nc+, the Polish Pay TV operator, is working with Cisco to create a converged and virtualized video headend for its multiscreen TV services. The headend will use the Cisco Virtualized Video Processing (V2P) solution to power the encoding, transcoding, recording, storage, packaging and playback for the multiscreen services, encompassing live, VOD and time-shift TV. The solution will be ready to support cloud DVR services in future.
V2P supports the virtualization of video processing onto generic hardware (like servers in data centres) and the orchestration of different hardware and software encoding resources. nc+ hopes to dramatically simplify its video operations as a result of this architecture.
Yves Padrines, Vice President, Global Service Provider, EMEAR for Cisco, explains: “nc+ shares our vision for the future of television and recognises the need to unify their network architecture, combining physical and virtual resources to provide the cost savings and agility they need.â€
nc+ reaches over 2 million subscribers and offers over 160 linear channels, with more than 60 in high-definition. The nc+ service also encompasses PVR, multi-room PVR, VOD and the nc+go mobile app for multiscreen viewing.
Other Cisco solutions that underpin this implantation are:
• The Cisco Digital Content Manager (DCM), which will produce services for live content distribution
• Cisco AnyRes VOD encoders for off-line content transcoding for the VOD library
• The Cisco Cloud Object Store (COS), providing a unified and media-optimised storage service for the nc+ video platform.
The software and virtualized components for the new headend are implemented on Cisco data centre technologies including Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS) servers and Cisco Catalyst C4500-X switches. Cisco Professional Services is providing end-to-end support.
This announcement illustrates the kind of operational transformation now underway at a number of platform operators, something Cisco has been preparing for over several years and helping to drive (see related stories at bottom). The big theme for Cisco at IBC this year is software-defined, all-IP and secure digital video.
The focus for booth demonstrations is firmly on cloud video solutions, virtualized video processing and end-to-end security for service providers and the media and entertainment industry in general. This includes security solutions to protect video content in the data centre prior to distribution as well as after it reaches consumer homes, and it also covers enterprise-level web and email security. The company will also debut its Snowflake cloud-based user experience.
Related stories:
The Pay TV Operations Revolution, Using Gifts From The Internet Barbarians
Television Has Become Too Complicated And The Solution Is Virtualization
Editor’s comment:
How the world of video delivery is changing! Ten years ago a significant evolution to a user experience software (from the likes of NDS – now absorbed within Cisco) would have been big news. Now it is almost a footnote (albeit an important one) to a story of operations transformation. Today an evolved UEX is like a cool surfer – he or she looks great but you cannot take your eyes off the enormous wave that is sweeping them along. Even UHD fits into the same category: it is coming, it is utterly compelling but it is still dwarfed in significance by what is happening in the temperature-controlled, grey walled world of headends, backoffices and data centres.
