Despite some early technical hitches that left us no option but to moderate the entire 1-hour Faultline Video Summit this week over a 4G connection using a Huawei smartphone, the event was one that stimulated open discussions and encouraged a roaring audience Q&A session.
Deutsche Telekom, Irdeto and Technicolor were out in force presenting views and strategies on RDK as well as Android TV Operator Tier – given DT’s penchant for both – providing the perfect follow-up to our previous event with Proximus, as we made the journey from Belgium into Germany.
The event can be viewed on-demand in its entirety here [insert link pending?], while we have listed some bitesize takeaways for the time-constrained Faultline reader:
- The one stop shop is dead
- Aggregate, differentiate, or die
- An open platform does not necessarily mean an open bar
- RDK is excellent for brownfield, Android TV suits greenfield
- AOSP is a non-option for pay TV operators (perhaps with the exception of those in China)
To elaborate on these, Deutsche Telekom’s Head of TV Product Delivery Projects, Augusto Silva, responded to Faultline’s feather-ruffling mention of rising rival Vodafone by saying that one of DT’s golden rules is that if it is not competing with a company, then it should be collaborating. Of course, DT is absolutely 100% competing with Vodafone, in more ways than one, so this somewhat dodged the issue, as any experienced operator exec should.
Nevertheless, Silva was honest about sensing more product innovation being driven by the internet guys than the telco guys – which is leading DT towards actively trying to understand what is the best combination of components across its Android TV and RDK technology footprints.
He praised the internet camp for bringing a faster lifecycle of product innovation. “We should listen to them, we should also listen to the fact that the one stop shop is dead, which means we can no longer buy a one-size-fits-all product and safely leave that to see if we are on top of the game. Now that game has changed. We have to use a different approach,” added Silva.
This changing game is taking DT down the road of looking at best in class components, making sure to decouple each one and make them evolve independently, while not provoking those dependencies in the process. Naturally, this is where a comprehensive microservices strategy comes in – encouraging horizontal innovation that can bring A/B testing and new AI-based services. “We should definitely pay attention to an internet-based architectural approach. This is also going to be our product development approach, and for Vodafone too, potentially,” continued Silva.
Turning to our vendor representatives, Irdeto’s message of “aggregate, differentiate, or die” was a familiar but important one. Bruce Curtin, Product Director at the Dutch security specialist, picked up Silva’s “game changing” baton by describing how security has changed in the sense of pay TV operators needing to offer unified experiences while looking at new business models.
As Curtin walked us through the ins and outs of security – involving certification of multiple chipsets, software CAS, different broadcast models for different entitlements and subscription models, features like watermarking, and a whole bunch of other complex end-to-end components, he did not shy away from the huge amount of cost cutting and margin shrinking happening across the industry today.
As such, it is these aforementioned security components that are going to become even more critical as Irdeto and its addressable market moves forward. “You can’t afford to have multiple security suppliers today, so having decent end to end security that is quick to integrate in existing standards is critical,” noted Curtin. But while operators need to be sure not to fragment across new internet platforms, Irdeto is focusing on keeping these features active and updated, which is essential to continue drawing broadcast revenues.
Waving flags for both hardware and software was Technicolor’s Mounir Toutah, Director of Video Product Management, who took his opportunity on stage to share a lesson that an open platform does not equal an open bar. This mindset is something Irdeto has seen from time to time among operators expecting everything to come free and fast. The reality is that open platforms like RDK and Android TV actually require following strict rules.
“If you don’t follow the rules, there is no guarantee the application will run smoothly on the set top. Android TV requires more than 1 million test cases before getting into certification, so this requires some serious work,” explained Toutah.
Debunking the myth that open platforms bring a superfast time to market boils down to integration. Some pay TV operators exploring open platform deployments – of which there were a few present in our audience this week – are unaware of the integration that comes from many components, including the operator’s existing environment, the service delivery platform, security services, UX, custom UI, analytics, QoE, DVB customization, etc. “All these components require some time to perfectly work together for presenting the certification process. Once the boxes and software are delivered, it does not mean it will not stay and will not evolve. This is really a living animal in the sense that it will create and enable new services and features,” he added.
An audience Q&A session followed that left almost no stone unturned, which really is worth checking out in the archive. The fact that the latest Faultline Video Summit Q&A was dominated by questions on Android TV could imply a clear global winner in terms of interest from pay TV operators and the vendor community, but is probably more reflective of the event’s predominantly European focus. Our events are of course timed to accommodate North American audiences too, and we are working on getting a US operator or media heavyweight involved in future Faultline Video Summits. Watch this space.