Multi-screen

Harmonic streamer does double-duty with ad insertion

June 18, 2013 1:23 pm | by Brian Santo | Product Releases | Comments

Harmonic said its real-time stream processor, The ProStream 9100, now has the ability to perform linear ad splicing. Service providers and broadcasters can use the system to insert targeted local and regional advertisements into broadcast programming delivered via MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC SD/HD transport streams.

Foxtel debuts TV Everywhere app, OTT access

June 13, 2013 1:46 pm | by Brian Santo | News | Comments

Foxtel is providing on demand and catch-up television services, using video processing systems from Elemental Technologies. The Australian service provider is now delivering over-the-top (OTT) content, in addition to roaming access to more than 50 channels through its Foxtel Go app.

Live from the Show: Cable Show 2013 Day III

June 12, 2013 10:42 am | by Brian Santo | Videos | Comments

As we roll into the third day of the NCTA Cable Show 2013, we ponder on what we have learned about X2 and the race to put stuff in the cloud, about high school football in Florida, about CCAP technology, and about life in general. Actually, not so much about life in general.

Time Warner Cable to connect with Samsung Smart TVs

June 12, 2013 9:24 am | by Mike Robuck | News | Comments

Time Warner Cable will start sending video to some Samsung Smart TVs later this summer. Using the cable operator’s TWC TV app, Time Warner Cable subscribers will have access to 5,000 on demand titles from nearly 100 networks without the need for a set-top box.

Cable Show: Tech forums get smart about devices, consumers, Wi-FI

June 12, 2013 9:17 am | by Craig Kuhl | News | Comments

More devices, more choices and more broadband translate to more intelligence in our home networks, and intelligent gateways will lead the way. That was the key takeaway from the first of Tuesday’s Spring Technical Forums: “Human Touch: The Intersection of Intelligent Devices and Intelligent Consumers.”

Cable Show: Gigabit DOCSIS? Yeah, we can do that

June 11, 2013 5:18 pm | by Brian Santo | News | Comments

In a 3.0 demo, CableLabs was bonding 128 channels to crank out in excess of 4 Gbps in a total of 768 MHz. In the 3.1 demo, which included OFDM modulation and LDPC error correction, CableLabs was pushing data at a clip in excess of 6 Gbps, but in only 650 MHz, the better to show the spectral efficiency inherent in the move to OFDM.

Cable Show: TiVo powers up mobile app for cable operators

June 11, 2013 9:47 am | by Mike Robuck | News | Comments

TiVo is offering cable operators its mobile app that enables second screen viewing in homes with and without TiVo devices. Atlantic Broadband, which recently signed up with TiVo, will be the first cable operator in the United States to deploy TiVo’s mobile app. When Atlantic Broadband launches its TiVo offering in the fall, it will include the TiVo mobile applications in addition to TiVo set-top boxes and DVRs.

From the Cable Show: TV Everywhere not a product but a process

June 10, 2013 6:34 pm | by Craig Kuhl, Contributing Editor | News | Comments

Building a viable business model for TV Everywhere is a tedious and complicated process, with authentication and measurement issues the leading prerequisites for achieving the ultimate goal of content ubiquity. That was the conventional wisdom shared by panelists during Monday’s Authenticate Me, Baby: Consumer Behavior in the TV Everywhere Era session.

From the Cable Show: "Disruptors" not so disruptive

June 10, 2013 6:25 pm | by Brian Santo | News | Comments

Executives from Vox Media, Jawbone, Twitter, and Roku were all quite enthusiastic about being complements to the cable industry, but they all wished that cable would innovate a little faster. Tom Rutledge meanwhile essentially admonished programmers to give it up already.

Cable Show: Cable WiFi Alliance tops 150,000 hotspots

June 10, 2013 10:55 am | by Mike Robuck | News | Comments

Roughly one year after five of the top-six cable operators in the nation announced that they had formed a pact to share each other’s Wi-Fi hotspots, the Cable WiFi Alliance has topped 150,000 access points across the nation. All told, the 150,000 hotspots represent the largest Wi-Fi network in the nation.

TWC has more than 12k hotspots in Southern Cal

June 10, 2013 10:50 am | by Mike Robuck | News | Comments

Two years after announcing it was spending $15 million to build a Wi-Fi network in the Los Angeles area, Time Warner Cable announced it was up to 12,000 hotspots. Today the Wi-Fi network spans more than 300 miles of Southern California and features more than 12,000 hotspots.

ADB offers major revision of Commercial Video Solution

June 6, 2013 1:34 pm | by Brian Santo | Product Releases | Comments

ADB announced several new products, leading with its first major revision of its Commercial Video Solution, the company’s system for supplying video to hotels, universities, hospitals, and other commercial businesses. The company’s other introductions include set-top boxes and a gateway.

ActiveVideo beefs up cloud platform; adds Charter to customer list

June 6, 2013 12:06 pm | by Mike Robuck | News | Comments

ActiveVideo has shifted its cloud platform into overdrive with today’s announcement that it can deliver TV as an application over IP along with the news that it’s behind Charter Communications’ cloud-based user interface. ActiveVideo also said it has partnered with Sumitomo Corporation to target cloud-based deployments in Japan and in the Asia-Pacific market

In Perspective: Flexinets

June 5, 2013 11:39 pm | by Brian Santo | Articles | Comments

When people watch video on cellular networks, the meter is running, and that’s a severe inhibitor to increased consumption. Wireless carriers are understandably reluctant to stop running the meter. So what to do? Subsidize the minutes, somehow - an idea ESPN has been floating.

New Products: Sonus, Digital Rapids, Averna/Pace

June 5, 2013 9:11 pm | by CED | Articles | Comments

Sonus Networks has upgraded its session border control (SBC) portfolio with software and hardware enhancements; Digital Rapids recently started shipping version 3.8 of its the Digital Rapids Stream software; Averna has forged a design-validation partnership with Pace that it said would accelerate customer premise equipment certification (CPE) for cable operators.