ActiveVideo’s CloudTV is now running on servers based on Intel QSV (Quick Sync Video), which quadruples session density, which in turn helps reduce the capex cost of virtualizing set-top functionality in the cloud to as little as $1 per instance.
In other words, the moment individual subscribers make a single $1 VOD purchase, those subscribers would be paid for, said Sachin Sathaye. ActiveVideo’s vice president strategy & product management.
Most commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) servers use only CPU-based processing. Intel QSV takes advantage additional graphics processing (GPU) in the form of both Intel’s Iris Pro Graphics and the Intel Media Server Studio.
CloudTV running on new high-density servers with Intel QSV can deliver a 40 percent improvement in per session price performance when compared to being run on CPU-only based COTS servers.
This implementation is bolstered by the use of ActiveVideo’s MPEG stitching technique. When one subscriber does something – it could be something as simple as browsing through screen options – odds are that other subscribers will do the same thing. ActiveVideo will cache the MPEG packets from that first session, stitch them together into single video files, and transmit those to anyone who subsequently does the same thing.
The efficiencies from this process, plus running on Intel QSV servers, results in a 4X increase in number of CloudTV sessions density, requiring just one data center rack to deliver cloud based pay-TV guides to 1 million STBs; and a greater than 10X increase in real-time video transcoding sessions to adapt premium online video content to any pay-TV STB.
The further result is a data center capex profile as low as $1 per sub.
By way of comparison, Ziggo in The Netherlands is a CloudTV customer, and has implemented a system that relies on smart TVs combined with CI+ modules, and no vendor-supplied CPE. Using traditional CPU-only COTS servers, Ziggo would have a data center capex for virtual set-top box functionality of about $4 a sub.
Sathaye noted Cablevision, for example, (another customer) would be able to serve 3 million subscribers in three racks’ worth of equipment, or 18 square feet of space by adopting the approach.
Pay-TV operators can realize further TCO savings via reductions in data center footprint, power consumption and server opex when compared with set-top box upgrades, the company noted.
Two tier 1 operators are using the system already, the company said, though ActiveVideo declined to identify them.
Intel’s Quick Sync Video technology is being integrated into server products by multiple vendors, including Artesyn Embedded Technologies, HP Moonshot, Kontron and QuickFire Networks. ActiveVideo (Stand 3.A27) will demonstrate CloudTV running on Kontron Symkloud servers equipped with Intel QSV technology at IBC Sept. 12-16 in Amsterdam.
The ActiveVideo/Kontron solution is available immediately.
“As the cloud becomes the hub for delivery of advanced user interfaces, online video and interactive ads, scalability has been a principal concern for pay-TV operators,” said Ronald Brockmann, CTO of ActiveVideo. “Working with Intel and next-generation server partners such as Kontron, we are accelerating the ability of virtual STB functionality to enhance the user experience on every set-top box, while at the same time reducing capex and opex.”
