivery to complement a CDN. Every member of the peer-assisted service acts as an edge server and management software allocates the resources according to demand. To an OTT service provider this looks like any other CDN architecture except the economics are better, there is less chance of piracy (since content is never stored whole on a device) and it is infinitely scalable.

One way to engage ‘difficult to reach’ 16-24 year-olds is to deliver television in bite-sized segments that cover their interests, built into a personalized playlist. This is not futuristic and can be achieved using temporal metadata, which provides detailed descriptions of what is happening in video scenes. The information, including the timings needed for chapter markers, can be captured at the moment closed-captions are created.

Network function virtualisation (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) are natural partners for digital TV. NFV allows us to virtualise the functionality; SDN provides the control and monitoring layer that issues instructions, prioritises the use of processor cores and manages storage. With a virtualised framework, a UHD asset can be transcoded in 15 minutes rather than 24 hours by starting as many encoder instances as required.

Broadcasters have to do more with less resources and investment, and greater use of IP will help them. IP networks make it easy to produce live content, one of the competitive differentiators compared to OTT providers. IP contribution means smaller OB vehicles and fewer staff on site. It is easy to establish connections, which is particularly advantageous for breaking news. IP is also becoming a realistic proposition in the studio.

The best way to fight the threat of online content sharing is to insert an imperceptible watermark in the video or audio, which cannot be tampered with, to enable the rights owner to shut down the source of leaks and keep content away from pirate services. When integrated with CA and DRM systems, watermarking and associated detection services will ultimately form a closed-loop solution, protecting content for delivery to any device.

When the subject of IoT standards arises it is usually in the context of the service enabling framework. There are three main initiatives, the Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF), the AllSeen Alliance and the oneM2M initiative. They share some common members, resulting in growing synergy and collaboration. OCF’s Allseen devices are compatible with Iotivity, for example. This kind of development will accelerate IoT deployments.

IP is being used in smaller sports productions to get the signals from the stadium to the studio, with access to central databases and reverse cue video over the same path, and enabling more than one video feed to be sent from the site. Cabling is simplified and there is less need to send OB trucks, lowering costs. Two unattended cameras can provide a panoramic view of the whole stadium via a single stream, with the HD outputs selected from this using a joystick.

In the age of fixed-broadband market saturation and fixed-mobile convergence, the increase of triple-play penetration is a proven means to reduce churn. In some...

The Euro 2016 football championships are providing a major stage for Ultra HD, although currently without HDR and 10 bit colour gamut. It is a proving ground for picture capture, with the aim of establishing a standard camera format as a precursor for full blown commercial 4K services. In France, Orange has exclusive rights to the 4K pictures via broadcasters TF1 and M6; other European operators transmitting in 4K include NOS, Vodafone and Meo.

No one can deny that the way viewers are watching TV has changed dramatically in recent years, with video-on-demand (VoD) services such as Netflix,...