Propelled by the availability of low-cost, high-resolution connected devices, consumers have rapidly bypassed the ‘novelty’ phase of TV Everywhere turning acceptance into expectation. With the demand that any media should be available essentially on any device over any network connection, 2013 is going to be an exciting year for multiscreen!

Looking ahead, we here at RGB Networks have compiled the top 10 industry trends we see for 2013:

1. IP Video

Internet-based video consumption will continue to boom, driven by the proliferation and popularity of mobile devices and connected TVs and changing consumer habits. With more than 70 IP video customers worldwide, including three of the top MSOs in North America, our advancements in video processing technology are enabling video service providers (VSPs) to retain the competitive edge for the year ahead.

2. TV Everywhere Expansion

Significant broadcast events like the London 2012 Olympic Games have hammered home how imperative it is for providers to establish an all-encompassing TV Everywhere strategy that can deliver premium quality video content to a myriad of viewing devices. With many TV Everywhere rights deals negotiated in 2012, and certainly more to come, many hurdles to the deployment and expansion of TV Everywhere services have been removed. Over the next year, operators will therefore need intelligent, high-capacity and scalable solutions to begin or grow their delivery of content to a multitude of devices, which can equally address all related infrastructure and network issues while still keeping the balance sheet in check.

3. Streamlining and Cost Reduction

The need for streamlining operations and cuttings costs will be imperative in 2013 and as a result, integrated, scalable, future-proof solutions will be the focus of attention. In the quest to deliver content to any connected device, innovative adaptive streaming technologies like RGB’s just-in-time packaging – which can alleviate the challenges intrinsic to growing TV Everywhere services such as storage, bandwidth and other headaches – will be in high demand.

4. nDVR Services

Operators’ enthusiasm for nDVR will see significant growth over 2013, driven by the fact that it is a “sticky” service that can reduce subscriber churn, while also generating revenue from subscribers who might not otherwise pay for multiscreen services. With the development of integrated solutions to deliver on-demand services alongside live multiscreen video, operators will be able to meet subscriber demands and reap the benefits of IP video’s rapid evolution better than ever before.

5. Monetization

Content monetization through techniques such as targeted ad insertion will be a critical piece of the multiscreen puzzle in 2013. As the video delivery industry is busy keeping pace amid a landslide of changing consumer tastes and competitive positioning against pure OTT services, difficult questions concerning business cases and financial justification of multiscreen investments have come to the forefront. Coupling ad insertion with other revenue-generators such as nDVR services, as well as with cost reductions, VSPs will be looking for profitability in multiscreen this year.

6. Securing Content

As consumption of mobile video continues to grow, VSPs will increasingly require an access and rights management system that unifies revenue security for video services and prevents piracy of high-value video content delivered using adaptive HTTP streaming. Selecting the right streaming and security combination will enable providers to offer a richer consumer experience with more personalized choices in regards to content, time and place.

7.Multiscreen Ecosystem Partnering

As the multiscreen ecosystem expands to offer new services, strategic partnerships enabling integration with various market players such as ad decision systems, DRM and CDNs will be essential in adapting and thriving in a changed economic climate. We will see many multiscreen solution providers building sustainable and strategic partnerships over the next year to ease pressure on existing business models, further enhance technological offerings and help guarantee longevity of service.

8. Rise of the Second Screen

Social TV or second screen companion viewing is currently not only redefining how viewers engage with content, but also how they source and discover it. Presenting providers and advertisers with an unprecedented opportunity to engage and interact with their audiences, personalization of content and targeted ad insertion become two sides of the same coin for operators when endeavoring to capitalize on this trend for 2013.

9. Audio Regains Importance

High caliber audio is a cardinal ingredient in the consumer TV viewing experience. However, in recent years audio has taken a backseat to video as VSPs pushed to get basic multiscreen service offerings up and running. With 2013 being dubbed by many as a year of the “second wave” of adaptive bitrate delivery, audio has begun to enter the discussion again, primarily spurred by the CALM Act legislation in the US and other pending regulation around the world. In 2013 savvy VSPs will be turning their attention to implementing solutions capable of not only manipulating compressed streams in order to facilitate audio consistency and maintain industry compliance, but also to deliver a premium overall audio/video experience.

10. The Sum of it All: Multiscreen 2.0

Multiscreen 2.0 represents the next generation of TV Everywhere, consisting of a combination of solutions that enable operators to reduce costs and streamline operations in live, on-demand and time-shifted environments. This advancement of multiscreen technologies will facilitate the monetization of services across screens with hyper-targeted adaptive bitrate ad insertion, ensure the seamless delivery of premium audio across IP devices, and boost the multiscreen business case and return on investment.

Let us know in the comments below what trends you’re keeping your eye on for 2013. We look forward to sharing more on these topics in the weeks and months to come. Check back often, follow us through social media, and come see us at an upcoming trade show. Happy New Year!

We’re very excited about next week’s Independent Show in Orlando. Hosted by the NCTC for its 900+ independent cable operator members, this annual event gives us the opportunity to meet face-on-face with so many of our most valued customers.

Since RGB’s inception, NCTC members have been a critical element of our customer base. Over the last several years, we have helped independent operators of all sizes to implement digital simulcast solutions as they transitioned to all-digital, optimize their bandwidth in order to add more HD and other services, deploy local ad insertion solutions to generate new revenue, and now, we’re partnering with them to tackle the challenge of multiscreen IP video delivery.

Wherever you are in the evolution of the video delivery network, RGB Networks has a video processing solution and the expertise to help make your deployments easier and more cost-efficient.

Our reputation and track record are strong with this membership and we invite you to read about just a few of our deployments with NCTC member operators over the last several years:

• GCI Streams 2011 Iditarod Race to Subscribers’ PCs with RGB Networks
• XIT Communications Deploys RGB Networks’ Video Multiprocessing Gateway to Deliver Services to its IPTV Subscribers
• Horizon Telcom Uses RGB Networks’ Video Multiprocessing Gateway to Deliver More HDTV to its IPTV Subscribers
• Hargray Communications Expands Services with RGB Networks Products
• Pembroke Telephone Selects RGB Networks for IPTV Network Upgrade
• San Bruno Cable Chooses RGB Networks for Comprehensive Digital Video Network Upgrade
• Midstate Communications Delivers More Programming with RGB Networks
• RGB Networks Chosen by Crosslake Communications for Digital Video Upgrade

Stop by booth #95 at The Independent Show and let us show you why over 400 video service providers around the world trust digital and IP video solutions from RGB Networks.

It’s going to be a busy few days for us at next week’s SCTE Canadian Summit in Toronto and we couldn’t be more excited!

In addition to showing off our multiscreen IP video solutions at our booth, our CTO (and IP video visionary), Yuval Fisher, is making the journey north of the border to speak about the benefits of a key new RGB development in IP video delivery—just-in-time packaging. Don’t miss this educational presentation on Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. during the breakout session: Beyond Over-the-Top Content, Directions to a CDN Near You

And because we do truly believe that this new technology is noteworthy, we submitted our just-in-time packaging solution to the SCTE’s team of experts for consideration for their annual Technology Challenge and they agreed—we’re in! So, please mark your calendar to attend Tuesday’s keynote session at 9:15 a.m. where we’ll go head-to-head (led by our TransAct Product Director Andy Salo) with four other highly innovative tech vendors and vie for selection as the “Technology Most Likely to Succeed.” Get ready to text in your vote!

We’ve had much success lately with operators throughout Canada (from the largest on down), helping them to add new capabilities to their networks, and we look forward to speaking with you about how we can help you bring the latest video services to your subscribers.

To answer all your questions about our solutions (transcoding, adaptive streaming, statmuxing—we do it all!), you’ll find our Canadian team—Stephen Sacks and Ron Polsky—manning our booth (#107) throughout the show. Please stop by and learn more.

See you next week!

It was bound to happen at some point. MPEG DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) has been ratified and is on its way to becoming an industry-accepted standard. There will still be a few bumps along the way, but it seems that streaming industry vendor development is moving along well. Adobe and Microsoft are active participants in the DASH Promoters Group, along with Netflix, Akamai, Samsung and many others (including RGB Networks!), and in fact Microsoft chairs the group.

What is MPEG DASH?

MPEG DASH is the MPEG standardization of Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP. DASH is described by document ISO/IEC 23009-1. For those already familiar with the three prominent adaptive streaming protocols – Apple HLS, Microsoft Smooth Streaming, and Adobe HDS – DASH can be thought of as an amalgamation of the three (for a comparison of these protocols, download our white paper).

At a high level, DASH works nearly identically to the other adaptive streaming protocols. Available stream content is presented to the player in a manifest (index) file. In DASH, the manifest is called a Media Presentation Description (MPD) file, which is in XML format. The MPD is analogous to an HLS m3u8 file, a Smooth Streaming Manifest file or an HDS f4m file. After the MPD is delivered to the client, content – such as video, audio, subtitles or other data – is downloaded to clients over HTTP as a sequence of video files that is played back contiguously.

The MPD describes the content that is available, including URL addresses of stream chunks, byte-ranges, different bitrates, resolutions, and content encryption mechanisms. The task of choosing which adaptive stream bitrate and resolution to play, and changing to different bitrate streams according to network conditions, is done by the client (again, similar to other adaptive streaming protocols). In fact the MPEG DASH standard does not prescribe any client-specific playback functionality, rather it pertains to the formatting of the content and associated MPDs only.

There are two file segment types allowed in DASH – MPEG2 TS and ISO Base media file format (ISO BMFF). MPEG2 TS is what HLS currently uses, and ISO BMFF is what Smooth Streaming and HDS currently use. This allows for a relatively easy migration of existing adaptive streaming content to MPEG DASH, as the media segments can often stay the same, and only the index files need to be migrated to an MPD format.

MPEG DASH defines and allows for different profiles to be created. A profile is a set of restrictions of media formats, codecs, protection formats, bitrates, resolutions, or other aspects of the content. For example, the DASH spec defines a profile for ISOBMFF basic on-demand.

What capabilities will MPEG DASH offer for video service providers?

MPEG DASH offers a standards-based approach for enabling a host of services that operators have traditionally offered in IPTV and broadcast environments, and extends those capabilities to adaptive bitrate delivery, including:

• Live and on-demand content delivery
• Time-shift services (NDVR, Catch-up TV)
• Targeted ad insertion

MPEG DASH enables these features through a number of inherent capabilities, and importantly, flexibility of design and implementation:

• Multiple segment formats (ISO base media FF and MPEG-2 TS)
• Codec independency
• Trick mode functionality
• Profiles: restriction of DASH and system features (claim & permission)
• Content descriptors for protection, accessibility, content rating, and more
• Common encryption (defined by ISO/IEC 23001-7)
• Clock drift control for live content
• Metrics for reporting the client session experience

One of the most important features of DASH is its use of Common Encryption (a topic for another blog post), which standardizes a number of different, widely-used encryption methods. This allows content owners to distribute content, and allows service providers to have access to an interoperable ecosystem of vendors.

What aspects of DASH could hinder widespread adoption?

First, there are some unresolved intellectual property rights with DASH. Normally, IP introduced into MPEG standards is accepted only if the IP owner agrees to Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (RAND) terms. In the case of DASH, it is not clear that all IPR in the standard is covered by RAND terms. Second, while DASH has one name, it is a collection of different, non-interoperable profiles. So DASH doesn’t solve the problem of different, non-interoperable implementations unless DASH clients support all profiles. And this is basically equivalent to having a client that supports HLS and HDS and Smooth Streaming (which incidentally would also address the interoperability problem).

Time will tell if MPEG DASH will coexist or supersede existing adaptive streaming formats. Certainly, DASH provides quite a flexible framework for delivering streaming media content. As usual, it will depend on what the major vendors do, and whether VSPs see the benefits of augmenting or changing trajectory of in-process deployments and content offerings.

It seems the beginning of the year brings two things—an endless slate of college football bowl games and everyone’s lists of trends in the broadband industry. Last week, we revealed our top ten predictions for 2012. We’re always eager to compare notes with the broadband press, so we eagerly awaited CED Magazine’s annual “Broadband 50”—the top trends and benchmarks as determined by CED’s learned editors and “high-ranking industry execs.” Not surprisingly, they chose a number of topics related to IP video—a subject near and dear to us at RGB:

#1 – IP Migration: A perfect circle: IP continues its inexorable progression to being the basis of all the services operators offer, not just video. The pace is quickening though as operators realize they can take advantage of the flexibility and economic advantages of IP to expand their TV Everywhere services.

#6 – Multiscreen on the move: TV Everywhere has left the proverbial drawing board for real-world mobile devices, and though not fully ready for primetime, advanced trials and early deployments are progressing nicely thanks to second generation transcoding and adaptive streaming technologies.

#12 – Transcoding for multiscreen: So many different viewing platforms, so many different screen sizes, so many different networks, and programming coming to headends in both MPEG-2 and H.264 – you bet TV Everywhere requires transcoding, and a lot of it (no complaints here!).

#20 – Putting the advertising puzzle together: Interactive “clickable” ads remain poised to move from trials into the mainstream, as are hyper-targeted ads, a leading-edge revenue booster we first discussed here.

#24 – Adaptive bit rate streaming: The secret sauce for seamless video delivery to mobile devices and PCs, adaptive streaming compensates for the bandwidth fluctuations inherent in today’s overburdened networks. Now a requirement for streaming video, look for more announcements from RGB in 2012 on additions that enhance our adaptive streaming solution.

#26 – TV Everywhere: Waiting game: Live TV on smartphones and tablets remains the next big thing. The technology is in place and we’ve had success in many trials in 2011, but it’s the content rights that are holding the industry back from full-scale deployments. With recent developments in this area, we believe the waiting game will soon be over.

It’s clear that IP video delivery will remain at the forefront of the broadband industry in 2012, with developments on both the technology and contents sides pushing it ahead. We look forward to helping make video a key component of the new mobile lifestyle for consumers around the globe.

Not to be left out of the trend of posting a trends blog, we’ve put together a round-up of the key trends in IP video that we expect to see over the year ahead. Here are our top 10 predictions for 2012:

1. Increase in uptake of multiscreen IP video services

Over the coming year we can only expect the uptake of multiscreen solutions to continue increasing. With a greater number of IP devices available on the market than ever before (just take a look at what next week’s CES holds in store for us…if you have any doubts), operators are going to continue to be pushed by consumers to up the ante on their TV Everywhere offerings.

2. Content remains king

Even as this posting was being written, things were changing in the world of content rights and we expect to see more. With Comcast and Charter signing significant content deals this week for multiscreen delivery, the landscape is shifting, opening up the floodgates for larger deployments of TV Everywhere services—declared by Neil Smit, president and chief executive of Comcast’s cable division, to be “…the future of entertainment.”

3. Accelerated opportunities presented by the Olympics

The London Olympics is going to present a massive broadcast opportunity in 2012 with content streamed all over the globe. Network infrastructure will have to be ready and advertising solutions firmly in place if operators are going to truly capitalize on the opportunities available. And not too far on the heels of London, the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia will greatly accelerate the deployment of new television services in Eastern Europe (which we expect to be in evidence at the upcoming CSTB show in Moscow in February).

4. Advertising ups and downs

Talk of a double-dip recession will continue over the coming year, and with this will come concerns over the fate of the advertising market. New market opportunities, such as those presented by multiscreen strategies and adaptive streaming technologies, should work to alleviate these fears.

5. Social TV/second screen strategies will increase in use

The increased adoption of multiscreen strategies has led to changes in not only where content is viewed, but also how it is consumed in the home. A recent study by Ovum, a business/technology research firm in the U.K., found that almost 40% of TV viewers discuss particular TV shows via social media while they’re watching them. Adopting a ’second screen strategy’ will become the norm going into 2012 and operators will look to capitalize on this trend to encourage further loyalty and buy-in to programming.

6. Increase in sales of connected TVs

Research in this area suggests that this market is set to increase exponentially. According to Digital TV Research’s Connected TV Forecast report, the number of TV sets connected to the internet will reach 551 million by 2016, up from 124 million in 2010, bringing the IP video experience to the traditional living room TV (not to mention intense competition amongst manufacturers—especially if rumors of an Apple TV are true).

7. Increasing struggle to maintain subscriber loyalty

The competition is only going to increase further as more content is available and operators struggle to maintain loyalty in an ever crowded market. Traditional video service providers must deploy new services that support subscribers’ on-the-go digital lifestyle.

8. Standards still not standard

We expect to see progress in two important standards areas this year. A new adaptive streaming standard—MPEG DASH—has just been approved as a draft standard, with publication expected this March. We will be sharing some thoughts on the adoption of this new standard in a blog to be posted later this month. The second important area for standards development is for multiscreen ad insertion. After years of investment in SCTE standards, it will be important to integrate them with new adaptive streaming ad insertion techniques.

9. Working together

As you might imagine, delivering hundreds of streams to an ever-increasing number of devices isn’t an easy task—there are a lot of parts that must work smoothly together to ensure the reliable and efficient delivery of multiscreen IP video services. We closed out last year with the formation of a consortium of companies that delivers a best-of-breed multiscreen solution. We expect to see a lot of cooperation (by us and others) to continue to build out integrated solutions, adding new pieces as the ecosystem evolves and ensuring that operators have a proven solution for meeting their IP video goals.

10. Live TV continues to make its mark

Consumers may have benefited from the advent of on-demand services and this has altered the way that content is consumed, however, live TV continues to play a major part in consumers’ viewing habits. With competition-based shows like X Factor, American Idol, Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing with the Stars that encourage voters to watch in real time, live sports and award show remaining as popular as ever, and the growing engagement of social TV tied into all of the above, live TV will certainly continue to hold its own.

What do you think about these trends? Do you agree with us? What have we missed? As always share your thoughts with us here!

2011 has been a year of huge video moments. From the global screening of the UK’s Royal wedding, to the US’s equivalent, and from YouTube clips of national uprisings, to televised footage tracking the global Occupy movement—it has all been captured on camera and broadcast around the globe throughout 2011 on an increasing variety of screens.

In the world of RGB Networks, while the landmarks may not have not been as politically significant, there have certainly been many notable moments!

In the last of our blog postings for 2011, we have taken a look back over the year, and rounded up our top ten moments from 2011:

10. The Wall Street Journal ranks RGB as 13th most promising company in the U.S.

RGB was selected from a pool of more than 5,000 eligible start-ups to be recognized as one of the 50 most promising venture-backed companies in the U.S. What a way to begin the year!

9. Showing them what we’ve got

Providing us with the opportunity to meet with old friends and engage with new customers, trade shows are a huge part of RGB’s yearly calendar, but this year’s shows were a particular success. RGB stepped boldly into the mobile market at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona where the announcement of many new video-enables devices helped ensure the future of mobile video. We made a huge splash at IBC with an abundance of operator interest in our multiscreen solutions and extensive coverage in the coveted IBC Show Daily. And we closed out the year with crowds of visitors at the SCTE’s Cable-Tec Expo seeking out help to meet their multiscreen video challenges (and that’s only a few highlights!).

8. Award accolade awesomeness

This year saw a continuation of 2010’s award winning streak with multiple accolades received. From shortlists to award wins, RGB Networks has done it all in 2011. The trophy cabinet is simply bursting at the seams!

7. Adaptive streaming hits its stride

We saw increasing focus on adaptive streaming, with our customers taking significant interest in our TransAct Packager—praised by many operators for its numerous unrivalled attributes—and designing it into their IP video deployments.

6. It’s all about the money

Providers started considering ways in which to monetize their multiscreen offerings. This has ultimately led to an increased interest in advertising and second screen strategies as potential investors consider how to make a viable return on their investments.

5. Accelerated growth

Due to the strong worldwide demand for our next generation solutions, RGB’s lifetime product shipments propelled past $200 million early in the year. The pace of RGB’s growth is accelerating as we completed our second $100 million in shipments in two years compared to over three years for the first $100 million.

4. Making the Forbes top list

RGB’s sustained success was recognized by top business publication, Forbes magazine, with RGB named as one of America’s 100 most promising companies. It’s nice to not only be recognized for our technology leadership, but also for the strength of our overall business.

3. The birth of eVIA

In September, RGB Networks announced the launch of its Enhanced Video Intelligence Architecture (eVIA), a suite of products and technologies that provides for the integrated delivery and monetization of video to multiple screens over adaptive streaming delivery protocols with hyper-targeted ad insertion capabilities. This architecture represents the future of IP video delivery.

2. Customer deployments aplenty

This year RGB Networks was selected by the majority of top U.S. and Canadian cable and telco operators for their trials and deployments of multiscreen services, showing the excellence of RGB’s technology and the company’s strength in IP video delivery. European operators also recognized the advantages of RGB’s unique solutions, with Waoo! and Swisscom Broadcast, among others, going live with RGB-powered multiscreen deployments.

1. Multi-screen, multi-fabulous

Multiscreen solutions dominated industry headlines this year and even reached mainstream tech trends as TV Everyone becomes a common term. As the proliferation of tablet devices continues and consumer video consumption habits change, providers have increasingly become aware of the need to diversify their offerings to incorporate a multiscreen strategy.

And there you have it – our list of our top ten favorite 2011 moments! As always, we invite you to share your thoughts.

We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and we look forward to welcoming you back in 2012!

OK, so the answer is fairly obvious: over-the-top (OTT) is a thropportunity. That is, it’s a threat that is creating an opportunity for traditional video service providers to offer their subscribers enhanced services and ultimately change a video delivery model that has been in place for decades.

As streaming services from the Hulus, Rokus and Netflixes of the world have gained popularity—with consumers enjoying the ability to watch video anywhere and on any device—the established operators are being forced to expand their offering beyond the television for viewing on iPads, PCs, smartphones and other mobile devices.

The ‘TV Everywhere’ model being undertaken by most operators around the globe—with recent launches by Cox, Rogers and Ziggo—is for operators to leverage the advantages of their managed network to deliver video streaming services with quality superior to what the OTT competitors can deliver piggy-backing on their networks. Simply, operators can apply considerable quality of service (QoS) controls to their own IP streaming services, ensuring adequate bandwidth is provided and that streaming traffic is prioritized. OTT providers have no control over the cable modem service and consequently cannot provide any real quality assurance. Rights issues are still at play in this scenario, but starting with a service confined to subscribers’ homes gives operators an entry into the streaming world as they negotiate rights with content owners to expand for on-the-go viewing.

And as they implement multiscreen IP video services, operators are learning that they can be technically quicker and easier to deploy. On the beta launch of their steaming iPad app, David Purdy, Vice President of Video Products at Rogers told CED Magazine, “The cycle times for innovation are much faster in the IP space, for sure.” He also stated that ultimately Rogers plans to move to all-IP for their entire video offering.

Despite the initial challenges, it is clear that video service providers need to move forward with a multiscreen offering in order to fight off the threat from OTT competitors and take advantage of the benefits of this new model (an added revenue bonus is the opportunity for hyper-targeted advertising that IP video opens up).

CNN just published their list of the top 10 tech trends for 2012, which includes TV Everywhere at #5, showing that this service is going mainstream—a clear sign that operators aren’t backing down from the threat, but instead seizing the opportunity.

The coming year should be an exciting one as we see more operators—large and small—taking control of their destiny. We look forward to continuing to help our customers to maximize the opportunity as they deploy this new generation of IP video services.

Could you use a little help identifying the differences between the three main adaptive streaming technologies and the pros and cons of each? We don’t think you’re alone. Adaptive streaming is rapidly becoming a dominant force in our industry, and with its quick adoption by video service providers, many people may be left feeling that they could use a few more details to round out their knowledge.

To help, we’ve put together an overview comparing Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), Microsoft’s Silverlight Smooth Streaming (MSS) and Adobe’s HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS). This paper includes an overview of adaptive HTTP streaming, discussing delivery architectures, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses, and discussing live and video-on-demand (VoD) delivery; it then delves into each technology, explaining how they work and highlighting how each is different from the others; finally, it looks at specific features and describes how they are implemented or deployed.

Other topics mentioned include: CDNs, DASH, encryption, DRM, packagers, stream latency, targeted ad insertion, transcoders and trick modes.

To download this paper, please click here.

It’s no secret cable operators have long earned important supplemental revenue by inserting local and zoned ads into their programming. In most cases, such local commercials have been delivered in a less than targeted approach—the same ad sent to a fairly broad audience, with only a region or neighborhood in common. In turn, many smaller businesses have been repeatedly scared away from cable, uncertain of the cost-effectiveness of buying multiple ad spots in such a wide viewing area.

For years, operators have dreamed of ways to streamline ad insertion through a virtual microscope—from a region, to a city, to a neighborhood, to ads specifically tailored to the individual viewer (dog food ads for dog owners!). But it just wasn’t feasible within the broadcast environment…at least not without spending enough to send astronauts back to the moon (or close anyway).

But as more of the well-heeled consumers that advertisers dream of use smartphones and iPads and other devices for viewing IP video, operators now see hyper-targeting—a one-on-one relationship with the end user—as the lucrative future of ad insertion. Have you ever Googled “Acapulco” when planning a vacation and later noticed the subtle appearance of banner ads for attractive coastal destinations in Mexico as you surf the web? Similar concept.

How can IP-based ads be targeted so precisely? In short, today’s IP video utilizes adaptive HTTP streaming—downloading to the client a sequence of video files (or “chunks”) of network content recorded at different bitrates and resolutions to compensate for the routine variations in network bandwidth. This method offers much more flexibility than the standard broadcast infrastructure, and in concert with the aforementioned direct consumer relationship, allows the operator to insert tailored video ads in a similar fashion to Internet advertising—influenced by clear-cut demographics and viewing patterns.

The result: The advertiser gets the highest possible “bang for the buck” with a laser focus to their target market. The viewer in turn is allowed to “cut through the clutter”—eliminating irrelevant commercials in favor of specific ads best suited to their individual interests. And the video service provider reaps the added revenue from perhaps the most effective advertising in the Digital Age. Call it a “triple win.”

For more information on how you can achieve your quest for the Holy Grail of advertising, download our white paper now and visit with us at TelcoTV and Cable-Tec Expo.