By Fred Hermanson, Director, Engineering, Rovi Corporation
With more entertainment content available than ever before, consumers are faced with a bewildering array of choices available over a vast number of channels and devices. This increased amount of content means that other services, such as interface and guide technologies, are becoming crucial differentiators for operators looking to attract and retain customers. To keep up to speed with consumer demand, operators need to be able to rapidly roll out new services and technologies, something that is difficult to achieve with the set-top box (STB) hardware used by many customers.
Hard to reach hardware
Rolling out new services can prove a challenge to operators, who can often be held back by legacy hardware. Take for example the current set-top box (STB) landscape. There are currently over a billion devices in customers’ homes worldwide– many with very limited capabilities. Even the high-definition (HD) and HD digital video recorder (DVR) STBs that are capable of accommodating broadband face challenges supporting over-the-top (OTT) services due to infrastructure and lack of sufficient support from the legacy device. So while operators slowly build their plans to migrate to an IP-based solution, a large footprint of older, non-broadband STBs exists in homes where a limited viewing experience is offered due to the capabilities of outdated hardware.
In addition, with each new STB distributed (and there are hundreds of millions projected to ship globally over the next four years) there is an associated cost that poses a major issue for operators. With other costs, such as content spend rising to cater for demanding customers, operators must look to technology to make savings and provide the best levels of service to their customers.
Technical issues
Many STBs are only equipped to decode MPEG-2 video streams and the on-screen display of these devices in many cases is just 16 or 256 colours, limiting both the quality of the user interface and the ability to play back some formats of HD video streams. This diversity of devices creates inconsistent experiences across screens, often within the same household. For example, many of the guides deployed to these STBs have required special, unique code to support the lower performance processors on these devices. This leads to another scalability problem when dealing with hundreds of different code bases to support the variety of STBs.
The solution – a move to hybrid
A hybrid solution, incorporating digital video broadcasting and IP-based video, allows for the roll out of up-to-date functionality without requiring new hardware support. It can provide a rich, consistent interface across multiple connected devices. The traditional STBs already installed in the home continue to operate doing what they do best; linear broadcast viewing, content security through conditional access, and DVR recording and playback. A cloud-based virtual STB leverages the capabilities of the traditional STB and extends these capabilities through the use of the IP network.
The virtual STB system provides an upgrade path to service providers and MSOs without incurring the cost of upgrading expensive hardware. This hybrid solution transforms the traditional STB into the next generation TV service and application platform. With this transition, operators can derive significant infrastructure cost savings by reducing their dependency on proprietary STBs while at the same time gaining access to a platform that improves their consumer experience and overall service velocity.
In addition to speeding up deployment of new services, virtual STBs also offer exciting opportunities to work across second screens. The trend for consumers to use devices in companion with viewing on a main TV screen is well documented, and the virtual STB can interact with smartphones to deliver contextual data and information around the show on the main screen to the customer, as well as providing an access point to social media.
How the Virtual STB System Works
A virtual STB system provides operators with an immediate entry into IP supported solutions without incurring substantial equipment upgrade costs. Even when the system is eventually upgraded to a home gateway solution, it continues to offer the same benefits through IP-based services. The virtual STB allows a fast integration with applications that can range from guide-based smart TV apps to social media apps on mobile or tablet devices.
Simply put, the virtual STB system can be applied in one of two ways:
I. Third-Party Example: In its basic form, a mobile device connects to the virtual STB server in the cloud and interfaces with the legacy STB through a set of remote access Web services.
II. Hybrid Solution: The virtual STB can also extend the traditional guide experience using a connected consumer electronics device (companion box or smart TV) while leveraging the core video functionality of traditional STBs.
This allows the operator to make use of legacy STBs and reduce costs, while giving the customer seamless service and control over all of the functions supported by the legacy STB – from tuning to DVR control to VOD session management.
Cloud based services
A cloud-based virtual STB can provide services to enable a full set of video features, whether they are available through the traditional STB or through the IP network. The virtual STB abstracts these services so an application would not even need to be aware of the location of the video source.
For example, the virtual STB may be configured to interface with a physical set-top box to access DVR recording services. The same virtual STB server may be configured to use an IP service for purchasing VOD content. A generalized interface hides the differences of underlying STBs and guides in favour of high-level functionality.
The virtual STB APIs are clearly grouped and packaged for application developers and service providers according to their primary function. For application developers looking to add STB control features to their applications, the virtual STB interfaces represent consistent APIs which can span various MSOs and represent tens of millions of subscribers.
In addition to supporting traditional VOD services through the STB, the virtual STB solution allows immediate deployment of IP-based VOD and OTT services as they become available. There are no longer long integration and qualification processes required to enable new services.
A hybrid future?
With the onus on operators to provide second-to-none levels of content to their customers, there is a possibility that the need to optimise user experience could get overlooked. By overcoming legacy technology and moving to hybrid STBs, operators can easily stay on top of technology evolution and roll out the latest in customer pleasing UI services with comparative ease and low cost.
