Eutelsat wants to relieve the burden of building OTT

CSI

Eutelsat is demonstrating its new Cirrus DTH service platform running live at IBC direct from a Hotbird and integrated on the EPG with service management via Amazon cloud.
A multi-screen offer complements the traditional satellite broadcast with simultaneous OTT streaming through a hybrid platform.

http://www.csimagazine.com/csi/Eutelsat-wants-to-relieve-the-burden-of-building-OTT.php
“For a large pay-TV platform, OTT distribution would be much more expensive than satellite,” said Gerry O’Sullivan, executive VP, global TV and video, Eutelsat. “We are not a B2B house asking broadcasters to buy some bespoke software only to find it’s of no use in two years’ time. We are offering a different paradigm which involves no heavy capex or operations investment.” 

He continued, “You can’t underestimate the burden to broadcasters of building and maintaining a OTT platform. The sheer number of devices and amount of updates is a real distraction. We are offering a turnkey end-to-end solution that takes the burden away from broadcasters, allows them to focus on their core content business, and demonstrates a roadmap for innovation. It means that those who were disenfranchised previously can for the first time launch OTT.”

The first customers for the service will be announced after IBC.

The EPG – which is multilanguage including Arabic – was shown with features such as customised channel numbering and channel categorisation, detailed programme information and subscriber management in both grid and mosaic displays.

“The platform is truely integrated,” said O’Sullivan. “Even sophisticated payTV providers have done OTT as an add on and the user experience between TV and device is not seamless. Cirrus is one platform with pure cloud OTT delivery and a unified viewer experience.”

Support is provided for all Android and iOS devices. “IoS is updating around every four weeks so imagine every time that happens having to rewrite the code, check it, test it just to maintain the existing service. We take of all that back end and guarantee innovation.”
Cirrus will record and store a week’s worth of content for all channels enabling seven day catch-up.

A series of open APIs including for metadata ingestion, live feeds and subscriber management enable customers to connect Cirrus to their STBs, HbbTV sets and mobile devices.

Despite the rollout of fibre and the proven use of 5G in some applications, Eutelsat believe that in mature markets around 15% of TV households will remain best served by a combination of satellite and other delivery infrastructure, a figure rising to 85% in regions like the Middle East.

Technical partners in the project include Irdeto (CA), Nagra (unified back-end) and CDN CenturyLink.

Latency is said to be 5 seconds, similar to competing OTT services. “OTT providers and sports rights holder have experienced major issues with latency in recent time. The only way of viewing high quality video is satellite. We are offering a cost-effective path for DTH broadcasters to address their customer demand for OTT with a seamless user experience.”
Eutelsat carries 6900 channels, 1500 of which are HD and 17 UHD to 1 billion TV viewers worldwide.