"Alticast Drives Case for Cloud As Pace of Rollouts Intensifies" (ScreenPlays Magazine)

John Carlucci, President and CTO of Alticast's U.S. office, took time at the INTX 2015 show in Chicago last month to talk with ScreenPlay's Fred Dawson about the emerging acceptance of the Cloud in the industry and Alticast's role in helping their customers roll out this technology for an integrated user experience across multiple devices.

To watch John's interview, please click here.

Alticast's European Team wraps up ANGA COM 2015 with some key takeaways

ANGA Com 2015 has come to a close with 17,000 participants from 74 countries visiting over 450 vendor booths! From broadband to content, ANGA COM was brimming with new information leading to great excitement for the industry's future.

At Alticast’s booth, we featured demonstrations of our AltiPlex Cloud UI Platform, AltiView1, and Alticast Application Framework for both RDK and Android. 

Alticast's EMEA President, Tiann Schutte, attends a customer meeting in the Alticast booth at ANGA COM.

Even though customer visits to the booth and demonstrating Alticast's developments took up most of our time, we were able to tour the trade floor and attend some very interesting conference sessions. Some key take-away highlights from this year's show were:

•   Multiscreen is now a defacto part of any TV offering and is no longer seen as a complementary feature. In fact, recent market research showed that 65% of U.S. mobile video viewers watch TV and phone videos at the same time.

•   The rise of VOD is happening. Many Pay TV operators in Europe are gearing up their OTT services to be able to compete with Netflix; thus, resulting in great choice of services for consumers.

•   The repackaging of linear content into catch-up, start-over, and nPVR is becoming a key Pay TV service offering. This is driven by the consumer’s insatiable demand for content at any time. It also is a key differentiator between TV operators and OTT providers.

•    Cloud continues to be a big theme. The Cloud's elements of cost-benefits, streamlining operations and improved customer experience are the drivers in this discussion. The Alticast Cloud UI demo was the most popular demo on the stand as operators investigate ways to virtualize the STB and deliver competitive and compelling user experiences.

Perhaps Michael Fries, President and CEO of Liberty Global summarized the “takeaways” of the show best in one of the conference sessions,  “The deciding factor is not the content, but the user experience! It’s all about the app."

Julia Mooney, EMEA's Director of Product Management, welcomes a customer to the booth.

Alticast Shows Cable Operators How to use the Cloud and RDK to Deliver New Services at ANGA 2015

Alticast will demonstrate how its Cloud-based solutions enable cable operators to deliver innovative, multiscreen experiences at its booth (10.1/P40) at the ANGA 2015 trade show, June 9-11 in Cologne, Germany.

Key demonstrations at ANGA 2015 will include:

·       Alticast’s AltiPlex Cloud Services Platform (CSP) provides essential core cloud solutions for handling users, devices, metadata, advertising, big-data support and billing system integration, with a complete web-based management console. AltiPlex CSP is component based, so operators can deploy the entire solution or integrate specific components into their service.  These components include the dynamic Cloud UI solution which enables operators to deliver a sophisticated user experience (UX) to both their legacy and new set-top boxes (STBs). The Cloud UI can also provide multiple UIs to different devices in a household, for example a UI tailored for kids and one for adults. In addition, Cloud DVR is available for cloud-based recording, with storage and delivery of content providing a TV Everywhere experience.

·       The company’s AltiView™ 1 is a sophisticated UX for presenting and navigating program guides, VOD services and DVR functions, with integrations for recommendations, TV apps and more.  AltiPlex CSP provides server side support with a web-based console for AltiView 1 operations and management.  The ANGA demonstrations will include AltiView 1 running on multiple STBs and mobile devices demonstrating live operator deployments.

·       Alticast Application Framework supports multiple hardware platforms, UIs and user agents to give operators the flexibility to utilize HTML5, Java, Android, RDK and other applications on the same STB. Operators no longer need to choose one approach for multiple application types in order to provide a seamless experience.  Alticast Application Framework provides operators with the flexibility and control to quickly adapt to changing market needs.

                        

·       Alticast’s Collaborative Development Environment for code integration is a Cloud-based solution that enables system-on-a-chip (SoC) vendors, open software providers, multi-system operators (MSOs) and system integrators to utilize a single workflow and release structure for multiple platform code development projects.  The CDE supports any code development effort, including RDK and Android STB software integrations.

Media and other parties interested in meeting with Alticast executives at ANGA 2015 should contact alticast@mobilitypr.com to schedule a time.

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Smart HDMI adaptor helps color blind population

UK-based company, Spectral Edge, has developed a device called Eye2TV - a new smart HDMI adaptor that will help the color blind population better enjoy TV and gaming. The company claims that Eye2TV will enhance the video feature by helping to make the red and green features of the video easily distinguishable. The company is looking for funding in order to roll out the HDMI adaptor via a Kickstarter campaign.

Like Alticast's HDMI media express, personalization and portability are a useful part of the design. Eye2TV further illustrates how digital media, and device miniaturization, can enhance the TV experience for society. We wish them luck!

To read more about Spectral Edge and Eye2TV, click here.