Set Top Box 2008 + Interface 2008

October 6 - Set Top Box 2009
8:00 - 9:00	Registration and Breakfast
9:00 - 9:45	Keynote Presentation Emerging Trends and Driving Adoption for Mobile TV with Interactive Services Navin Mehta, Vice President Motorola Application Services and Mobile Video, Motorola Inc Today’s lifestyle has consumers wanting to view personalized TV content at their convenience on devices that satisfy the entertainment experience. Mobile TV epitomizes the union of entertainment and telecommunication media and is poised to revolutionize the entire personalized experience of TV and multimedia services on a “mobile device”. It spans two industries, broadcast and mobile telecommunications. It creates an environment that has opportunities for all stakeholders. As with the introduction of many new services and experiences, there are standards battles, as with most new technologies. The presentation will discuss how the adoption of broadcast technologies such as DVB-H, STiMi, etc will vary depending on the regional dynamics. That said, for most stakeholders, the business models chosen and relationships structured will be more important than the technology standards. Successful offerings will have a combination of compelling content, cost effective delivery, and new value for the value chain. Interactivity is part of the unique value that cellular operators bring to the table with wireless broadband technologies. Interactivity could also be the factor that accelerates Mobile TV from just another application, to a “must have” application. The challenge for an operator to achieve interactivity is in system integration, service delivery, interactive services framework and user interface. It is crucial for an operator to provide services that can integrate the technologies involved, and deliver a seamless experience to end-users. In this presentation, the Motorola speaker will discuss the business models, ecosystem and value added services that needs to be in place to drive adoption and to maximize revenue to the value chain.
9:45 - 10:00	Break (Exhibits Open)
10:00 - 10:45	Donner Pass Ballroom
	STB Functionality vs. New Device Paradigms: Techniques to Enable Effective Competition And Revenue Generation Wade Vesey, CEO and President - Movial North America In this session, Wade Vesey, CEO and President of Movial North America, explores the required functionality of the STB to compete with new device paradigms in the home, such as media phones, smartbooks and video thin clients. Such requirements include development of expansive UI/UE interfaces to other competing devices for converged offerings, as well as new methodology for revenue generation. Use cases will focus on current trends in Europe and Asia as well as look at the US marketplace in the next five years.
	Siskiyou Ballroom
	Show Me the Money! Monetizing the Personalized Video Experience John Reister, Chief IPTV Architect, BigBand Networks Service providers today want to offer a compelling viewing experience, responding to viewers’ expectation for personalized services – customized to their interests and available when they want it, and on the screen/device of their choice. As personalization comes in many flavors and sizes, operators are looking for scalable and cost effective services that enable a smooth and efficient migration from broadcast to personalized TV experience. This presentation will discuss the various components of monetizing the personalized TV experience, including addressable advertising and IP video. It will explore the migration path from today’s zoned-based advertising to true individualized, addressable advertising. It will provide critical insights into the era of IP-centric video services, discussing technologies that use existing infrastcture for a seamless transition to a cost efficient IP video delivery for personalized services. The presentation will also share key insights and takeaways from deployments worldwide of personalized video services and addressable advertising – for a compelling viewer experience.
	Cascade Ballroom
	Content With Access to Content? How the Digital Transformation is Shaping Consumer Demand for Access to Media Content of All Types Richard Bullwinkle - Rovi As consumers continue to embrace the digital transformation, there is growing demand for access and acquisition of digital entertainment media content of all types—directly to the television screen. With more content providers emerging on the scene, and consumer demand for broadcast, Internet, cable, premium or personal content, the set-top box will need to evolve to play a critical function in bringing many services to the consumer through one device. At the same time, the television guide will also play a pivotal role in helping consumers manage and discover all of the media content that is available to them, providing a personalized and interactive interface. This session will take a look at how the digital era is changing the home entertainment experience of the future; the need for the ecosystem to integrate and partner to make it easier for consumers to find what they want, when they want it; and the challenges in retaining customers in an increasingly over-the-top world. There is a need for set-top boxes in the industry to go beyond manufacturing for service providers solely, and be inclusive of the services of other content providers as well, resulting in a device solution that provides increased flexibility for the consumer while still adhering to standards set by the industry.
10:45 - 11:00	Break (Exhibits Open)
11:00 - 11:45	Donner Pass Ballroom
	The Future of Whole-Home Entertainment Networking Nadav Katsir, Vice President of Business Development, CopperGate Communications, Inc. The future of whole-home networking already exists in customers’ homes: coaxial cable, phoneline, and powerline. As new IP-enabled products and services push the need for greater bandwidth, it is becoming clear that Wi-Fi can’t handle it all. Adequate for mobile devices, Wi-Fi continues to fall short of network demands for delivering multiple carrier-grade video streams. Existing wires, on the other hand, offer bandwidth with headroom for all media-rich applications today and key applications of the future. In this speech, Nadav Katsir, VP of Business Development at CopperGate Communications Inc., will describe the integrated whole-home entertainment network for computing, gaming, TV watching, file sharing and other day-to-day household activities. Soon these capabilities – along with futuristic applications such as the smart grid – will migrate to a single “mesh” network of existing wires that are robust, reliable, cost-effective and plug & play. Mr. Katsir will discuss the emerging G.hn standard for wired home networks and how wireless technology will fit into the wholly connected home.
	Siskiyou Ballroom
	Bringing OTT Into The Fold Mark Evensen, Co-founder & VP of Prod Development - Entone The tipping point for IPTV is behind us, with more than 20M homes now paying the phone company for their television service. While success stories abound, the first generation of IPTV services has essentially equated to me-too CATV services delivered over telco networks. In a parallel universe, Internet television has taken hold, with billions of videos viewed online each month, and millions of television episodes consumed online rather than via a managed Pay TV service. So-called over-the-top (OTT) services create a major threat to Pay TV service operators, whether Cable, Satellite, or Telco, as they make content available online and on-demand without the monthly subscription hurdle. This session will explore the threats and opportunities that OTT services present for today’s Pay TV service operators. The speaker will present a vision of next generation IPTV services, or IPTV 2.0, which will need to embrace OTT offerings in order to enhance the value of a managed service offering in contrast to a growing array of free online video delivery models. The speaker will also touch upon the challenges of supporting next generation TV services in increasingly networked homes.
	Cascade Ballroom
	The Next Generation of Interactive Guides: How Unified Search Will Empower Users Steve Tranter - NDS The explosion of devices and content are a blessing and a curse. More content than you could dream up, but coming from dozens or hundreds (or thousands!) of sources and able to be viewed across a plethora of devices? Confusing and nigh on impossible for users to manage. Here we’ll discuss the next generation guide, how a unified vision across devices will enable users to discover valuable content, and how new technologies such as Tru2Way are enabling the future of search. With numerous devices through which to search for and ultimately view the content on, is there room for an uber-guide that will allow the viewer to find and manage content across all devices? We will look at some of the early versions of such uber-guides, for example www.locatetv.com and show how they will fit into the viewing experience and benefit operators, content providers and viewers alike.
11:45 - 1:00	Lunch
1:00 - 1:45	Donner Pass Ballroom
	IPTV A Hybrid Approach Robin Wilson - Nagravision IPTV is often considered as a solely as a pure play. In doing so, the true value of IPTV, particularly in emerging markets, is overlooked.Since very few deployments can afford the full bandwidth to support multiple TV sets in a home at HDTV resolutions, the combination of “broadcast” and IPTV can be compelling.The addition of local storage in the form of a PVR further strengthens they value of this “hybrid” IPTV business model. This presentation looks at the strengths and weaknesses of complimentary IPTV and Broadcast delivery mechanisms and suggests how efficient solutions can be deployed using hybrid set-top boxes with multiple inputs for broadcast and IPTV signals. In addition to telco applications, this approach can also be used in a cable plant where the DOCSIS infrastructure can supply the IPTV signals to compliment traditional cable.
	Siskiyou Ballroom
	Anywhere, Anytime Content Delivery: Myth or Reality? Mark Ely, Executive Vice President of Strategy - Sonic Solutions An overview of the current market conditions and consumer sensibilities related to the multi-screen access of premium entertainment including perspectives on current related industry consortiums and organizations as well as time to market for industry standards. Also included will be a breakdown of the key technologies involved in multi-format delivery such as Digital Rights Management, Video Encoding and Optimization, Adaptive Streaming, ‘Cloud’ storage. Sonic will also provide insights into what’s in the market today and options available to operators and content owners.
	Cascade Ballroom
	The Importance of Contextualization Steve Tranter - NDS The value of integrating TV and Internet content is obvious, but the form and functionality to date varies wildly. To be successful, broadcasters need to focus on contextualization – providing value added video and content in context with programming -- rather than trying to replicate the Internet experience with a television. The enabling technology is here today, and numerous companies have deployed it to great success and profitability. In this presentation we’ll examine the most effective use cases to date, including how broadband providers can manage and control content.
1:45 - 2:00	Lunch (Exhibits Open)
2:00 - 2:45	Donner Pass Ballroom
	Internet TV -- Redefining the Line Between Broadband and Broadcast Content Evan Young, Senior Director of Broadband Services, TiVo Inc. The Internet is redefining television. With services such as Netflix Instant Watch, Amazon VOD, YouTube and more delivering Web content directly to the television, the television experience has transformed. Web content is now creating an on-demand world for consumers, so what does that mean for the industry? Plus, with the ability to retrieve both broadcast and broadband content, choices are virtually limitless. How do we sift through the clutter and get what we want?
	Siskiyou Ballroom
	HDMI® 1.4, LiquidHD™ and The Evolution Of The Set Top Box Alex Chervet, Director of Strategic Marketing - Silicon Image, Inc. As the CE market continues to rapidly evolve, today’s consumers want to enjoy their digital content on any one of their display devices, whenever and wherever they choose. And, they are interested in bringing the digital cinema experience into the home, especially stereoscopic 3D movies. Silicon Image envisions a future where consumers have this access to any source from any display at any time, and it all starts with the Set Top Box (STB). The recently introduced HDMI 1.4 specification adds new and compelling capabilities to the STB, including HDMI Ethernet Channel, stereoscopic 3D and higher resolution, among others. There is also a trend in adding HDMI inputs to a STB so that the service operator can overlay graphics on top of video coming in from a game system, DVD or Blu-Ray player. Layer on top of the HDMI 1.4 specification Silicon Image’s LiquidHD technology and the intelligence is added to the consumer electronics device enabling them to discover each other, securely stream media and project UIs and applications throughout the home. For example, with LiquidHD a person now has the ability to start watching a Blu-Ray or DVR show in the living room, pause it and resume watching in another room. All of these advances will be addressed and explored in Rob’s track as part of the evolution of the STB.
	Cascade Ballroom
	What Makes A Set-Top Box Database System 'In-Memory'? Steve Graves, President and CEO - McObject In-memory database systems (IMDSs) are held out as the ideal software solution for storing and managing programming guide information and other critical data within set-top boxes. IMDSs never go to disk; as a result, they deliver performance that is an order of magnitude faster than traditional ("on-disk") database systems. But what is unique about IMDSs versus caching, RAM-disks, "memory tables", and solid-state disks? In fact, the differences are significant, and can be critical to your set-top box embedded software projects. Join McObject CEO Steve Graves to explore this topic, including the limitations (and burden) of database caching; avoiding data transfer and duplication; volatility and recoverability; impacts of SSDs and other non-volatile memory, and more. Gain ideas and techniques for building better, faster set-top box software.
2:45 - 3:00	Break (Exhibits Open)
3:00 - 3:45	Donner Pass Ballroom
	Media Snacking with Motorola TuVista for Sports Entertainment Venkat Eswara - Motorola Today’s consumers are looking for personal media experiences – access to content on their terms – targeted at the rich media mobile devices they carry. The ability to create and deliver rich media bundles to these consumers is the challenge facing today’s service and content providers. Through its vision of media mobility, Motorola’s TuVista software solution delivers media bundles to sports fans who desire this rich immersive experience at the sporting event or when beyond the home. Mobile entertainment is one of the key categories for growth that enables personalized media on the go experiences with a variety of mobile video and mobile TV solutions. Motorola TuVista solution is specifically developed for verticals, such as sports, events and music concerts, to deliver media bundles to end-users who desire rich interactive experiences and social networking with the intent to ultimately drive the “fan experience”. The Motorola speaker will discuss how TuVista solution can deliver personalized entertainment services with rich media content before, during, and after the event to fans’ mobile devices. Designed as a complete, scalable, network and device-agnostic software solution, Motorola TuVista enables content providers, event hosts, MNOs, and advertisers to offer a value-added service to their end users. In addition, the speaker will also showcase media bundle experiences as part of TuVista solution.
	Siskiyou Ballroom
	The Entertainment Data Ecosystem: Cable, Telco, High Definition, Satellite - Defining the Future of Entertainment Andy Heinz, the Executive Director - TMS Entertainment Products Abstract: This session will explore how entertainment metadata and content impacts viewers at the point of decision and beyond. Data is a key driver of program search and discovery of video content across all platforms. With more than 100 million people relying on entertainment navigation applications each day, demand to connect viewers to their favorite shows, celebrities and movies has never been higher. With thousands of media clients across the globe, TMS takes you behind-the-scenes to discuss how richer, deeper and interconnected content delivers the entertainment information consumers want, when and how they want it.
3:45 - 4:00	Break (Exhibits Open)
4:00 - 4:45	Donner Pass Ballroom
	The Mobile Video Revolution: New Opportunities, New Challenges David Price - Harmonic Advances in compression technology, improvements in internet and mobile capacity, arrival of TV friendly devices such as iPhone, and growing user demand are driving toward the creation of the mobile video revolution. Advanced video compression and transcoding technology produces better video quality with less bit rate, and has ability to generate multiple different profiles cost effectively to match various hand held devices. Network infrastructure upgrade provides much bigger pipe in the backbone and WiFi, 3G, WiMAX, and LTE enables much faster edge connectivity. iPhone is the most disruptive technology thus far in the Mobile video space. It will reshape media delivery over mobile operators’ networks as well as over WiFi. Statistics shows that video on the iPhone brings 2 to 3 times more eyeballs than other smartphones, which is a key factor for advertisers and content providers. Convergence is a hot topic today. We see the trend from linear broadcasting to time-shifting and on demand, from single TV screen to PC and hand held devices. It is believed that multi-screen applications are likely be very important for video distribution within the next few years. In this presentation, we will discuss the following: 1. What are the mobile multi-media strategies? What lessons can be learnt from past mobile broadcast deployments? 2. How will IPTV and triple play affect the market? 3. What are the new challenges and opportunities for broadcasters?
	Siskiyou Ballroom
	Finally, True Interactivity: Navigating the Web/Home Media on the TV Screen Parag Sheth, VP of Corporate Marketing, Hillcrest Labs According to a recent CEA report, there are now more than seven million U.S. households where a personal computer is connected to home television sets. With the increasing volume of content from the PC that viewers can interact with on the TV screen (movie sites, music sites, photo sites, personal photos, home videos) – consumers need new methods to browse, discover and interact with digital media in the living room. This presentation will discuss innovations that enable a truly personalized TV experience – for consumers who browse the Web and watch home media content on the TV screen. In a world of large volumes of digital media, there are new technologies that enable a compelling user experience – including interactive media systems, motion-controlled tools, and unique graphic user interfaces. The session will also address the various business models for technologies that enable interaction and discovery with digital content on the TV: Direct-to-consumers products, licensing or white-labeling of solutions, and other ways to answer various industry needs today.


October 7 - Set Top Box 2009
9:00 - 9:45	Keynote Presentation The Connected Life: More Personal, More Access, More Interactive Dr. Ken Morse, CTO, Cisco, Service Provider Video Technology Group Consumers crave personalized access to interactive entertainment, communications and information content whenever and however they want it, without being tied down to just one device. It is estimated that, by 2012, video will comprise 90 percent of all consumer Internet traffic. For telco and cable operators, this means a significant opportunity to increase customer loyalty and revenue, but they also face a competitive landscape and a crowded market with alternative over-the-top services. This keynote presentation will focus on what needs to happen across the value chain in order to deliver the next generation customer experience, and how to offer customized end-to-end solution.
9:45 - 10:00	Break
10:00 - 10:45	Donner Pass Ballroom
	Challenge of VOD and Advanced User Experiences Justin Hewelt, Director - PayMedia Consulting Group Around the world, many operators are revisiting their guides and user experience to make use of the capabilities of a new generation of set-top boxes and to ensure that the dominance of Pay TV platforms is not undermined by broadband enabled products sold in retail. Satellite operators that are introducing hybrid products, as well as traditional cable and emerging IPTV providers are all struggling with the various concepts of on-demand content and where to place it in the user experience. Justin’s presentation will use video-based case-studies to illustrate different approaches to the presentation of VOD and will discuss the challenges that operators face in making on demand content a mainstream product.
	Siskiyou Ballroom
	Real Time Visibility of IPTV Subscriber Experience and Viewing Activity Dr. Alan Clark, Founder and President - Telchemy, Inc. The Next Generation IPTV Performance Management Architecture uses Set Top Box based software agents to give service providers real time visibility of the subscriber quality of experience, by channel and across all channels, and subscriber viewing activity. This unlocks a wealth of information that allows the service provider to quickly detect and react to problems or issues and to understand their subscriber behavior. This architecture can be applied to conventional, OTT (Over The Top), Mobile and Satellite IPTV services and to digital cable services. Viewing activity data provides real time information on the number of viewers by channel, distribution of time spent on channel, channel surfing/ hopping behavior which provides a wealth of useful data for marketing and planning.
	Cascade Ballroom
	Next Generation TV – Managing Usage Rights in a Multi-DRM World Steve Christian, VP of Marketing - Verimatrix Pay-TV operators are increasingly requiring 3-screen support in their attempts to offer compelling services. The objective is to improve subscriber uptake and loyalty by targeting the widest possible audience, anywhere and anytime. They are looking to content security suppliers to solve the “transparency problem” that has bedeviled the music. Content security products should support a diversity of receivers, over both RF and IP networks, whether for fixed or mobile reception, whether over broadcast or cellular networks, complying with standards such as DVB, IP, 3G and WiMax. Traditionally pay-TV operators use proprietary CA systems, sometimes needing to deploy different ones for the various networks and device types. There is also a proliferation of incompatible DRM systems, especially for PCs and mobile devices, which often come pre-installed. So the challenge becomes even greater: How to serve a wide diversity of devices that deploy different DRM schemes from a single head-end? How to enable content consumption on devices with different DRM clients that are not provided by the service operator? How to encourage more content consumption considering the barriers imposed by incompatible DRM systems? This presentation will discuss the requirements of a common Content Authority Architecture to all types of devices and networks from a single head-end.
10:45 - 11:00	Break
11:00 - 11:45	Donner Pass Ballroom
	BD-Live Blu-Ray the Untapped "Trojan Horse" for Provider Applications Glenn Algie, Senior Video Solutions Architect - Nortel This presentation/paper will discuss why internet connected blu-ray players is a far more powerful and cost effective apps delivery vehicle for providers to tap into now and bring their existing multimedia apps to their existing subscribers TV at much lower capex. BD-Live has a open and published set of APIs and multiple text books issued, as opposed to a very much still proprietary per vendor IPTV set of brotherand STBs with its struggling standards and also challenges the heavily licensed and mature food chain of cable STB vendors. Providers are very much unaware of the hidden multimedia rich applications enabling technology gems that BD-live enabled blu-ray clients already have and has a growing technology momentum even in these economic hard times, thanks to the advanced developer community for the last 4 years actively fueling key BD-live client and server technology enablers via the many lead Hollywood studios and lead CEA vendor developer shops. Listen and learn how this is a yet uptapped go to market opportunity for the Providers Applications community that includes opportunities for 3 screen applications velocity deployments that todays Provider purpose built STBs can not catch up to. BD-live birthed from a Cable Labs and Mobile Handset Java CDC set of standard APIs, so it carries a trusted endpoint capability and a secured set of technology enablers, along with a 3 screen enabled apps software portability already in place. With addressable market volume forecasts tracking to 20 million deployed BD-live players in US homes by end of this year as well as UK and Germany ramping deployments worth noting. Forecasts are still tracking to 2-3 times that volume in North America by 2011. So this media rich enabled interent connected device at the TV screen is something Providers must pay attention to as soon 2 out of 3 homes in its existing subscriber base in North America will have one. If not tapped by Providers apps it is and will be tapped in by their over the top emerging application service provider competitors.
	Siskiyou Ballroom
	Internet Video to the TV and its Impact on the STB Market Colin Dixon - The Diffusion Group As more and more services are announced that aim to deliver Internet Video directly to the TV screen the role of the STB seems to become less and less clear. From Game Consoles to BluRay players everyone wants to own the Internet TV experience. In this session we will examine the dynamics driving this market and look at its impact on the STB market. We’ll look at the global market and discuss ways STB makers can differentiate themselves in this increasingly crowded marketplace.
	Cascade Ballroom
	On Gateways and Clients Tom Lookabaugh, Chief Technology Officer - Entropic Communications Service providers – satellite, cable, and telephone companies – traditionally deliver services from the core of the network to terminals on the edge. But this paradigm seems to be shifting across the board to a new one: separating access networks from home networks using a gateway. This makes good sense: home networks are getting more capable and ubiquitous and evolve at a different rate from access networks, and more than one network of each type may need to interface at the boundary of the home. Interestingly, this is essentially independent of an equally important trend to source content and computation “in the cloud” and its counterpart, the tendency to exploit cheap storage to cache content at multiple points in the network. How can we make sense of these co-evolving trends? How do the important access technologies, such as PON variants, DOCSIS 3, wireless access, and DBS networks, intersect at the gateway with the important home network technologies, such as 802.11 and MoCA, and what are the implications for set-top box and other clients?
11:45 - 1:00	Lunch
1:00 - 1:45	Donner Pass Ballroom
	Driving User Adoption With Voice User Interface Brian K. Radloff, Director, WW Embedded Solutions Architects - Mobile Speech Division - Nuance Set-top boxes offer consumers access to almost unlimited content. But the more choices there are, the more difficult it becomes for the user to control all the options. A voice user interface is an important element to unlock the endless opportunities. It allows the users to simply command their set-top box by voice: Speaking the name of the program they want to watch or the music they want to listen, navigating through the program guide by voice or searching for specific content. Simplifying the user interface and providing a better user experience is key for driving user adoption.
	Siskiyou Ballroom
	Enabling & Connecting the Three Screen Ecosystem Leslie Chard, President of WHDI (Wireless Home Digital Interface) LLC Enabling and connecting the three screen ecosystem (TV, PC & Mobile) has been an elusive goal for consumers, device makers and content providers - adding video to the mix only adds to the challenge of seamlessly connecting three screens and integrating them into the same ecosystem. Wires aren’t the answer when integrating and connecting the three screen ecosystem, especially considering mobile devices – wireless connections are the best answer. Factors to consider: Cost, Power consumption, Multi-room capability, Robustness, Ease of use. This session will examine the technologies, provide insight and answers into what can work to connect and integrate these devices seamlessly into the same ecosystem.
	Cascade Ballroom
	Possible Impact of Adoption of DOCSIS3.0 Standard by MSOs on Delivery of IP Video to Consumers’ Homes Mark Bugajski, VP Advanced Technology - ARRIS Group This presentation will cover opportunities associated with deployment of channel-bonded broadband access by cable operators. The new very high speed (multiples of 40mbps) delivery pipe offers possibilities to significantly reduce the CAPEX costs per stream of the access infrastructure by taking advantage of improved efficiency of statistical multiplexing of multiple Variable Bit Rate encoded and formatted video. Preliminary results of the efficiency gains studies done on HD and SD content will be discussed. Adoption of DOCSIS3.0 may impact the in-home architecture of the delivery system with several possible options for gateway devices and subtending thin IP clients. Armed with advanced Quality of Service control mechanism, cable operators will have more options to move service intelligence into the Head End, while adopting and connecting to simpler, own and 3rd party IP display devices.