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Ericsson trials TV Anywhere

Ericsson is launching a video over LTE system for TV Anywhere services and has demonstrated two methods for Ultra HD transmission to the EBU's Production Technology Seminar.

Ericsson is launching a video over LTE system for TV Anywhere services and has demonstrated two methods for Ultra HD transmission to the EBU’s Production Technology Seminar. Responding to the growing consumer demand for TV Anywhere services, Ericsson will launch a video over LTE system that it claims will enable operators and their media partners to provide premium services with a guaranteed quality of delivery (without buffering). Australian mobile network operator Telstra is to start trials on its live network in the second half of this year. Verizon Wireless is to introduce LTE Broadcast for entertainment and sporting events beginning in 2014 Ericsson’s LTE Broadcast solution consists of three emerging technology standards: HEVC – the new video compression standard that promises to halve the bandwidth required to transport video content compared to MPEG-4 AVC; MPEG-DASH, which simplifies and standardises the adaptive bitrate delivery of video to consumer devices; eMBMS (Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service) – a 3GPP standard that enables mobile networks to offer broadcast or multicast services dynamically to offload issues of popular content in dense consumption scenarios, reducing the cost of service delivery over the radio network and for backhaul. The company’s research shows that 67% of consumers use mobile devices (tablet, laptop or smartphone) for consumption of TV services. Furthermore the research shows that more than 50% of TV consumption on smartphones happens outside of the home on mobile networks. The new video-over-LTE system meets the needs for greater efficiency in the delivery of content to all devices and greater personalisation of TV experiences, it said. As consumers demand access to their media content on all of their devices, TV and video traffic is set to dominate networks and grow from 40% to 90% of mobile traffic within the next 3-4 years. The result is increasing pressure on operators to enable their customers to enjoy the TV Anywhere experience, while at the same time managing network costs and efficiency. Parissa Pandkhou, director of advanced solutions at Verizon, said the telco plans to introduce the system “to give sports fans a whole new experience while watching a game. We see new opportunities in this technology for sports, concerts and even distance learning and college classes.” Telstra’s executive director for networks and access technology, Mike Wright said: “The trial will show how we can improve the delivery of video to customers who want to enjoy the video content on the move. The key for this solution is the greater network efficiency it will provide, ensuring we will be able to meet a critical business imperative of giving our technology savvy customers the services they want.” Ulf Ewaldsson, SVP and CTO, Ericsson added: “We are the only vendor that can blend insight on consumer habits, deep mobile networks expertise and 20 years of video compression technology leadership to help operators maximise the revenue opportunity represented by this rapid evolution in media consumption.” Live Ultra HD TV At the EBU’s Production Technology Seminar in Geneva recently, Ericsson used its encoding technology to demonstrate how live Ultra HD TV could be enabled. Central to both parts of the demonstration was the Simulsync synchronization technique that Ericsson uses for synchronising the left and right channels of 3D contribution feeds. In this case, the UHDTV 4Kp25 content feed was split into four 1080p25 quadrants, synchronously encoded into MPEG-4 AVC, and transmitted. Four receivers, in phase lock, decoded the received bitstream to reproduce a 4Kp25 content feed. During the seminar, Ericsson also demonstrated an end-to-end MPEG-4 AVC 4:2:2 10-bit precision 4K UHDTV system capable of 4Kp50 transmission. The set up used Ericsson’s AVP 2000 contribution encoders and RX8200 advanced modular receivers. “The solution gives broadcasters the ideal opportunity to gain experience with 4K workflows and build a library of contribution-quality 4K content, ready for the launch of 4K direct to the home, a prospect that we predict for 2015,” said Dr Giles Wilson, Head of TV Compression Business, Ericsson. Adrian Pennington www.ericsson.com