Alcatel-Lucent 5910 Video Services Appliance Assured and Optimized IPTV Delivery
The Alcatel-Lucent 5910 Video Services Appliance (VSA) delivers superior Quality of Experience (QoE) to IPTV users. It prevents visual and audio distortions as well as slow channel changes while avoiding large increments of bandwidth demand. As an IPTV service provider, the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA lets you offer high-revenue services such as High Definition TV (HD TV) as well as multiple, simultaneous video streams to the home, without worrying about escalating calls to the help desk, and increased customer churn. 2 Alcatel-Lucent 5910 Video Services Appliance
Confronting the IPTV Quality of Experience challenge IPTV is now a well-established service. By Q3 2008, it had reached 18 million subscribers globally. However, as an IPTV service provider, you are being challenged to evolve to the next level of IPTV with new and exciting services. That s because you have to compete with alternative TV delivery platforms, such as digital cable TV and digital satellite. Some of these new services include High Definition TV (HD TV) and multiple simultaneous video streams to the home. Your challenge, however, is that offering these services requires significantly more bandwidth on the connection to the home. That means having to use heavy video compression techniques such as MPEG-4 AVC. But this poses a problem. MPEG-4 AVC is more sensitive to packet loss than previous, less compression-efficient MPEG-2 technologies. As a result, end users will notice visual distortions more frequently. Additionally, channel change time can increase dramatically from one up to four seconds. With multi-room services, you also face the challenge of distributing video streams from the residential gateway to the Set-Top Boxes (STBs). Several cables can be laid in the home to which some customers are opposed; alternatively, you could resort to home networking techniques based on wireless connections such as WiFi or distribution over power lines; however, both of these options may be lossier than traditional CAT5/CAT6 wiring resulting, once again, in increased packet loss and visual distortion. To address these challenges, the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA lets you evolve your services to HD TV and multi-room offerings while delivering superior QoE. In fact, with this solution, your customers enjoy channel change times of only half a second with no visual or audio distortions at all. Alcatel-Lucent 5910 Video Services Appliance 3
Championing the new world order of IPTV Welcome to the new world order of IPTV. With the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA, you can now deliver High Definition TV (HD TV) and multiple, simultaneous video streams to the home, without causing visual distortion and without increasing time to channel change. The net result is competitive differentiation, new and more revenue, as well as reduced customer churn. With the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA s caching technique, channel change time is reduced from up to four seconds to less than half a second; in addition, visual and audio distortions caused by packet loss are eliminated. What s more, end-user concerns about laying unsightly cables in the house are now avoided. That s because new, lossier home networking technologies such WiFi and power line communications are able to deliver video streams from the residential gateway to multiple STBs in the home. As illustrated in Figure 1, the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA comprises four components: The Re-Wrapper that provides video stream analysis and conditioning for fast channel change and retransmission. The Fast Channel Change (FCC) and Retransmission (RET) Appliance that caches and forwards multicast video traffic The Client for Set-Top Boxes (STBs) that requests FCC and retransmission services from the appliance or the VoD servers. The Service Delivery Platform that manages all components of the product suite. Figure 1. Alcatel-Lucent 5910 Video Services Appliance Solution Alcatel-Lucent solution for delivery of a superior QoE to IPTV users Service delivery platform STB client appliance VoD server* STB client appliance Re-wrapper Video source STB client VoD server* * VoD retransmission is subject to the support of retransmission by the VoD server used and to the adaptations in the STB client to match the VoD server specifications. 4 Alcatel-Lucent 5910 Video Services Appliance
A unique solution For Fast Channel Change, the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA caches a few seconds of video streams in circular buffers. When the end user requests a channel change, the FCC client, which runs on the STB, requests that the buffered content be sent at an accelerated rate, and starting from an I-frame so that the video decoding can start immediately. If denting is activated, less important video frames are not forwarded. As a result, bandwidth remains low, while transmitting the content at an accelerated rate. Because, moreover, selective frame dropping is implemented, the picture quality is not significantly affected during the fast channel process. The Alcatel-Lucent Difference Other fast channel change solutions are available on the market today, but they either increase bandwidth in the DSL connections or suffer from poor picture quality during fast channel change. With the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA channel change solution, the channel can be changed without the overhead in bandwidth or visual distortion. For Packet Loss Recovery, the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA packet loss recovery solution is based on retransmission (RET). If the RET client running on the STB detects a missing packet, it requests the packet s retransmission. Depending on whether the service is broadcast TV or ondemand content, the request is addressed to the circular buffers in the appliance that caches the broadcast video streams, or to the VoD server. * The packet is retransmitted before it is needed for decoding. Retransmission only takes place when packets are lost, and only on those connections where the loss occurred. The Alcatel-Lucent Difference Compared to Forward Error Correction (FEC) widely available on the market today the Alcatel- Lucent 5910 VSA packet loss recovery solution saves you valuable bandwidth. Because FEC adds redundant information to the video stream from which lost packets are recovered, continuous bandwidth demands increase by as much as 20 percent on all customer connections. With the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA retransmission solution, you can also offer IPTV services on local loops where, formerly, there were too many transmission errors. * VoD retransmission is subject to the support of retransmission by the VoD server used and to the adaptations in the STB client to match the VoD server specifications. Alcatel-Lucent 5910 Video Services Appliance 5
Setting the standard for IPTV Quality of Experience The Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA solution places you in a competitive position versus other TV delivery platforms. It allows you to deliver innovative services while preserving the basic QoE provided by traditional TV delivery systems. Ease of installation and superior scalability For ease of installation, the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA can also be integrated with a wide range of IPTV middleware solutions available in the market. And, to further reduce operational expenses, it can be seamlessly introduced in existing networks without any changes to video head-ends. With some vendors, video encoders need to be upgraded or entirely replaced. But that s not the case with the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA, where the Re-Wrapper performs the necessary traffic conditioning. Furthermore, the split of functions in the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA between the centralized Re-Wrapper and the distributed appliances provides superior scalability. Occupying a central function, the Re-Wrapper performs video stream analysis and conditioning for for the whole network. This frees up the resources on the appliances that perform video stream caching and forwarding only. By contrast, other solutions perform video analysis on all appliances, consuming additional resources in all of them. 6 Alcatel-Lucent 5910 Video Services Appliance
A broader view The Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA is part of the Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture 2.0 strategy (TPSDA 2.0) TPSDA 2.0 is the evolution of TPSDA, powered by applications intelligence to assure and optimize content delivery, enabling you to take IPTV to the next level. Why Alcatel-Lucent Table 1. Features and Benefits of the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA Features Re-transmission of lost/ damaged packets Fast Channel Change Video denting IPTV middleware and conditional access system independent Standards-based (ETSI, DVB) Embedded appliance-based solution Carrier-grade high-availability Open, vendor-supported STB integration toolkit Benefits Visual distortions suppressed without significant increments in bandwidth demands Channel change time reduced to half a second with limited or no additional bandwidth demands when using denting Removal, reduction of burst associated with typical channel change solutions Ease of integration with a wide range of IPTV middleware solutions and conditional access systems available in the market Enhanced interoperability Network equipment manufacturer independent, low power, reduced footprint Flexible, hierarchical deployment from core to Central Office (CO) 5 nines compliant Facilitates the integration of the client in STBs As your IPTV partner, Alcatel-Lucent is committed to meeting your IPTV requirements. Our products and solutions have been field-proven and tested around the world. That s why the Alcatel-Lucent 5910 VSA can play a critical role in your evolution of IPTV. With this solution, you will be able to deliver higher revenue services and the Quality of Experience your customers want and expect. Central to its commitment to IPTV, Alcatel-Lucent is also building simplified solutions for delivering interactive content across IPTV, mobile devices and the Internet. Alcatel-Lucent is also the leading vendor in TPSDA with more than 50 operators globally. Alcatel-Lucent 5910 Video Services Appliance 7
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