While the United States media community typically winds down a notch or two as those last barbecues of summer approach, there’s no shortage of activity across The Pond. In Europe, they’re gearing up for IBC, the annual September media event that draws broadcasters, operators and programmers from all over the world to Amsterdam.
One of the story lines in Europe this year will be the anticipated rollout of the new CI+ specification that provides a direct interface from the cable or IPTV provider’s network to new integrated Digital TVs. Just this week, Ziggo, The Netherlands’ largest cable operator, said that CI+ Conditional Access Modules would be available in stores in its franchise area by the end of August.
But in the media industry, deployment is just the tip of the iceberg. Once cards are in the field, the race will be on to find ways to help cable and IPTV operators to leverage the best features of the standard to enhance the subscriber experience and generate new revenue.
CI+ is a modular approach to interfacing a pay TV signal with a television without using a set-top box. It places the base features of a decrypting set-top box into a card that fits into a slot on an integrated digital television (iDTV). By the end of the year, it’s estimated that about 80 percent of new TVs will have a CI+ slot along with, importantly, an MPEG-4 decoder.
On the surface CI+ offers benefits for consumers and operators alike by removing the cost and complexity of the set-top box and separate remote controls from the television equation. But the simplicity comes with a tradeoff: The CI+ standard lacks the interactive capabilities of set-top boxes, leaving cable and IPTV operators with limited options when attempting to personalize services being delivered over their networks. A television equipped with CI+ is able to handle a user guide and some limited menus, but lacks the middleware to do much more.
To overcome the lack of robust interactive capability at a time when consumers are seeking more choice and control over their video entertainment, cable and IPTV operators are looking for new solutions that rely less on processing at the consumer premises and more on the power of network-based servers.
Cloud based approaches such as those being shown by ActiveVideo Networks (Stand 5.B46) at IBC deliver rich interactive services with or without a set-top box. By providing cloud-based services, operators can turn CI+ modules from conditional access interfaces to gateways for a wide variety of services, including VOD menuing, games, brand name channels and rich navigational mosaics.
Equally important, cloud-based interactive approaches support the migration to CI+ by providing a single interactive platform for virtually any device. While the CI+ specification holds promise as the future of cable and IPTV, deployment is likely to be gradual. Cloud-based interactivity delivers content as a single MPEG stream, enabling it to be received and decoded by any CI+, digital STB or web-connected CE device.
A future that excludes set-top boxes could be five years away, but many of the folks who will be attending IBC are already making plans for that transition. My opinion is that a Conditional Access Module doesn’t taste nearly as good as a freshly-grilled burger – even if it is smothered in mushrooms and onions – but it is decidedly better for my waistline, and it’s a pretty good bet that it will be putting bread on my table for a long time.
