BigBand’s big bang: Personalized video services

BigBand Networks today launched what it sees as the next big thing in digital video networking for both cable and telecom companies – a scalable media services platform to enable development of differentiated services including personalized offerings in a cost-efficient way.

BigBand, which earned its video stripes initially in the cable industry and now counts Verizon, SureWest and other telcos among its digital video transport customers, is trying to address a common problem of video service providers: how to create new revenue services on the existing digital video platforms in a way that is scalable and doesn’t require the deployment of multiple new boxes with their accompanying management and operations systems, or massive upgrades to or replacement of existing equipment such as set-top boxes.

The BigBand MSP2000 addresses this issue by moving away from the current traditional method of distributing video in a tree and branch model to a switched digital video approach and by combining network processing and media processing in one platform. With 200 gigabits per second throughput, the MSP2000 can deliver services such as targeted advertising, personalized electronic program guides and ad insertion, said John Reister, chief architect for IPTV at BigBand. The system is network-agnostic and supports standard video formats.

The system is already being tested by multiple service providers, Reister said.

“We have been involved in the fringes of IPTV, and now we are moving into it in a big way,” Reister said. “We have developed this system by talking to our customer base.”

BigBand is attempting to solve some big issues related to more customized video offerings by combining media processing and network processing, Reister said. “To offer personalized video, service providers need to have media processing that can scale to match high demands for Quality of Service,” he said. “This system can manipulate MPEG video streams and audio codecs, tracking the stream to decide how to buffer for overflow and underflow, monitor programming – looking up to Layer 7 of the network to see that streams have integrity and nothing is missing.”