Game-Changing Strategies for IP Video

When asked about when the cable industry will transition to video over IP, cable operators will be the first to tell you that they've been sending video over Internet Protocol transport from one system to another for some time. Comcast executive vice president and CTO Tony Werner said at The Cable Show in May that his company got ahead of the curve by putting IP transport into its backbone, content delivery network and video-on-demand network.

Easy way to get our content to them

"We need to have an easy way to get our content to them, and that's one big piece to solve," he said. "The second piece is that there is getting to be a lot of interesting content on the Internet that consumers want to be able to consume on the big screen in an easy format. That's probably the second equation that we're all working on solving."

"It may or may not be a problem for MSOs," Cloonan said. "It depends on whether they do partner up with content providers on the Internet, but using that approach sort of makes it more challenging to bring those partners into the mix."

Cloonan also said the hybrid approach creates a wall of sorts between the DOCSIS network that serves the high-speed data and phone services and the edge QAM network that serves MPEG-2 video transport, which, without a dynamic edge resource manager, would make it difficult to share bandwidth dynamically between the networks.

"Adapting to unexpected changes between high-speed data and VoIP and video traffic becomes more challenging when using the hybrid gateway approach," according to Cloonan. "You either have to predict the future correctly or adjust things when the mix changes.

"Moving to the all-DOCSIS solution with the CMTS carrying high-speed data, VoIP and video would eliminate the need for another element, the edge resource manger, and naturally mix the traffic types with ease."

CMTS BYPASSSome of the cons for the CMTS bypass solution mirror those of the hybrid approach, according to Cloonan. CMTS bypass also doesn't have QoS that helps when partnering with third-party Internet providers, and it may not offer the statistical multiplexing gains of channel bonding.

The Cable Show

Also at The Cable Show, Cisco was showing its Cisco Blue IPTV guide on both traditional cable set-top boxes and IP set-top boxes. Dave Clark, Cisco's director of product strategy and management, said cable operators could use the Blue guide as they transition from RF to IP set-top boxes.

When asked about when the cable industry will transition to video over IP, cable operators will be the first to tell you that they've been sending video over Internet Protocol transport from one system to another for some time. Comcast executive vice president and CTO Tony Werner said at The Cable Show in May that his company got ahead of the curve by putting IP transport into its backbone, content delivery network and video-on-demand network.

Easy way to get our content to them

"We need to have an easy way to get our content to them, and that's one big piece to solve," he said. "The second piece is that there is getting to be a lot of interesting content on the Internet that consumers want to be able to consume on the big screen in an easy format. That's probably the second equation that we're all working on solving."

"It may or may not be a problem for MSOs," Cloonan said. "It depends on whether they do partner up with content providers on the Internet, but using that approach sort of makes it more challenging to bring those partners into the mix."

Cloonan also said the hybrid approach creates a wall of sorts between the DOCSIS network that serves the high-speed data and phone services and the edge QAM network that serves MPEG-2 video transport, which, without a dynamic edge resource manager, would make it difficult to share bandwidth dynamically between the networks.

"Adapting to unexpected changes between high-speed data and VoIP and video traffic becomes more challenging when using the hybrid gateway approach," according to Cloonan. "You either have to predict the future correctly or adjust things when the mix changes.

"Moving to the all-DOCSIS solution with the CMTS carrying high-speed data, VoIP and video would eliminate the need for another element, the edge resource manger, and naturally mix the traffic types with ease."

CMTS BYPASSSome of the cons for the CMTS bypass solution mirror those of the hybrid approach, according to Cloonan. CMTS bypass also doesn't have QoS that helps when partnering with third-party Internet providers, and it may not offer the statistical multiplexing gains of channel bonding.

The Cable Show

Also at The Cable Show, Cisco was showing its Cisco Blue IPTV guide on both traditional cable set-top boxes and IP set-top boxes. Dave Clark, Cisco's director of product strategy and management, said cable operators could use the Blue guide as they transition from RF to IP set-top boxes.