How Pay-TV Can Spur 4K UHD Growth

From industry chatter, sometimes it’s hard to tell if Ultra High Definition television is coming like an express train or a stop-and-go city bus, but one thing is universally acknowledged: pay-TV operators need a plan as 4K video, High Dynamic Range (HDR) and ultimately 8K transform the quality of video delivered to the home.

While IHS points out that the 4KTV market will total 55 million units and more than 100 million units by 2019, a panel at SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo last month pointed out that operators still are wrestling with how to support 4K with HDR on legacy systems, as well as competing formats such as HDR10 and Dolby Vision.

Here are some of the things that need to be on pay-TV’s front burner as the 4K/UHD transition moves forward:

·      Set-Top Box Capabilities – Operators need to aggressively follow the lead of innovation leaders such as Videotron, whose illico 4K Ultra HD PVR deployment has become a blueprint for market-wide 4K UHD STB penetration.

·      Content Security – Given the higher value placed on 4K UHD content, operators and their content partners need to step up their security games to include more specialized content protection techniques, including use of the Advanced Encryption Standard with 128 bit keys.

·      Content Availability – Operators such as Rogers and Comcast have shown the value of 4K UHD with HDR, but production and distribution need to be ramped up if pay-TV is going to help subscribers gain full value from their 4K UHD television investments.

It’s clear that manufacturers are moving quickly to integrate 4K compatibility and even 4K capability into displays coming to market.  No matter what obstacles there might be to the new technology, it’s clear that addressing the market quickly and comprehensively will spur market growth that will benefit consumers and the television industry.

Ready or not, 4K’s on its way

It hasn’t gotten to the point where you’re going to be shunned by the neighbors if you’re not watching 4K UHD TV, but there’s no question that the new, improved viewing technology is taking big steps toward becoming part of the home entertainment mainstream.

While obstacles to mass adoption exist – among them a lack of content ubiquity and perceptions of incompatibility between 4K UHD and High Dynamic Range (HDR) – there are plenty of indications that 4K is poised for take-off. Service providers in Canada and South Korea have been particularly ambitious in leveraging 4K as a product differentiator.

Charles Meubus, senior director of video technology at Videotron, talked recently about how deploying 4K set-top boxes “future proofs our installed base.” Said Meubus at Light Reading’s Big Communications Event: “These set-tops” – which leverage Alticast’s expertise in middleware and UI enablement – “provide an exceptional end-user experience.”

Our own Jae Park added that deployment of 4K STBs in the South Korean market has exceeded expectations, and has spurred competition among multiple service providers.  Importantly, Park said that the South Korean experience was showing that – despite industry concerns – “we find 4K and HDR to complement each other.”

In this report on the Big Communications Event panel, Light Reading’s Brian Santo convey the panelists’ opinion that “little is going to impede the growth of the 4K market for long.”

Helping to Drive New Thinking at NAB

Written by Susan Crouse, Director of Product Management for Alticast US

When change comes to the television industry, one of the best places to spot it is at the annual NAB Show.  Driven in part by the growth of High Dynamic Range for 4K and 8K, this year’s event in Las Vegas was long on attendees (more than 103,000) and new products – including devices and software that enable content creation, editing and distribution for the higher-resolution video that is fast becoming the de facto standard. The most buzzed about demos were VR and drone displays that continue to take more floor space and draw the crowds with their great demos, and while drones are having commercial success, VR still has a long indefinite road ahead for broad commercial adoption.

In the Connected Media area, Alticast was among the innovative companies spotlighting innovative software solutions for addressing the burgeoning market for IPTV content delivery. There was no shortage of companies, new and old, providing OTT workflow services for the growing market of small and large content creators delivering video. In addition to workflow tools, there was a plethora of cloud-based streaming technology (often with encoding), CDNs specialized for media delivery, and search, discovery and recommendation solutions starting to leverage social media behaviors to develop more personalized results.

Interestingly, entrenched software products that provide services for cable are finding competition from start-ups providing similar functionality for IPTV/OTT operators. Their different video delivery perspective has led to a variety of fresh ideas: Business software is taking advantage of simpler models that integrate common Internet transaction companies like PayPal, and a number of companies are using Internet-based advertising models to hone targeted ad delivery.

The varying sources of new high-quality content are transforming the roadmap for content delivery and NAB is the place to see how tools are converging for both traditional pay-TV with OTT providers. Alticast’s proven ability to meet the needs of all constituencies opens the door to innovation and implementation around new technologies that are driving the industry forward.

UHD and HDR: Making TV "New and Improved"

Analysts are predicting sales of upwards of 50 million Ultra HD (UHD) televisions over the next five years, and Alticast US President and CTO John Carlucci says it’s easy to see why.

In this video Carlucci talks about how UHD allows the artist’s vision of content to be delivered completely to the subscriber in an uncompromised fashion, and how High Dynamic Range “is a bit like your laundry detergent: It makes your whites whiter, your blacks blacker, it makes all

the colors of the rainbow better.”

ALTICAST TEAMS WITH VIDEOTRON FOR FIRST CANADIAN LAUNCH OF 4K UHD STB

Alticast today announced that its ongoing innovation partnership with Videotron is helping to achieve a milestone for the Canadian pay-TV industry – the first availability of 4K ultra high definition set-top box on a commercial basis throughout a cable system operator’s entire service footprint.

Videotron’s release of the illico 4K Ultra HD PVR has positioned the Quebec operator as a market leader in driving the key ingredients to ultra high definition success: UHD device penetration, the availability of UHD content with the superior color and consumer awareness of the value of the new technology.

Leveraging Alticast’s expertise in middleware and UI enablement, the illico 4K Ultra HD PVR allows delivery of high-value 4K content, while retaining features that are products of the close working relationship between Videotron and Alticast. These include multi-room PVR capabilities, interactive applications and seamless integration with Videotron’s state of the art back-office systems.

“The ability to combine the richness of 4K content with managed network Quality of Service will be a significant differentiator for pay-TV,” said John Carlucci, president and CTO, Alticast US. “By being the first operator in Canada to bring 4K STBs into subscribers’ homes, Videotron is continuing the leadership that sets it apart from competitors and enhances the value of service bundles.”

“The tremendous promise that 4K UHD holds for our customers can only be realized by true commitment on the part of the entire industry,” said Pierre Roy, Vice-President Engineering, Research and Development. “Alticast and our other technology partners have helped us to create the technical foundation that had already generated market enthusiasm and satisfy customer demand for UHD services.”

CES 2016 Wrap-up

Drones, robots and autonomous cars notwithstanding, it was difficult to find standout announcements at CES, but there was a definite increase in the number of companies solving particular problems, as well as improvements in burgeoning technologies. For the cable industry, health monitoring is becoming more viable, not just within personal devices, but in new products that can provide richer and more technical interfaces for remote medical care. The industry still tip-toes forward in consideration of privacy and security, but each year it seems remote doctor visits and remote family care are becoming plausible, with hopes that in the future cable operators will securely offer this important service to their customers.

New IoT offerings in home automation were highlighted alongside others that integrate devices, protocols and dashboards within a single service. A challenge is the difficulty of standardization, given the existence of Z-Wave, ZigBee, and other protocols for sensor networking, as well as the emergence of new protocols, some of which are designed for specific applications. Regardless, home automation continues to grow at a rapid rate, with Samsung standing out for its integration of their SmartTV with home services.

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As expected 4K Ultra High Definition (UHD) with High Dynamic Range (HDR) was everywhere.  This is good news for Operators like Videotron that, with the help of Alticast, already launched a 4K set top box.  There were also numerous announcements on content deals that will help accelerate UHD TV uptake. IPTV 4K delivery remains to be a challenge, the trick is ensuring enough continuous bandwidth over wi-fi or broadband for receiving this stunning content. Some solutions that deliver 4K content use Adaptive Bit-rate Streaming (ABR) which can fluctuate the resolution based on bandwidth availability, providing a non-optimal 4K experience. 

Virtual reality, a product of the 1980s, has come back with a vengeance, thanks to better and more accessible technology. Press reports suggest it will be a moneymaker, certainly for medical and training, but for entertainment content it falls prey to the same issues as 3D TV, requiring content that is expensive to produce and special viewing hardware. It will take time to see if it will proliferate beyond gaming-type applications.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

What does the future hold for these technologies?  In the months ahead, the market will separate the sizzle from the sustainable. For now, all of us can get back to doing what we do best -- innovate new products and enrich the lives of consumers. And, of course, look forward to the spotlight of CES 2017.