Cable players look to tap user enthusiasm for convergence

CHICAGO - Cable operators, and of course the vendors who feed them with equipment, are hoping to catch up and corral the new user fascination with nonlinear (e.g., IP) video. This, in turn, creates a need for added backoffice management and in-network consolidation.

"It's not just simple video; it's embracing over-the-top and other applications and putting together a unified experience. In order to do that you have to manage all the subscribers, the service, and if there are cloud-level applications like TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO), you have to manage all those subscriber entitlements in a unified manner," Preston Gilmer, vice president of marketing for Sigma Systems told FierceCable.

Sigma, he said, is introducing an IP Video Accelerator product that sits atop its service management platform and allows cable operators to define any traditional video, VoD, DVR, TiVo service and applications and then add in or layer in services that get delivered to IP devices.

At another part of that spectrum, Zodiac Interactive is using what it terms "cloud-based server technology" to format and translate content so that it seamlessly streams to any type of device.

"To us, things consist of two parts: the back end, which represents the cloud and the client end" which represent an expanding universe of user devices, said Brandon Brown, CEO of Zodiac Interactive in an interview with FierceCable. "Without the ability to bring an interconnection capability between the world of the walled garden (of traditional cable television programming) and the open world of the World Wide Web, you cannot present the multi-screen converged environment."

For more:
- see this news release
- and this news release

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