Verismo looks to help TV competitors cross the streams

Crossing the streams is not a bad thing for TV service providers, and Verismo Networks is the latest vendor with a platform aimed at helping them marry linear TV and over-the-top Internet video applications.

The market is starting to see a number of vendors move toward hybrid platforms, some of them coming from a carrier market background, like thePlatform, to add on Internet video, and others, like Verismo, coming from the OTT video ranks to pursue hybridization.

Verismo this week announced its VuNow Internet TV distribution platform, which the company is aiming in particular at competitive service providers—yes, telcos, but also ISPs lacking a TV/video service bet and even new and existing cable TV companies expanding into new markets. Dhaval Ajmera, executive vice president of marketing and sales at Verismo Networks, said using the Internet as their path into new markets relieves them of the costs and risk associated with try to build or add to traditional network infrastructures. It could even allow them to extend their brands into international markets, he argued.

Verismo traditionally has worked as an OEM, and will have the new service provider platform manufactured through Wistron, Ajmera said. Though it appears at first glance to be just another alternative set-top box, Verismo’s goal is to get its integrated technology model into carrier data centers. “The set-top device is just a vehicle for our value-added services,” he said.

VuNow’s capabilities include linear TV channels; live OTT streaming to the TV; search-based video navigation; support for online social media applications on the TV; video-on-demand; USB connectivity to personal stored media; whole-house DVR; and support for digital rights management and electronic program guides. In addition, it can support VoIP and Internet access through a built-in router, providing a new TV competitor with the tantalizing potential to deliver triple-play service bundles as well.

“We are putting a triple-play gateway in the house,” Ajmera said. “At the same time, we are redefining the landscape for service providers, including MSOs, allowing them to expand their footprints.”

Verismo began working on VuNow last year as it looked for ways to incorporate linear content from service provider headends with its existing Internet offerings. “We migrated from being an OTT video retail box to being a service provider offering,” Ajmera said. “We have moved on from competing with the likes of Roku.”

However, in what’s arguably a case of moving from the frying pan into the fire, Verismo is coming to service providers just as an onslaught of Google TV-based devices appears likely. Also, while Verismo has worked with service providers like Net2Vu in the Caribbean, it has yet to announce any relationships with major U.S. service providers. Still, Ajmera says the market remains wide open.

“I don’t think most people know what Google TV is yet,” he said. “It’s software that will be the same for everybody. What we have is a platform service providers can customize.”