So IPTV World Forum has come and gone. As always it was a great opportunity to catch up with customers, meet prospects and compare notes with those in the industry over what the year ahead will hold.

As expected, the personalization of video services was a major theme at the show – with targeted advertising coming up in most conversations. And while the U.S. market is most definitely a step ahead in this field, it’s clear that the European market is growing in maturity.

Three-screen strategy was clearly the hottest topic. With consumer appetite ripe for video services delivered to PCs and mobile devices, operators are working diligently to determine the best way to leverage their existing infrastructure for video deployments beyond the television set. RGB’s Video Multiprocessing Gateway (VMG) – the industry’s most advanced content repurposing solution – which was demoed at the show, was well received by operators who were very interested in its ability to help them cost-effectively transition from today’s large screen delivery model to a three-screens environment. They recognize that its integrated, modular, high-capacity design provides significant advantages for simplifying operations, along with the scalability for easy and efficient expansion of services.

As to what the future will bring for IPTV – well that’s where you come in! We’ve outlined above some of the key trends that we’ll be helping to move forward over the coming months. What we want to know now is where you think the sector is going. What are your video processing challenges? Please share your thoughts with us here.

Just a quick reminder that IPTV World Forum starts in London today! If you haven’t registered yet, you can still do so free of charge here.

RGB Networks is exhibiting at Stand 5, where we will be demonstrating our award-winning Video Multiprocessing Gateway (VMG), the industry’s first carrier-class, multi-function, ultra-dense chassis for the delivery of advanced MPEG-2 and MPEG-4/H.264 video services. Executives will also be available on stand to discuss RGB’s plans for the year ahead, as well as the challenges and the opportunities facing the market today.

We look forward to seeing you there!

The economy is still in a slump. And while this isn’t breaking news, it is important to note that for the first time since the emergence of complex television technologies, such as advanced advertising and VOD, cable operators are feeling the squeeze of a tightened budget due to an exhausted economy. Though the cable industry has managed to stay remarkably resilient during previous economic downturns, this particular season has proven more difficult for the once bulletproof marketplace.

So what is a cable operator to do? It’s simple: make every dollar count. They can do this with the “all-in-one” cable box. Emerging in full force this year is the “more bang for your buck” cable solution that combines multiple functions wrapped up in one single, cost-effective package.

Jeff Baumgartner at Light Reading Cable has referred to these particular pieces of equipment as “God Boxes” and “do-it-all network” devices, and has so far covered two – RGB’s Video Multiprocessing Gateway (VMG) and Comcast’s Converged Multiservice Access Platform (CMAP). Both offer multiple services and functions all within one cost-effective and compact platform.

Baumgartner notes that with the CMAP, Comcast seeks to develop “a super-dense, do-it-all network device that significantly cuts headend space and power consumption requirements and trims down overall costs per bit” and will include “many discrete functions – including the cable modem termination system (CMTS) and all the edge QAMs – into one device.”

When it comes to the VMG the concept of “more bang for the buck” is still a central theme, though the functions that it performs are different. With the VMG, the focus lies in repurposing video for delivery to televisions, as well as mobile handsets, PCs, and many other IP-connected devices. By integrating any-to-any transcoding and re-coding capabilities with other video processing functions, such as ad insertion and transrating, the process becomes far more streamlined, eliminating racks full of hardware and complicated wiring.

One thing that both boxes offer – which is arguably the most important for their customers – is reliability. As you increase the number of services packed in one box, there is always the fear of also increasing potential failures. To combat this, products like the VMG tout exceptional reliability based on multiple levels of hardware, software and service level redundancy while the CMAP also alleviates the risk by requiring redundancy for every line card.

Numbered are the days of purchasing single purpose devices (i.e., encoders, ad splicers, etc.) for one individual function, simply because assembling so many individual devices – most from different manufacturers – into a complete digital headend has become such a complex task, making it difficult and costly to scale up as service demand increases. So if you’re a video service provider seeking to offer your subscribers the most cutting-edge viewing experience without draining precious funds, you’re going to want to look into the benefits of the all-in-one box.

With the IPTV World Forum fast approaching, here at RGB we’re looking forward to spending three days on the ground in London discussing the key trends affecting European video service providers.

Like their counterparts from around the globe, Europe’s cable operators, satellite providers and telcos are seeing increasing consumer interest in ‘catch-up TV’ and video-on-demand (VOD), yet not all of them have the infrastructures or the balance sheets to cope with this explosion in demand. As ever, the challenge is how to deliver these services while at the same time avoiding the well-documented costs associated with offering on-demand services to a mass audience. As a solution, there’s growing interest in video processing technology that can deliver a vast selection of anytime TV programs simply and cost effectively.

However, European service providers have an added challenge – their customers are reluctant to pay extra for any on-demand content. This means they urgently need to find new revenue streams if they’re going to cover the cost of upgrading their networks to support large scale VOD deployments. The U.S. market is a little bit more advanced in this area, so it’ll be interesting to see how many of the IPTV Forum attendees are looking towards the American market for inspiration.

Many U.S. providers are able to offer free-of-charge VOD services because they supplement it with targeted or addressable advertising, inserting ads into VOD and linear content that are designed to suit individual subscriber preferences. In contrast, targeted advertising is still more of an idea than a reality in Europe. But, talking to our European customers at least, this looks set to change. Over the next two years, targeted advertising seems destined to become a focal point for many European video service providers as they fight to offer consumers the most cost-competitive option.

Come and see us at stand #5 at the IPTV World Forum, Olympia, London if you want to learn more about how U.S. providers are meeting the challenge of funding new services through the use of advanced advertising.

With more and more services being delivered via cable and telco networks, it is becoming more important than ever before to ensure the highest reliability possible from all network components. For this reason, RGB Network has introduced the BNP3xr, providing redundant, hot-swappable power supplies and fans for even higher reliability.

And for our growing international customer base, the BNP3xr also supports DVB conditional access SimulCrypt encryption, allowing for the deployment of secure video services.

Since its initial introduction, RGB’s Broadcast Network Processor (BNP) has set an industry standard for density and functionality, and we haven’t rested on our laurels—we continue to make improvements, without compromising on RGB’s proven, industry-leading video quality. Operators throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia rely on the BNP for the delivery of advanced services, including eight of the ten largest cable operators in the U.S.

The BNP product family offers the only digital video solution that can perform grooming, statistical multiplexing, transrating, digital ad and overlay insertion, digital emergency alert system (EAS) notification, operator messaging and program substitution—all in a single, compact device. Combined with its support for both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4/H.264, the BNP is the most comprehensive digital video processing solution available on the market today.

Please come learn more about the new BNP3xr at one of our many upcoming trade shows.

Here at RGB Networks we’re currently gearing up to exhibit at the IPTV World Forum, taking place in London March 23 to 25. The show will center on the theme of ‘enriching the personal TV experience,’ but having talked with customers and prospects, it might be appropriate to append this tagline with the phrase ‘without breaking the bank.’

There’s no question that today’s consumers have developed a ravenous appetite for personalized TV services. Informa (the company organizing the Forum) predicts that, by 2012, 78% of the world’s TV households will be able to access video-on-demand (VOD) services. However, viewers don’t just want to take charge of their own TV schedules, they also want to watch video content on their device of choice, whether it be a TV, PC or mobile.

The challenge for service providers (whether they be cable operators, satellite providers or telcos) is how to offer these on-demand and three-screen services over legacy infrastructures, which were designed to simply broadcast content to a single type of device (most likely a large format TV). For some, the cost and disruption of overhauling their existing networks to support truly personalized services will be too much to swallow.

The good news is technologies are emerging that enable providers to deliver next-generation TV services over their current infrastructures. Looking at VOD, we’re now seeing transrating technology (originally developed to augment the efficiency of broadcast transmissions) applied to specific VOD environments. The December edition of Broadband, the quarterly journal of the UK-headquartered Society of Cable Telecommunication Engineers (SCTE), includes an article from our very own Nabil Kanaan, RGB’s head of product marketing, explaining how these latest transrating solutions can be dropped into existing network infrastructures to instantly extend VOD capacity by as much as 50%. Take a look.

In parallel, we’re of course seeing the development of next-generation transcoding solutions that can take video content in any format and repurpose it so it can be simultaneously delivered to multiple types of device. Indeed, we’ll be showcasing our award-winning content repurposing solution, the Video Multiprocessing Gateway (VMG) at the IPTV World Forum later this month, which provides an ideal transition path to three-screen delivery.

So stop by stand 5 at the Forum to see how it’s possible to enrich the personal TV experience without the need for expensive network upgrades.

We are delighted to announce that our multi-function Video Multiprocessing Gateway (VMG) has been shortlisted for the Best Broadband Digital Processing Solution in this year’s prestigious Technological Innovation Awards, presented by the SCTE in the UK.

The carrier-class VMG is the industry’s first integrated video processing platform, designed to address the operational complexity associated with transitioning to a ‘three screens’ environment. A single, highly scalable platform capable of transcoding and processing an unprecedented number of streams in real-time, the VMG is proven to offer significant cost and operational benefits over traditional encoding/transcoding solutions. We are finding that our customers especially like the unique combination of high capacity, high scalability and single point of control for all video processing functions.

You can read more about the VMG here. However, if you’d like to see the capabilities in person, come and visit us at stand #5 at the IPTV World Forum, March 23-25 in London, where the VMG’s transcoding and ad insertion capabilities will be highlighted. You can download a free exhibit pass here.

The winners of the awards will be announced at the SCTE’s gala dinner on Saturday, April 24 at Lincoln’s Inn Great Hall in London – so watch this space to see if we add this award to the other two already in the VMG’s trophy case.