ActiveVideo, Intel reduce Virtual Set-Top Box data center capex to $1/sub

ActiveVideo, Intel technology breakthroughs reduce Virtual Set-Top Box data center capex to $1/sub

SAN JOSE, CA — ActiveVideo today announced significant increases in the scalability and efficiency of cloud-based virtual set-top box solutions for TV guides, online video and interactive advertising on the television using Intel® technology.

Existing off-the-shelf servers offer only CPU-based processing for ActiveVideo’s CloudTV™ sessions. The combination of CloudTV’s MPEG stitching technology and Intel® Quick Sync Video (Intel® QSV) takes advantage of additional graphics processing (GPU) in the form of both Intel’s Iris™ Pro Graphics and the Intel® Media Server Studio. When compared to existing off-the-shelf servers, CloudTV running on new high-density servers with Intel QSV can deliver a 40% improvement in per session price performance due to:

• >4X increase in number of CloudTV sessions density, requiring just one data center rack to deliver cloud based pay-TV guides to 1 million subscribers; and
• >10X increase in real-time video transcoding sessions to adapt premium online video content to any pay-TV subscribers.

The result is a data center capex profile as low as $1 per sub.

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, as characterized by ACG Research.

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; ActiveVideo has selected Kontron as a strategic hardware partner for IBC. The combined solution is available immediately.

“Virtualization of STB functionality and the ability to bring HTML5 content to the television are transforming viewing experiences for consumers,” said Eric Mentzer, vice president of the Platform Engineering Group and director of Strategy and Operations for the Visual and Parallel Computing Group at Intel Corporation. “ActiveVideo’s CloudTV software platform and the ecosystem of next-generation servers with Intel Iris Pro Graphics together are creating real-life application efficiencies and performance that will make cloud-based services vastly more available for the pay-TV industry.”

“Migrating towards an all-IP, software defined cloud infrastructure will give operators the agility to succeed and the ability to focus more on making customers excited about new service roll-outs, including CloudTV from ActiveVideo,” said Jens Wiegand, CTO at Kontron. “As a high density COTS 2RU-sized platform, the Kontron Symkloud uniquely leverages Intel® Core™ i7 processors with Intel Iris Pro Graphics to massively scale video transcoding workloads and UI sessions across multiple clustered platforms.”

“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.”