Companies in different markets, including many not traditionally focused on AV, are wise to the many possibilities of IPTV, says Michael Chorpash, VP of Sales, Vit.
There’s no question that the IP video revolution – the migration from traditional content and signal distribution technologies to IP networks – is having a huge impact on broadcasting and media operations.
But broadcasters aren’t the only companies that are waking up to the many possibilities and benefits of IPTV systems.
Companies understand that placing video content in the IP domain opens up many new possibilities that aren’t available with traditional cable TV. With the right IP technologies, they can reliably transmit high-quality video over their local enterprise network while avoiding the expense of installing and maintaining coax cabling and reaching further over the Internet.
They can also offer viewers special features that aren’t available through traditional cable services.
Streaming of high-quality video is becoming easier and more cost-effective than ever with increases in broadband access.
Video transmission over the open Internet is strictly a unicast proposition, and customers still experience packet drops and bandwidth restrictions in certain areas. However, there are solutions that make unicast more reliable by improving the quality of service, such as CDNs, transcoding technologies, and encoders and decoders that provide FEC.
Companies that are looking to stream video inside the firewall on an enterprise network can take advantage of multicast, which provides lower latency, reduces network congestion, avoids the expense of transcoders, and eliminates the need for a CDN.
Some of the most important enabling IPTV technologies include reliable, high-quality encoders with low latency, as well as gateways for digital turnaround (DTA) to maintain high quality and lower costs for end-to-end enterprise streaming solutions.
Transcoding and encapsulation is critical for reaching out over different networks outside the firewall to deliver feeds properly to multiple devices, and also for providing the best-possible user experience on each one.
Another important requirement is rights management and encrypted content sent by broadcast providers.
Most enterprise IPTV systems don’t support the content providers’ encrypted content because of prohibitive seat licensing costs, the equipment needed to secure content, and the lack of capabilities for delivering a single origination feed to desktops, mobile devices, and TVs.
We also understand the challenges AV dealers and integrators face in keeping up with the many facets of IPTV technologies.
One of the biggest challenges is adapting from a broadcast-focused sales model to a focus on other types of customers.
This content was first published at IBC2016
The views expressed are those of the author.
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