Video Breakthroughs

L’IBC était l’occasion de faire le point sur l’offre de plusieurs concepteurs de chipsets pour set-top-boxes. Chaque année, les gammes évoluent pour tenir compte de l’évolution des besoins et de l’environnement technologiques : la gestion du multi-écrans, le support de l’HEVC, l’arrivée de la 4K et la gestion des réseaux domestiques.

Le support d’HEVC est clé pour tout fabricant de chipset car les appels d’offre des opérateurs de TV payante et d’IPTV commencent à intégrer le support d’HEVC. Ce support permet aux opérateurs d’étendre le parc de clients éligibles à l’IPTV. Pas question d’UHD dans ce cas, mais de simple SD ou HD. Comme l’HEVC réduit de 30% à 50% le débit nécessaire pour la transmission de vidéo, le bénéfice est évident pour les opérateurs. Les autres bénéfices de l’HEVC sont de réduire les coûts de CDN (Content Delivery Networks, les serveurs dans le cloud qui optimisent l’accès aux vidéos pour les consommateurs) et aussi d’améliorer les offres mobiles de consommation de vidéo en live comme à la demande. Les appels d’offre d’aujourd’hui correspondent à des déploiements qui démarreront entre fin 2014 et fin 2015 et génèreront une base installée de box qui devra tenir jusqu’à facilement 2019. Donc, il faut voir loin !

Although Ultra HD was the visible headline story from IBC2013, with demonstrations of the new format everywhere, the serious business, when you scratched beneath the surface, revolved around multiscreen TV yet again. The technologies to get multiscreen deployed and then make it a compelling user experience have dominated the last five shows, with only 3DTV offering any serious challenge for the crown before disappearing off our radar. This year the focus was on personalizing and monetizing multiscreen TV more effectively, while there is also a trend towards end-to-end multiscreen solutions (including multi-vendor pre-integrations) and managed services. A key driver for these last two trends is the need to help smaller operators into the multiscreen market.

With all the excitement around HEVC and all the reports we have put out at Frost & Sullivan on the topic, we get asked all the time if MSOs should skip AVC and directly switch from MPEG-2 to HEVC. Why is this such an enticing notion and does the idea actually bear merit? To answer that question, first, some history is in order.

Back in the nineties as North America transitioned to digital cable, MPEG-2 was the state of the art compression technology at the time. North America was ahead of the game even with HD and thus nearly all cable applications relied on MPEG-2 for SD and HD alike. But the industry paid a price for that early innovation – no sooner were they done with HD deployment than AVC broke onto the scene and fundamentally disrupted the video compression equation. Faced with a weak economical outlook (remember the dot com crash of 2002, anyone?), and having just made major investments in HD rollouts, the cable industry was unable to take advantage, in a meaningful way, the benefits offered by AVC. In contrast, as Europe began to transition somewhat later in the game, they did use MPEG-2 for SD digital cable but predominantly use AVC for HD.

Fast forward to 2013, when the growth of North American cable subscribers slows and IPTV is surging in popularity with its vast array of content and the lure of rich applications enabled by bi-directional connectivity. The writing on the wall is clear to MSOs –they can transition their primary business to broadband services, or they must dramatically reinvent themselves and the user experience they offer to remain relevant as mainstream Pay TV service providers. Wherein lies the rub – how do MSOs meaningfully and strategically invest in infrastructure that will ensure they are at state of the art over the next decade?

HEVC encoding and decoding technology is “ready for primetime,” but licensing negotiations are holding up real-world deployments.

While it was clear from walking the exhibit floor in Amsterdam that HEVC encoding and decoding technology is now “ready for primetime” as Sam Blackman, CEO of Elemental technologies put it, the licensing negotiations now underway between MPEG LA, the standardizing body, and those that would implement the patented technology into their products (consumer electronics companies and broadcast equipment suppliers), are holding back real-world deployments.

According to Blackman, companies like Apple, Samsung and others now have the technology to utilize HEVC, but they don’t dare for fear of having to pay billions in licensing fees. Although there has been no official comment on the negotiations, word on the street is that MPEG LA is seeking a $20 million cap on single users, whereas they receive roughly a $7 million cap for the use of H.264 today. The big difference reflects the potential multiple uses that new IP-based video services will require in the future.