Three leading IPTV technology firms Envivio, Edgeware, and Verimatrix, used the eve of IBC, the Amsterdam International Broadcasting Conference, to announce a new end to end OTT offering using each of their products, with some elements brand new.
The three partners say this eliminates the need to struggle with a confusing array of new technology and system choices and enables TV operators to get on track with new revenue opportunities ‘ although we think OTT additions are more about reducing churn for established players, adding Internet connected devices such as TVs, computers, mobile devices and game consoles.
Verimatrix contributed its VCAS conditional access system which added a new module at the show, its ViewRight Web client family, to provide video authentication for HTTP Live Streaming video services. Envivio will contribute its 4Caster C42 encoders which can target most screen sizes simultaneously and which is the market leader for real time encoding for handsets. The Envivio kit provides the multi-bitrate video processing, not quite adaptive as far as we can tell, but it offers different rates to fit all screen sizes. The Edgeware devices are Flash memory based server appliances for VoD over the internet, called WTV servers.
The three say that the solution has already been selected by a leading, global systems integrator who, remains unnamed right now. It’s tough to take a guess at who that might be. It can’t be Ericsson because of its involvement with Tandberg Television, which it bought and renamed to its brand. It can’t be Alcatel Lucent, because it is tied to Microsoft Mediaroom which has its own streaming solution coming out of Microsoft and its Silverlight team. It is probably not Cisco because of its shareholding in Widevine, a direct rival to Verimatrix. Motorola Mobility has bought companies which do what all of these three companies do and anyway its network integration arm is in the other part of the company which is being split off. Of the big integrators that leaves Nokia Siemens, who might well show an interest in eating into Alcatel’s global lead in IPTV installations, or a Chinese player, except that Huawei has local suppliers for almost all of these technologies. Our guess is that if it’s not Nokia Siemens, then it’s not in fact a leading global systems integrator, but a second tier player, but as we say, that’s a guess.
All of the conditional access companies have been talking the talk on the three screen front for some years, but for the most part there have been very few deployments of Pay TV systems delivering video Over The Top over the public internet. But now, almost in a rush, almost every operator around the world wants to introduce them, partly because of the public’s shift to the tablet format.
We’ve known that Verimatrix has had a video to PC protection capability for some time, and the mass arrival of streaming technology, including Envivio’s, has set the stage is set for mass deployment over the coming 12 months.
The ViewRight security code has been interoperability tested with other encoders and IPTV equipment makers including Harmonic, Allegro, Anevia and Vidiator, says Verimatrix.