VOD technology provider, Concurrent, said Monday that Canada's second-largest MSO, Cogeco Cable, an existing Concurrent customer, has signed a master purchase agreement designating the company as the preferred provider of video technology for its VOD service in all its Canadian markets. According to Concurrent, the multi-year deal supports expansion of and upgrades to Cogeco's existing VOD platform, and makes it possible for the MSO to offer a range of new services to its 400,000 digital subscribers in Quebec and Ontario, including timeshifted TV, network DVR and advanced advertising. "Operators like Cogeco are increasingly under competitive pressure to add more personalized video services," Concurrent president and CEO, Dan Mondor, said in a prepared statement. "Concurrent's vision for the future of on-demand supports a true consumer-driven experience while maximizing the revenue potential of video." Added Chris MacFarlane, Cogeco's VP of corporate engineering: "Concurrent has been a strong partner with Cogeco since we first launched on-demand in 2002. This partnership has significantly contributed to the success this service has seen with our customers. This new agreement formalizes the value we place on this relationship and helps us move with confidence into the next generation of on-demand services."
According to Concurrent, the new agreement will see Cogeco's existing systems upgraded and expanded using Concurrent's MediaHawk 4500 video servers, complete with the latest release of the company's MediaHawk software. Concurrent bills the MediaHawk 4500 as featuring Gatling Resilient Streaming technology (automatically detects failures and instantly routes stream demands to alternate resources, in order to prevent interruption of VOD sessions), and support for such next-generation on-demand applications as timeshifted TV, advanced advertising, network DVR and multi-device content distribution (e.g. VOD on the PC, via a broadband connection).
In other recent news from Concurrent:
--Last month, the company announced a new, "end-to-end, multi-screen" strategy. For an in-depth overview of this, see [itvt]'s interview with James Brickmeier, Concurrent's VP and general manager of converged video solutions, in Issue 8.35.
--In January, the company announced that Alaska-based triple-play provider, GCI, had selected it to provide VOD performance data collection, warehousing and analytics. According to the company, GCI will use a range of its services and products, including the ReportOne and Operational Intelligence (Oi) tools from Concurrent's Everstream line of data collection and management tools. "The Concurrent solutions greatly enhance the view into our on-demand business and technical metrics," Brett Worrall, GCI's product development manager, said in a prepared statement. "These tools allow different groups within our organization to easily track and share key metrics both internally and with third-party stakeholders, such as TVN, GCI's comprehensive VOD content service provider." According to Concurrent, ReportOne and Oi provide a "common metrics" approach to managing key performance indicators, that is necessitated by the fact that operators are rolling out open VOD solutions containing products from multiple different vendors. The company says that the solutions--which offer scorecards, dashboards and reports on key performance indicators--provide the cable and broadband industries' "first comprehensive solution for performance analytics." Performance indicators tracked by the tools include subscriber activity rates, capacity utilization, session and stream success/failure rates, root cause analysis and correlations, and VOD usage by location, provider and title. Concurrent bills its Everstream product line as providing a census-level, unbiased, cross-service data collection and aggregation platform that provides analytics for VOD, linear TV, and broadband TV services. It also supports advanced advertising capabilities, such as SCTE-130-compliant campaign management and ad targeting, the company says.
--In January, the company announced a new software release for its MediaHawk 4000 and 4500 video server lines. According to the company, the new release is SCTE-130 compliant and offers various new enhancements, including playlist-support enabling advanced advertising. "Integrating advanced advertising applications with the on-demand delivery framework using the SCTE standards allows operators to use ad-generated revenue to fund the launch of new services such as time-shifted television and network-based DVR," Concurrent's James Brickmeier said in a prepared statement. "Our newest version of MediaHawk software provides Concurrent customers the flexibility needed to quickly upgrade their existing systems and prepare for emerging on-demand advertising initiatives such as those being led by Canoe Ventures." The SCTE-130 standard is designed to enable a unified platform for addressable advertising, by providing inventory and placement definitions, while merging content and subscriber metadata for targeting zones (or, in a unicast environment, for targeting individuals). Concurrent says that it has already upgraded a number of its Everstream data collection and management products to comply with SCTE-130; and the company claims that the addition of playlist support to the MediaHawk platform means that it can now offer an end-to-end solution that supports targeted ad insertion, ad bumpering and ad replacement. The company also bills the new release as including client interface protocols supporting ETV/EBIF, Web client and tru2way platforms; and it says that these interface protocols enabled interoperability trials at CableLabs late last year, where it demo'd collaborative solutions with BIAP, Invidi and This Technology. Other features included in the new release, according to Concurrent, include: NGOD and ISA compatibility, ensuring compatibility between VOD component vendors; improved stream, storage and ingest density (2,400 SD streams per MediaHawk 4500; 120 SD channels per Real Time Pitcher/Catcher; and 3,300 SD hours of content per MediaStore 2000); HTTP progressive download in support of IPTV and Internet video applications; tiered asset management, optimizing content placement within a storage complex, based on content usage patterns; enhanced support of time-shifted television; improved flexibility in providing multiple trick-mode speeds; and RTP encapsulation/DVB retransmission, allowing better Quality of Service in lower-quality network environments.
