Zodiac partners with MediaKind

Zodiac expands MediaFirst offering to any digital set-top at any type of operator

NEW YORK — Zodiac, a software vendor serving video operators, announced today it has partnered with MediaKind, a global media technology leader. Zodiac’s software platform enables MediaKind’s MediaFirst TV user experience (UX) to run on any digital set-top box, new or old, via a software update only and with no need for a truckroll. The combined MediaKind and Zodiac solution delivers an unprecedented value proposition for operators, including the ability to:

• Reduce churn by enhancing the UX across the entire footprint with MediaFirst’s compelling graphics-rich content discovery and available catch-up TV, advanced search, voice search, etc.
• Deploy browser-based applications and OTT services deep into the legacy set-top footprint, including licensed Netflix, Youtube, Facebook, etc. apps
• Increase revenue with advanced analytics by extending data collection, audience measurement and targeted advertising monetization to all set-tops of any vintage
• Ease operations by unifying set-top and BSS/OSS environments. Run video services via a network console with advanced monitoring, predictive outage alerts and self-healing workflows
• Save considerable capital expenditures by extending the life of deployed subscriber and network hardware configurations with a new, remotely deployed/managed software platform

The Zodiac platform focuses local set-top resources on running the best possible native or browser-based UX. Meta data translation, multi-protocol support, BSS/OSS orchestration and other strenuous set-top functions are handled by the Zodiac cloud and messaged to set-tops via any network “pipe” available. The result is a unified software environment that dramatically simplifies the video network. Zodiac’s software today runs over 130 different set-top models spanning a variety of vendors and chipsets at Tier I operators including Charter, Altice (Cablevision) and Rogers.

Competing solutions add operational complexity by requiring new hardware to be deployed before any benefit is received, requiring considerable capital expenditure and in most cases truckrolls to every customer. Such a hardware transition represents an enormous investment and a slow, difficult, long-term upgrade cycle, potentially requiring a decade or more until all customers get any benefit.

“Video technology vendors have always tied new features with costly new cap-and-grow hardware deployments that only benefit the lucky customers getting a new set-top,” said Rich Neill, Zodiac’s EVP Engineering And Technology. “With MediaKind, we have decoupled software strategies from hardware capex so the entire footprint can get the benefit of new features with a software download.”

”We are thrilled to partner with Zodiac to enable MediaFirst, together with our recently announced MediaFirst client for Mediaroom, to address all of the roughly one billion set-top-boxes deployed around the world” said Gowton Achaibar, COO and Head of R&D, MediaKind, “This combination delivers an incredible value proposition for operators to evolve, adapt and shift to a next generation TV experience in an elegant manner.”

To demonstrate the breadth of the addressable market/footprint for MediaFirst delivered with the Zodiac software, both MediaKind (booth #1.D61) and Zodiac (booth #1.D11) will be displaying the MediaFirst user experience with Zodiac software and interfacing with the MediaFirst backend. At the Zodiac booth, MediaFirst will be featured on:

1. current generation Humax hybrid HD-DVR set-tops with a Broadcom 7250 chipset (6,000 MIPS) and 2 GB memory running MediaFirst in Zodiac’s HTML5 browser
2. legacy vintage ~2010 Samsung HD set-tops with a Broadcom 7405 chipset (1,100 MIPS) and 256 MB memory running MediaFirst in Zodiac’s Zebra “lightweight” browser, and
3. deep legacy vintage ~2003 Motorola DCT-2500 standard definition set-tops with a Broadcom 7115 chipset (175 MIPS) and 16 MB memory running MediaFirst native in standard definition via the Zodiac stack