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Cisco Videoscape: Reinventing the TV Experience

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What You Will Learn

Cisco is working with service providers to reinvent the television experience. By bringing entertainment, social media, communications, and mobility together through IP technologies, Cisco Videoscape™ transforms how users engage with video and how service providers prosper. This document provides a high-level overview of the Cisco® Videoscape solution. It describes:

• The market trends that are transforming media and challenging the traditional service provider model

• How Cisco Videoscape can help you capitalize on these trends and deliver new media experiences anywhere, anytime, to any screen

• The basic building blocks of the Cisco Videoscape solution, encompassing the cloud, network, and clients, working together as one

Challenge

Today's media marketplace has entered the age of "more" - more video-capable devices, more video services, and more video traffic than ever before. The Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) predicts more than 12 billion connected IP endpoints worldwide by 2014, with web content and services expanding across TV sets, tablets, game consoles, and other consumer electronics devices. At the same time, over-the-top (OTT) online video services such as Netflix and Hulu are competing for the consumer's time and discretionary spending, creating a global online video community that now includes more than 1 billion users.
All of these new devices and services are accelerating growth in Internet video traffic. At peak times, Netflix already accounts for 20 percent of downstream Internet traffic in the United States. By 2014, the Cisco VNI forecast projects that online video will make up 91 percent of consumer IP traffic, generating traffic equivalent to 6 billion DVDs per month.
These three trends - more devices, more online video services, and more Internet video traffic - are changing the media delivery landscape as we know it, presenting new and pressing challenges for service providers.

• How can service providers differentiate their offerings by delivering more personal, social, and interactive media experiences? How can they make media simpler and more intuitive when video services today are fragmented across devices, screens, and interfaces?

• How can service providers contend with the demand for mobility in every media service, and efficiently serve millions of new, unmanaged IP-connected devices?

• How can service providers preserve the value of their content, and deliver to new screens and platforms while preserving traditional carriage fees and advertisement loads?

• How can service providers fund major service upgrades to keep pace with the massive growth in IP video traffic, when they have no way to generate revenue from online video in the current media delivery value chain?

• Finally, how can service providers respond to those who question the relevance of the service provider network? How can they demonstrate their true value to consumers, broadcasters, and online video partners?

These questions pose significant challenges, but they also present a tremendous opportunity. As high-definition quality and mobility become more important, the service provider network becomes the ideal nexus between consumers, content providers, and web applications. Only the service provider - and the service provider network - can deliver the full range of cloud-based media and applications across multiple screens as part of a consistent, high-quality experience.

Cisco Videoscape Business Benefits

Cisco Videoscape combines a vast array of content and applications from any source into an immersive, personalized experience - powered by IP technologies and delivered by the service provider. It lets you join live and on-demand video, online content and applications, social media, and video communications into a unified experience, and extend that experience to any screen or device. And Cisco Videoscape draws on Cisco IP intelligence in the cloud, network, and clients to provide a premium quality of experience that best-effort online video services cannot match.
With Cisco Videoscape, you can deliver a consumer experience that is:

• More intuitive, with less complexity and a consistent interface across all content sources and devices

• More visual, offering seemingly infinite content and applications, on TV and other screens

• More social, by integrating social networking and telepresence capabilities that let consumers show, share, and engage with video

• More mobile, with the ability to extend content and applications beyond the TV-anywhere, anytime, across multiple screens and networks

Drawing on tightly integrated cloud, network, and client architectures, Cisco Videoscape provides:

• A dazzling, unified experience that makes content from virtually any source accessible with universal search and navigation, and viewable on multiple screens

• Freedom from closed-endpoint ecosystems, so consumers can enjoy their content on an IP-enabled TV set, PC, smartphone, tablet, or other media device - regardless of manufacturer or operating system

• A means to preserve and extend the value of content by supporting existing carriage fees and advertising-based revenues, even as you support new online video subscription and advertising models

• Consistent, high quality of experience across the service provider footprint and the unmanaged Internet, and on devices managed by the service provider and unmanaged IP endpoints

• Investment protection, unlocking new revenue-generating service capabilities with each Cisco Videoscape element you deploy, while laying a foundation for advanced media and cloud capabilities in the future

• Opportunity to strengthen your brand and value proposition by using the intelligent service provider network as the ideal cloud media delivery platform

Cisco Videoscape Solution: Cloud, Network, and Clients, Together

The power of Cisco Videoscape rests in the combination of cloud, network, and clients working together to deliver amazing end-user experiences and transform the economics of network operations (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Cisco Videoscape Solution

The Cloud

The cloud represents the evolution of the video head-end to a common data center architecture. This next-generation media platform uses high-performance Cisco data center, content distribution network (CDN), and command-and-control technologies to deliver multiscreen experiences to the consumer, at home and on the go.
Cisco Videoscape cloud components include the following.

• Cisco Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS™) and Cisco Nexus® Family: These innovative solutions provide a common compute and storage platform that shifts the definition, rendering, and composition of the user experience to the service provider cloud, rather than the set-top box (STB). Cisco UCS and Nexus solutions integrate server, storage, network, and virtualization resources into a single, unified Ethernet environment, and eliminate the need to use dedicated video servers for each application. Together, they allow you to enrich the media experience, accelerate deployment of new services, and reduce capital and operational costs.

• Cisco Videoscape Media Suite: Cisco Videoscape Media Suite provides full lifecycle content management to efficiently manage and publish content across multiple screens: TV, PC, tablet, or mobile device. It integrates search and navigation across all content sources - linear, on-demand, and in the user's home network - into a single, powerful media experience.

• Cisco Content Delivery System (CDS): The Cisco Content Delivery System provides an intelligent, video-optimized CDN platform to provide personalized media delivery. Cisco CDS incorporates TV streaming for high-quality content delivery to digital TVs and STBs, as well as Internet streaming to deliver content and applications to any connected IP device. Designed for the next generation of cloud-based video experiences, Cisco CDS can ingest, store, and deliver live and on-demand content and applications flexibly, cost-effectively, and with optimal scalability.

• Cisco Videoscape CDN Analytics: Cisco CDN Analytics provides advanced reporting and analytics capabilities to help service providers gather in-depth information from their Cisco CDS or third-party CDN deployment, and analyze network performance in real time. The solution gives you visibility into essential service metrics such as traffic distribution and volume, capacity utilization, asset popularity, billing trends, and bandwidth consumption, allowing you to improve video services and respond to issues more proactively.

• Cisco Conductor for Videoscape: Cisco Conductor orchestrates the various services, devices, and subscriber management functions across clients, clouds and networks, including both those that are managed by the service provider and those that are not. It provides a standards-based communications pathway to support presence, real-time application information, resources, and social networking, and support classic command-and-control functions. Ultimately, Cisco Conductor allows you to scale services everywhere and anywhere, and manage the entire lifecycle of connecting devices and applications.

• Cisco Conductor Back Office: Cable operators can take advantage of Cisco Conductor Back Office quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) capabilities to extend advanced session management, resource management, entitlement, and other video service management capabilities to their subscribers. The solution provides the foundation for a comprehensive video control plane and service management capability, and helps cable operators transition to an all-IP video platform.

• Cisco Media Processor and Transcode Manager: Cisco Media Processor and Transcode Manager provide advanced, multiformat adaptive bitrate encoding and transcoding functions. They help you deliver real-time and on-demand media to any screen, in the best video quality based on the available bandwidth.

Cisco IP Next-Generation Network

As video grows to consume 62 percent of all consumer Internet traffic by 2015, service providers need to fortify the network to accommodate this projected 17-fold growth. Cisco IP transport and cable solutions provide a highly resilient IP transport network that can efficiently deliver video on these massive scales, while meeting rigorous service-level agreement (SLA) requirements for video quality.
Cisco IP Next-Generation Network (NGN) solutions combine embedded video intelligence with exceptional scale, performance, lossless transport, and nonstop availability to provide immersive media experiences. As a result, you can:

• Assure a consistent subscriber experience over multiple endpoints

• Simplify operation with hitless switchover and inline video monitoring

• Reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) through efficient service multiplexing (video, voice, data, and mobility)

Cisco IP NGN elements of Cisco Videoscape include:

• Cisco IP NGN Video Optimized Transport Solution: The Cisco IP NGN Video Optimized Transport Solution provides an intelligent, highly reliable transport network for cloud-based media and applications. It draws on the industry-leading scale, resiliency, and embedded video intelligence of the Cisco service provider IP routing and video back-office infrastructure portfolio, including the Cisco CRS-3 Carrier Routing System and Cisco ASR 9000 Aggregation Services Routers (ASRs).

• Cisco Converged Cable Access Network: The Cisco Converged Cable Access Network provides a DOCSIS 3.0 access platform to help you migrate to an end-to-end IP infrastructure. Innovative cable solutions such as the Cisco Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) 3G60 and Cisco CMTS DS384 line cards deliver many times the capacity and speed of traditional DOCSIS 2.0 solutions at a fraction of the cost.

Clients

In a future with twice as many IP endpoints as there are people on the planet, consumers want total freedom to access content however they choose. But they also want a simpler, more consistent experience. Cisco Videoscape Clients free media from isolated platforms and devices, and extend unified experiences to multiple screens, within the service provider footprint and on off-network endpoints.
Cisco Videoscape Clients include the following.

• Cisco Videoscape Multiscreen Gateways: Designed purely for video services, these hybrid gateways can deliver video to all subscriber devices in the home, including STBs, smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. They give consumers a simpler and more unified multiscreen experience, while providing a long-term foundation for your transition to an all-IP service delivery architecture.

• Cisco Videoscape Media Gateways: These gateways create new service possibilities for consumers, in the home and on the go. They integrate voice, linear and online video, high-speed data (HSD), mobility, and routing capabilities, providing a centralized hub to deliver entertainment, applications, and communications in the consumer's home network. They also support new cloud-based services such as video streaming across multiple applications and lifestyle management applications.

• Cisco Videoscape Set-Top Boxes: Cisco Videoscape Set-Top Boxes integrate premium programming, linear and on-demand TV, DVR recordings, and online entertainment - combining vast content choices with high-definition quality. The STBs bring the Cisco Videoscape cloud into the family room, delivering Internet and web applications as part of a "lean back" TV experience.

• Cisco Videoscape Soft Clients: Cisco Videoscape Soft Clients are reference software development kit (SDK) user interfaces designed to help you create customized TV and digital media experiences across a range of devices, and provide a common interface to the service provider cloud. These software clients can be embedded in Cisco customer premises equipment (CPE) devices such as Cisco Videoscape Media Gateways and STBs, as well as IP-enabled consumer electronics devices, smartphones, gaming consoles, and more.

While Cisco Videoscape Clients provide the most expansive capabilities and integration, the Cisco Videoscape solution can also support integration of third-party hardware and software clients.

Migrating to Cisco Videoscape

The journey to a full cloud-enabled infrastructure will not happen overnight. Service providers have extensive client, network, and back-office investments in place, and cannot simply overhaul the entire infrastructure. That is why Videoscape proceeds as an evolution, not a replacement of your network - with each new element providing new revenue-generating capabilities right away, while serving as a foundation for more advanced cloud capabilities in the future.
Cisco offers solutions and services to help you migrate strategically to the next generation of cloud-based media delivery, while protecting your long-term investment. Migration solutions include:

• Cisco Videoscape Quickstart: Use Cisco Videoscape Quickstart to deliver a "TV Everywhere" experience and extend your branded content - on-demand, online, and linear TV - to your customers' PCs and Macintosh computers today, and soon, to their tablets and smartphones. Cisco Videoscape Quickstart encompases several cloud elements - Cisco CDS, Cisco Videoscape Media Suite, Cisco Media Processor and Transcode Manager - and Cisco Videoscape Soft Clients, all optimized to operate with Cisco UCS and the Cisco ASR 9000 Series. Together, these components provide a pre-integrated, pretested "TV Everywhere" solution that you can deploy right away, and use as the platform to roll out new services in the future.

• Cisco Videoscape Voyager Virtual: Having a large installed base of older STBs does not mean you cannot deliver a new, differentiated experience to your customers. With Videoscape Voyager Virtual, you can deliver an experience that includes social media applications, e-commerce, gaming, cloud-driven programming guides, and more - created entirely in the cloud, and delivered as an MPEG-2 video stream to older STBs.

• Cisco Videoscape Voyager Vantage: Cisco Videoscape Voyager Vantage provides the software platform to deliver an industry-leading TV navigation and application experience over your deployed STBs. You can develop and deploy a more dynamic user interface, EPG, and VoD experience, as well as social media, Internet video, and other apps, or take advantage of hundreds of applications already available from Cisco development partners. In this way, you can begin migrating to a next-generation TV experience without disruptive operational changes, and without having to completely overhaul your deployed STBs.

• Cisco Services: Your migration to a next-generation video solution requires careful planning, taking into account the architectural, technical, and operational implications of the deployment. As your partner, Cisco Services brings the expertise to help you successfully adopt new architectures, deliver the entire solution, and help ensure a smooth transition as you proceed. Cisco Services offerings cover all aspects of the Cisco Videoscape portfolio to deliver a comprehensive solution, addressing migration, integration, and customization, as well as post-deployment support. Together, these service offerings can help you take the next step in your network evolution with assurance - confident that you can bring new capabilities to market quickly, with little risk, and at the right time to stay ahead of your competitors.

Why Cisco?

The future of TV and media entertainment is here, powered by the cloud. With the Cisco Videoscape solution, you can reinvent the TV experience for your customers and position your network as the essential provider of tomorrow's immersive, ubiquitous media experiences.
Cisco is ready to be your partner in this journey. Only Cisco can provide:

• A comprehensive IP video architecture that encompasses the back-office cloud, the media-optimized network, and client solutions, all working together to deliver unified, immersive experiences

• A premium quality of experience that surpasses "best-effort" media delivery by drawing on embedded IP intelligence that extends across the cloud, network, and clients

• Investment protection through a clear migration path that lets you develop and monetize new services now, while providing the foundation for more advanced future capabilities

• End-to-end lifecycle services that take you through the preparation, planning, design, implementation, operation, and optimization stages of your cloud-based IP video architecture

• Proven industry leadership providing innovative video back-office, CDN, IPTV, CPE, and data center implementations for many of the largest, most successful service providers

For More Information

To learn more about Cisco Videoscape, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/videoscape.