Ericsson offering cloud DVR

Ericsson has launched a cloud DVR solution, which it said is applicable to all QAM and IP-based TV platforms.
Ericsson already had live, linear and on-demand video capabilities, as well as traditional DVR capabilities with its Mediaroom TV Platform. But with the $95 million acquisition of cloud-based video specialist Fabrix Systems last fall, the company picked up the ability to help operators shift all DVR functions from the home to the cloud.
The company will help customers build their own infrastructure and will also offer cloud DVR on a software as a service (SaaS) model. Fabrix VP sales and marketing Mario Rainville said “While Cloud DVR functionality will be a proposition of our new MediaFirst Cloud TV platform that is offered with a SaaS model, predominantly the proposition from Ericsson for Cloud DVR today is on-premises."
Ericsson can perform the system integration, if the customer desires. “We are hardware agnostic and can provide heterogeneous support,” Rainville said. Service providers to use commercial off the shelf (COTS) hardware of their choice, as well as back office solutions or CDNs of their choice.
Rainville said Ericsson’s cloud DVR solution can enable service providers to make linear content available to their viewers rapidly after initial broadcast.
With the Ericsson Video and Storage Processing platform (VSPP) part of the solution, he said, “Live content is ingested in real-time. Ingest commences as soon as the beginning of the content is available. We enable a ‘pause live TV’ feature. This feature allows the TV consumer to pause the live TV channel that he is currently tuned on at any given moment in order to take a break and resume the playout from the pausing point, in a normal or trick play mode, at any convenient time.
The company said its Video Storage and Processing Platform also enables multiple video storage and video processing applications that include:

• Master video library – Scale-out storage providing the ability to ingest, process and ubiquitously stream master or “gold copies’ of licensed content
• Long tail server – Allows operators to store and deliver less popular, or long tail, content directly from a large, central storage vault, eliminating the need to replicate entire libraries at the edge of the network
• Dynamic origin server – High performance scale-out storage has integrated recording, storage, and delivery functions
• CDN (content delivery network) assist – Allows operators to expand their library and adaptively stream content over-the-top, as well as to legacy systems
• Enhanced VOD – ­Improves performance, flexibility, and scale in VOD solutions