In his position as NDS Corporate Director for Consumer Devices, Martin Kaufmann works closely with chipset vendors and consumer device manufacturers. This means he is in constant contact with STB manufacturers and pay-TV operators around the world to determine how best to integrate NDS technology solutions such as VideoGuard® conditional access, MediaHighway® middleware and XTV™ DVR.
Because he works with both current and prospective customers, Kaufmann is well versed on technology trends in the pay-TV market both in the Asia Pacific region and around the world.
In his view, there were several major technology developments in 2008 that will serve as a springboard to key trends in 2009.
“One of the trends in 2008 was that the USB interface became a standard feature on set-top boxes. This interface facilitates a variety of functions ranging from connections to external hard drives to using USB sticks like the NDS PC Key™,” he says.
“In many markets the major STB in the home is increasingly also a DVR. It acts as a storage device that can be accessed from STBs in other rooms in the house. As a result, the home with more than one STB benefits from content that can be moved from one box to another. It’s like peer-to-peer content sharing within the home,” Kaufmann says.
Kaufmann explains that there is also a hybrid alternative to this configuration.
Operators are offering an Internet Download feature that is accessed through the subscriber’s remote.
The subscriber can choose to view content directly through the operator’s Internet portal or store content on their hard disk for viewing whenever they want.” NDS developed its Progressive Download technology to enable operators to deliver IP content without the buffering that is often seen with PC video systems.
NDS has recently enabled operators to launch a hybrid box that offers this option.
“This is indicative of a major trend that we saw this year: more of both high-end and low-end services. We’re noticing fewer ‘mid-range’ services,” he says.
“By far, the most dynamic pay-TV market in the world in 2008 was India. While operators in Europe and the US may be very successful, there are operators in India that are adding more than a million subscribers in less than a year. The growth rate of pay-TV subscribers in India is unprecedented.”
Rollout of MPEG-4
This success is leading to MPEG-4 offerings outstripping those of MPEG-2. “The Indian operators that launched their services several years ago use MPEG-2 while the newer operators have all launched on MPEG-4.” Why the preference for MPEG-4? “It enables more channels to be broadcast from one satellite transponder,” Kaufmann says, “and this is extremely important in a market like India where there are a huge number of operators and a huge number of channels.”
“In this type of market, MPEG-4 is the de facto technology choice for new operators,” he says. “Operators in other emerging TV markets including Ukraine, Turkey and Poland are adopting the Indian technology model.”
The deployment of MPEG-4 has led to another development: “Last year there were only two chipset vendors selling to the Indian market but I expect there will be more competition very soon,” Kaufmann says. The result of this increased competition will be lower STB prices.
High Definition
Just as 2008 saw tremendous advances in digital broadcasting because of the Summer Olympics in Beijing, so 2009 should be the year of advances in high definition broadcasting. Sport is a major catalyst and motivator here. “The shift to HD is looking ahead to all the major sports events in 2010,” he says. This includes Soccer World Cup in South Africa, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, the Asian Games and a plethora of other major events in baseball, football, golf and rugby.
“All of these sporting events will be broadcast in HD and there are more and more flat screens on the market. Unfortunately, at present the picture quality isn’t great without HD. While subscribers are buying big 52-inch screens, the onus is on broadcasters to catch up and offer HD services that complement these screens.”
Trends for 2009: Watch out for low-cost DVRs
“A hot topic in the industry is the entry-level DVR,” Kaufmann says. “It supplies basic functionality and is very cost effective.” This box enables subscribers to decide on the kind of storage device they want to add and how much memory it will have. “They can add anything from flash memory USB sticks to a hard disk,” he says. “In effect, the investment in storage is moving from the operator to the subscriber,” he says. This model is being seen in several other markets around the world.
Hybrid offerings will continue to develop this year, Kaufmann says. “For subscribers without a DVR, more download services, via websites, will continue to appear. The main competition is from telco operators using IPTV.”
“We’re seeing that this type of download service, generally known as ‘Catch Up TV’ is becoming increasingly popular with broadcasters. Their subscribers’ set-top boxes just need an IP port,” Kaufmann says. “While it’s true that subscribers can already download movies or other content from the Internet onto PCs and laptops, there are two major problems: picture quality and screen size.” Because “Catch Up TV” is provided by broadcasters, the quality is perfect and subscribers can watch the content on their regular TV screen – regardless of size – rather than on their small PC monitor.
Targeted advertising is one of the features that is going to become more important in 2009, Kaufmann predicts. At present, broadcasts have ad breaks that viewers can skip. NDS has recently launched NDS Dynamic™, a suite of advanced TV advertising solutions that enable TV operators to use the latest audience measurement systems to offer advertisers access to targeted groups. At the same time subscribers see ads that are more relevant to them.
What overall trends will be most important in 2009? Kaufmann expects the Indian pay-TV market to maintain its massive growth momentum while digitisation continues worldwide. “Home connectivity will become more advanced as viewers have greater expectations for the services they receive,” he says. “In addition the price of hardware technology can be expected to drop due to better economies of scale and increased competition.”
“All of these developments in the pay-TV market suggest that 2009 will be even more dynamic than the last few years,” he says.
For more information:
VideoGuard®
MediaHighway®
XTV™ DVR
NDS Dynamic™ |
