NAB: Cisco targets smaller IPTV providers with new transcoders

LAS VEGAS – Although a minor presence at the NAB show with a meeting room and no exhibit, Cisco, like many other video gear makers, is targeting the tier-two and tier-three telco market with lower-cost headend solutions and a new partnership with Avail Media.

Cisco announced Tuesday that it is partnering with Avail Media on an end-to-end IPTV system and also is showing new DCM [digital content management] transcoders aimed at enabling smaller service providers to build less expensive headends.

Like other IPTV equipment vendors, Cisco is seeing independent telcos come back into the market, said Steven Soenens, director of product management for digital media networks at Cisco. “We built these products to be very cost-effective,” Soenens said. “They are high-density systems at attractive pricing.”

The new gear transcodes MPEG-2 to ADC video and can support up to 48 standard-definition video programs and 12 high-definition video programs in a 2-rack-unit box, Soenens said. The systems are modular and scalable in design and built on Cisco’s DCM hardware and software platform.

Cisco is also offering IPTV operators assistance in integrating an end-to-end IPTV solution, Soenens said. Cisco provides most of the equipment itself, although Cisco still works with third parties such as Microsoft for IPTV middleware.

The other attractive piece of a Cisco IPTV solution, Soenens said, is the telecom service provider’s ability to offer business data services off the same Cisco-powered infrastructure that is used to do video distribution. “It’s a matter of designing and engineering the network to do distribution of IPTV as well as fixed pipes to certain customers,” Soenens said.