Executive Thought Leadership

The Intelligent Video Network

The confluence of two trends—rapidly changing video technology and increasing competition among network service providers—is enabling a variety of new services. Newly empowered consumers are demanding a more customized experience. They are getting it thanks to the intelligent video network.

Consumers have a variety of choices for video services, including time-shifting, place-shifting, mobile video, and Web-delivered video. Increasingly, they select services that give them more control over what, when, and where they watch. The consumer's experience with each of these services is dependent on the capabilities of the intelligent video network.

What You Get

Consider how the network determines the variety of content available. In broadcast delivery mechanisms such as satellite television networks, the amount of content available depends on the number of satellite transponders. In telephone or cable networks, however, operators employ a variety of switching technologies. In these networks, some or all of the content is delivered only to the homes that request it.

Video-on-demand is perhaps the best known example: U.S. households requested more than one billion video sessions last year. Recently, network operators have begun offering services that allow consumers to restart broadcast programs or to select which content is stored in the network.

Increasingly, cable and telephone companies are implementing IP video networks to facilitate the switching of even more content. For telephone companies that plan to offer video services over their DSL networks, switching is a requirement because there is enough bandwidth into the home to offer only a few channels at any one time. Cable operators discovered that efficiencies gained by switching can make bandwidth available for other applications, such as high-definition television or higher-speed data services.

The new availability of content has substantial implications. Any content available anywhere in the world could be switched to any consumer who requests it. Regional sports, like cricket, could be available to expatriates anywhere in the world. Foreign-language programming could be available to multilingual consumers.

How It Looks and How It Feels

High-definition programming requires approximately five times the bandwidth of a standard digital channel. Networks can carry more high-definition content using advanced encoding technologies. The latest of these use less than half the bandwidth that the current digital video standard requires for high-definition programming. Deploying this new technology will make more highdefinition programming available to consumers.

Efficiency can also advance if the intelligent video network knows what kind of device is attached to it. An iPod screen, for instance, can display an acceptable image with far less data than a large plasma television needs. Future intelligent video networks could tune the data rate to the requirements of the user, providing the best video experience.

Similarly, the level of interactivity is dictated by the network. Today's intelligent video networks allow consumers to select content on demand. Tomorrow's may allow them to burn a DVD of content they select from a library, view caller ID on the television, or use a mobile phone to view content stored on a digital video recorder.

The Network Won't End at the Curb

The set-top box has evolved from an outlet that delivered 75 channels of analog video to the television into a key component of the intelligent network. A typical home in the United States has three or more televisions, one or more PCs, and a variety of stereo, DVD, and videogame products. Ultimately, digital content will flow among these devices. The set-top box is becoming a hub for digital content, a gateway for digital services, and a distribution point for a wide range of video services.

The home terminal extends the “trusted domain” in which copyrighted content is protected and isolated from pernicious viruses, spam, and popups. This is important to most consumers, who want the highest quality entertainment from a trusted source. It is equally important to the creative companies that put their capital at risk to develop original content.

By expanding the power of the intelligent network and extending it in the home, we can improve the quality of experience for the consumer while helping network service providers create new revenue streams from new services.

Conditions are in place in emerging markets for accelerated, sustained economic growth. In 2005, these countries accounted for more than 50% of the world's output and over 50% of the increase in global GDP.