BigBand to unveil managed HTTP adaptive streaming

Switched Digital Video gear vendor BigBand Network has big plans for next week’s CableLabs Winter Conference 2011 in Atlanta. The company will announce a hybrid approach to managing HTTP adaptive streaming traffic that will help service providers deliver content to more screens through devices like tablet PCs, video game consoles, netbooks and PCs.

Notably, the new approach also uses a new technique called quality-based bandwidth allocation to manage quality of the viewing experience across these different devices.

BigBand said standard adaptive streaming over HTTP does not do enough to enable efficient use of the resources of the video delivery network because there is no visibility into other devices engaged in sessions on the same bandwidth. Managed adaptive streaming with a hybrid view would incorporate all video oriented aspects of session management and dynamic network resources allocation, BigBand said, adding that service providers would be better positioned to monetize both their legacy video traffic and traffic being consumed by IP-connected devices with new IP-targeted services.

Also at the conference, BigBand will demonstrate advances in its ultra dense QAM for the BigBand Multimedia Services Platform that support efficient bandwidth sharing across multiple applications.