BigBand Networks said it has solved the puzzle for breaking down the silos between VOD, switched digital video, linear TV and IP video services.

For years, cable operators have salivated at the prospect of dynamically sharing bandwidth in QAMs based on a service’s need at a given time of day. BigBand’s Converged Video Exchange (CVEx) is a control plane software offering that will allow cable operators to share QAM channels based on the demand from each service.

John Holobinko, BigBand’s vice president of marketing, said factors such as more IP devices and services, increased VOD and time-shifted content, and more deployments of switched digital video have highlighted the need to be able to manage QAM channels.

“[Cable operators] told us flexibility was the key to their success,” Holobinko said. “With CVEx, they can eliminate the silos and go from a push to a pull service. When a customer wants a service from the control plane, only those assets are delivered. Once those assets are delivered, the bandwidth goes back to this shared pool.”

BigBand’s CVEx, which will be available this fall for SDV and IPTV, lets cable operators statistically multiplex video streams across a group of QAMs instead of using specific QAMs for specific services.

Universal resource managers hold the same promise for being able to allocate bandwidth between various services, but they have yet to be deployed. Holobinko said the universal edge resource managers can’t do proxies, provide measurement tools for advertising campaigns or manage bandwidth between RF and IP services, all of which CVEx can do.

Holobinko said another advantage to CVEx is that while it works in the current RF environment, it’s future-proofed for IP video services once cable operators start to transition to IP.

CVEx can be delivered through pizza box or blade servers depending on the cable operator’s needs. Next year, BigBand will add VOD and ad management functionality to CVEx.