TV Connect 2015 Show Daily > News
NeuLion to show-
case 4K portfolio
Digital TV technology provider
NeuLion is due to showcase its HEVC
and 4K/Ultra HD-ready product
portfolio at TV Connect.
NeuLion will demonstrate how
its next-generation NeuLion Digital
Platform will allow European content
rightsholders to securely stream
live and on-demand video content of
up to 4K resolution with HEVC and
MPEG-DASH to devices including
smartphones, tablets, smart TVs and
games consoles.
“We believe that sports and live
entertainment will be a key driver
for consumer adoption of 4K digital
content. As operators continue to
embrace TV Everywhere on multiple
screens, NeuLion will provide sports
and entertainment content rights
holders with live and on-demand video
delivery up to 4K on any consumer
device,” said NeuLion co-founder and
executive vice-president Chris Wagner.
“In 2014 alone, NeuLion streamed
more than 50,000 live events,
reinforcing our view that access to live
sports and entertainment on-the-go is
a must for fans today.”
NeuLion’s partners include sports
leagues and content providers such
as the NBA, NFL, NHL, the World Surf
League, Sky and Univision.
The firm’s end-to-end technology
platform enables digital content
management, distribution and
monetisation for content owners
around the world.
Earlier this year, NeuLion bought
video technology specialist DivX in a
US$62.5 million (€52.1 million) deal
that it said will place it at the forefront
of the 4K OTT video market and give it
broader global reach.
Digital TV Europe
April 30 2015
Technologists discuss first and second-screen TV advancements
Executives from set-top maker
ABOX42, security specialist Verimatrix
and online technology specialist Zattoo
joined together yesterday to discuss
the challenges facing operators as they
move to the latest-generation of TV
solutions. Speaking at the OTT/ IPTV industry
breakfast briefing at the Crowne Plaza
hotel in London’s Docklands yesterday,
Matthias Greve, CEO of ABOX42, which
specialises in IPTV, over-the-top TV
and hybrid smart set-top boxes, said
that the shift towards new smart set-
top boxes is similar to the transition
from “Nokia feature phones to, let’s
say, an iPhone.”
“It’s more and more application-
oriented, service oriented with open
standards or HTML5 user interfaces,
streaming protocols like HLS,” said
Greve. He added that it is “very important”
that the new generation of set-top
boxes has to be upgraded over time
“because the operators don’t know
what they want to do next year. So
for the first time in a set-top box
deployment, the upgrading is a very
important issue.”
Discussing the shortening timespan
it now takes for operators and vendors
to update services, Greve said: “This
is, I think, the major change in the
industry. Since we are coming more
or less from the internet background,
this change is natural in our company.
Today, within six months, the customer
needs upgrade changes. I think this
is the most important challenge for
traditional people in the ecosystems
if they’re not prepared for the change
management, because the change
management is actually the core of
the project – what you call our lifecycle
management.” Greve: shift to smart
set-tops akin to shift
from feature phones to
smartphones. Steve Christian, senior vice-
president of marketing at Verimatrix,
said that, from a security standpoint,
it is important to be able to support
a range of different solutions,
architecture problems, combinations of
linear, multicast and unicast solutions
and different broadcast and streaming
technologies. “That really underscores the need for
flexibility,” said Christian. “Security
is just part of this rapid evolution. We
need to be very responsive. We need to
roll with the punches.”
Discussing the issue of browser
plug-ins, Christian said that Verimatrix
provides security that enables the
uniform, and not siloed, delivery of
content to different platforms and
devices, which operators want.
Christian: it is important
to be able to support
different combinations
of linear, multicast and
unicast. “We have 810-plus customers that
have reached 70 million set-top boxes
around the world, so there’s a pretty
good footprint now for what 10 years
ago was a nascent company and a new
idea of software-based security,” said
Christian. “Today I think software-based
security, or cardless security as some
people call it, is the gold standard.
It enables this kind of flexibility, it
enables this ability to move with the
different kind of network configurations
that we are needing to deal with.
And, importantly, it allows you to be
responsive in the face of changing
threat environments.”
Christian said that with a footprint
of more than 110 countries, Verimatrix
has a global perspective.
“You see different challenges in
different countries, but increasingly
the world of video is global. That’s
exemplified by what we’re trying to do,”
said Christian.
Gernot Jaeger, chief officer, B2B
TV solutions at Zattoo – an online TV
technology and direct-to-consumer
service provider – said that there is
a lot of activity at the moment, with
cable operators looking to move their
product “to the next level”.
“Doing live TV via DVB-C isn’t
enough anymore – the bar is way
higher,” said Jaeger, claiming that
cable operators have to enhance their
offerings with non-live and multiscreen
elements. Jaeger said that Zattoo can work
with smaller operators to provide
hosted and managed end-to-end IPTV
solutions. “What we offer is really a solution
that brings the slightly smaller
operators onto an eye-level with
[Liberty’s] Horizon [platform],”
claimed Jaeger.
“Liberty Global, Deutsche Telekom
– the big guys – set the bar high. They
have interesting products in the market
and that puts a lot of pressure on
smaller and medium-sized operators
to have something that is comparable,
but they will not be able to spend half a
billion on development. That’s where we
come in.”
Virgin Media to expand addressable advertising offering
Liberty Global-owned UK cable operator
Virgin Media will build on its recent
launch of dynamic ad insertion on its
video-on-demand platform with a wider
addressable advertising offering within
the next year, according to Lynette
Turnbull, head of digital entertainment
product management.
Taking part in a joint presentation
at TV Connect with Nick Troiano, CEO
of advertising technology partner
BlackArrow, Turnbull said that the initial
launch had laid the ground for more
third-party data to be integrated into
4 the advertising offering in the next
12 months, with the launch of further
addressable advertising service options
due for later this year.
Turnbull told TV Connect attendees
that digital advertising is growing
faster than TV advertising thanks to
the ability to measure the effectiveness
of campaign performance and the rise
of big data, which has enabled much
greater targeting capability.
She said that broadcasters needed to
embrace big screen video-on-demand,
expanding their offering and investing in
an effective and deliverable monetisation
strategy. “We need an effective audience
measurement standard,” she said, adding
that, from a platform perspective, Virgin
Media will pay a role in supporting this.
She said Virgin Media had usage
data and customer data along with
multiplatform reach, allowing it to bring
additional benefits to advertisers. She
said this was not limited to addressable
advertising on VoD but could be
developed for linear dynamic ad insertion
as well.
Turnbull said advertisers would buy
spots against segmented audiences,
as this enabled them to provide more
relevant information to customers.
Addressable advertising stands to
benefit all players in the chain, including
platforms, advertisers, broadcasters and
viewers, she said.
Virgin Media’s partnership with
BlackArrow has enabled it to bring in
additional features, such as ad pacing,
frequency capping and real-time
reporting, to its advertising offer, said
Turnbull. Visit us at www.digitaltveurope.net