VoD Market Takes IPTV to the Next Level

While last year’s NXTcomm focused on the devices needed to access high-definition programming and share content in the home, the focus around TV at this year’s event appears to be how to best plan and optimize content storage and delivery around VoD, including on-demand HD VoD libraries.

Advances in the VoD market such as flash-based video storage, scalable servers and the newfound ability to locate more content closer to consumers, provide telcos important new options that can result in substantial cost savings/avoidance, as well as increased revenue, in an increasingly struggling economy.

“We’re talking about expanding the availability of HD VoD content, while reducing the storage and routing costs associated with delivering unicast HD streams to subscribers,” explained Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for IPTV and next-gen BSS/OSS at Infonetics Research. “Newer VoD systems help carriers move to more flexible storage appliances for their HD VoD content that essentially reduce the cost of keeping the HD titles in their inventory. In addition, a more distributed architecture that pushes VoD servers closer to users and frees up bandwidth in their transport networks, since the unicast streams don’t have to be routed all over the place to reach the set-top box,” are being considered.

VoD market powerhouses such as SeaChange International Inc. and Current Computing, as well as server giants such as Sun Microsystems Inc., have been moving quietly from systems using less flexible disk-based storage to ones sporting more flexible, flash-based approaches.

Meanwhile, vendors in the access and routing spaces are rushing out products, in some cases many months in advance of the show, so that all are aware of what tools are available to better architect current networks. On the broadband access front, this action has been centered around GPON and such suppliers as ADTRAN and Occam Networks Inc., which are due to announce products at the show. At the network edge, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco Systems Inc. and Juniper Networks Inc. have announced routers with more power and performance, and added flexibility due to the integration of several function-specific boxes into one system.

All of this should help network operators handle the growing libraries of digital content, which are expanding as consumers realize they can view new movies for a fraction of the cost of hitting the cinema or buying the DVD. Fanning the VoD flames, savvy service providers are offering movie trilogy packages and the ability to watch popular TV show episodes for free the day after they air on television. Movie studios have begun, in certain cases, to release movies to VoD and DVD the same day as releasing them to the theatres. And this all is occurring at the same time the world is moving to HD.

Comcast Corp. claimed in late March that since 2003, it had registered 7 billion VoD views and roughly 1 billion hours watched. That means 130 million hours of VoD content is viewed per month.

Meanwhile, Cox Communications Inc. is in the midst of a VoD initiative, with every one of its cable systems upgrading to Concurrent’s platform in an effort designed primarily to add additional streams (the new system can scale to hundreds of thousands of streams with minimized footprint and power consumption) and boost content storage.

All stripes of service providers are moving to better respond to changes around VoD. For example, RCN Corp. and its vendor partner SeaChange recently began a system-wide upgrade of its VoD infrastructure in an effort to offer more content more quickly and efficiently, and in HD. The project includes an upgrade of operational software, complete replacement of all video storage and streaming resources and a navigation software upgrade. The resulting new offering will be available to all RCN digital subscribers in Boston, Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., and parts of Pennsylvania this month.

“With SeaChange’s new server upgrades, we have the ability to easily manage and expand the VoD infrastructure going forward,” said Jason Nealis, senior director of video operations at RCN, who also emphasized the importance of the new user interface in helping customers search and browse through vast video collections.

“As we move past the initial phase of IPTV replicating broadcast TV services, service providers now compete on library size of on-demand content, and will shortly begin to compete on flexibility between display platforms and mix-and-match of TV-style and file-style content,” added Karen Liu, vice president for components and video technologies with Ovum RHK.

“For the server, this means the ingest, management and storage functions get more demanding,” said Liu. “Multiple versions mean an increase in metadata and data management requirements on ingestion. Time-shifted playout requires accessing stored data and having the means to index in time almost immediately and much later in [the] future.”

Further demands are placed on service providers with the increasing value on local content. While most VoD efforts have focused on getting movies and TV shows closer to consumers to conserve network resources, providing local or hyper-local content can mean getting much closer.

VoD is a good place for local content for two reasons, according to Dan York, executive vice president of programming with AT&T Inc. First, customers can watch it when they want. Second, you’re not tying up precious linear broadcast channels carrying the content.

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