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Exciting time for direct broadcast satellite Opinion
Entropic’s digital channel stacking switch simplifies satellite installations and lowers operating expenses says Matt Rhodes, SVP Global Marketing
Major trends in the satellite market coupled with advancements made by leading Integrated Circuit (IC) solution providers are driving a global transition from analogue to digital products, making 2014 an exciting year for the Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) Outdoor Unit (ODU) market. The satellite market is expected to continue as the largest broadcast market over cable, and IPTV, with nearly 500 million households in 2017 according to IHS. With 4% CAGR between 2012 and 2017 the pay TV satellite sector is well positioned to expand in its leadership role.
Being the leader is not without challenges, as both the cable and IPTV markets are
fighting to gain market share. New features such as ‘second screen’ apps, enhanced Digital Video Recorder (DVR) and a transition toward gateway/client architectures are expected to increase in deployments over the coming years.
For satellite operators to
remain competitive, many are looking at single-cable solutions to support their growth initiatives and simplify the traditional delivery of satellite video into and throughout the home. Channel Stacking Switch (CSS) solutions enable multiple video streams to be delivered throughout the home on a single-cable run.
This technology drastically simplifies and lowers the cost
of the installations by reusing the existing cabling within the home. Instead of multiple cables from the set-top box (STB) to the ODU product (low noise block converter or multiswitch), a single cable installation is possible. Adding a DVR to an existing or new viewing location is as simple as plugging in the STB, no new wires required, no holes in the wall, no return calls to repair installation issues. Additionally, now that all video viewing locations are connected via a single cable, home networking solutions such as MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) can be used to provide multiroom DVR (mDVR) features, connect to a broadband network for over the
Sensorama: the smart life schematic
top (OTT) services, as well as stream content from a larger gateway/server STB to a small low cost client box. With the rapid increase in the number of tuners in a home, Entropic recently advanced its IC technology to allow for digitalisation that is both cost- and power- efficient. Entropic’s second-generation digital Channel Stacking Switch (dCSS) series, the EN5500 family, is recognised as the world’s lowest power, most cost-optimised and smallest form factor when compared to competitive ODU products. In support of dCSS technology, the industry is updating the communications standard between the STB and ODU. CENELEC EN50607 is
currently going through industry ratification and will enable single cable communications of up to 32 demodulators, a major improvement over the eight currently specified in CENELEC EN50494.
For DBS operators, dCSS solutions now support up to 32 user bands, which is needed as they migrate to gateway/client architectures or look to deploy single-wire hospitality and multi-dwelling unit (MDU) implementations that have high tuner count installation requirements. G106/G107
Everyone wants greater Access Vortex
Communications By David Fox
Enjoy Your Connected Life Cisco By Adrian Pennington
As Ultra HD moves into the home there is an opportunity for service providers to exploit the larger real-estate of super-sized screens by hooking not only video, voice and data, but smart home controls and user- wearables devices into a wider personalised network. This is where traditional
broadcast meets the Internet of Everything (IoE) which brings together people, process, data and things together to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before.
In the IBC Future Zone, Cisco is sharing its vision of the Connected Life. Supposing a
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typical 'day in the life' of two primary school students coming home from school Cisco will show how the multitude of connections in their life, and their family's life can improve their experiences. Service Providers have a
robust network, millions of subscribers, and an increasing ability to work un-managed devices into their service offerings, Cisco explains. This provides them the ability to integrate numerous Connected Life services under one umbrella. This integration is a proven value proposition that most consumers gravitate towards. As seen previously with internet and Digital Video Recorders, when a new service is integrated with an existing service adoption sky rockets. Having the ability to integrate
home management, home monitoring, personal health, and a multitude of other services into their existing offering, Service Providers have a lot to gain providing an integrated Connected Life offering. This vision highlights
emerging new features based on wearables, direct gesture control, and direct manipulation and inference of presence using micro-location technologies. According to Cisco, these
emerging technologies will provide a fundamental shift in how consumers receive and use new services. “The IoT turns information into actions that create new capabilities, richer experiences and unprecedented economic opportunity for businesses, individuals and countries.” 8.G11
The Comrex Access IP codec for live audio, offering low-delay connections over 3G/4G, Wi-Fi, Ethernet and satellite, has been upgraded to support new audio coding algorithms, including Opus and now incorporates Net Manager-II, which brings dual- streaming technology (as seen in the HD Video LiveShot codec) to provide even more robust connectivity, especially with smartphones and other dual- stream codecs.
It allows outside broadcasts to be conducted from almost anywhere, particularly when used with the V3X Intelligent 3G Antenna, which locks onto the cellular network with the best data throughput even if it is many km distant. This has meant Access has been in huge demand this summer in the UK for Vortex's Hire Division.
“Everything was going well until we realised that there was a
crunch weekend on 5/6 July. The units that had been at Glastonbury were not going to be
The Access codec with mixer, now offers dual
streaming and Opus codecs
back in time (with or without the mud), the World Cup codecs in Brazil were still doing their stuff with the final still a week away – and then in Yorkshire, the Tour de France arrived for ‘The Grand Départ’, the same weekend as the British Grand Prix was being held at Silverstone and the Wimbledon finals were taking place. Extra codecs were suddenly needed,” said Vortex sales engineer, Doug Yeaman. It needed more codecs, “but we also did not want to have a load of ‘not new’ codecs left after everyone came home, so knowing how eager Community and Hospital Stations are to have ex-demo equipment at a discounted price, we started offering ‘previously-enjoyed’ codecs to those stations,” and quite a number were interested, added Vortex director, Ian Prowse, who committed to many more Access codecs for its hire stock, all of which found new homes following the Commonwealth Games. 11.G11
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