The key Digital Cable services are the real-time broadcast service，the on-demand VOD service and the Time-Shifted TV service.
Aviva’s Time-Shifted TV, or Network PVR, function helps the cable operators offer the most attractive interactive cable service. Operators can select a number of channels (or all of them) as the Time-Shifted TV channels. Our server will then record all the programs on these channels to the SAN storage 24 hours a day for a number of days, while the programs are being broadcasted live. A subscriber can choose to pause the current TV channel from the STB to do other things and come back later to continue the program, or to rewind to review a certain portion of the program again, or to fast-forward to catch up to the current broadcast. He/She can also use the on screen EPG (Electronic Program Guide) to search a previous program on any of the channels that he/she has missed to review it just like watching a VOD movie, with the FF/REW/PAUSE control. With this service, a subscriber will never miss any program on any channel and he/she does not have to wait for a rerun of the program, which may or may not happen in the future.
Aviva’s EPG and middleware help subscribers very easily choose the live TV channel or the VOD movie to watch. The EPG can easily be updated from Aviva’s OSS (Operations Support System) with XML files.
Aviva’s OSS helps the operator to manage the subscribers, offer very flexible subscription package, manage contents, broadcast programs, accounting, transaction log, viewing statistics, etc.
Aviva’s SAN products offer from 2TB to hundreds of TB of storage for VOD and Network PVR contents.
Aviva’s VOD server supports from several hundred to several hundred thousand concurrent streams. The VOD system is very scalable and very stable. Aviva offers various hardware platforms from our world-class OEM partners to support large and small deployments. These platforms have been fully integrated and tested with our software and middleware. For example, the VOD server can be a 1U high or 2U high server with integrated RAID storage for a 1,000 room hotel entertainment system, or multiple interconnected blade servers where each 7U high blade server supports 10,000 concurrent streams for a large deployment.
On the integration of middleware, Aviva can work with any existent Set-top-box that the cable operator already owns. Aviva’s browser based approach is easy to integrate.
Usually the live broadcast channel programs come from the satellite. Operators use the DVB-S STB to decode one program and feed it to the transcoder from the A/V interface. The solution uses hundreds of DVB-S STBs and many satellite RF signal splitters. The video quality is degraded because the video source is converted from digital to analog and digital again.
Aviva’s solution is to use the satellite receiver (professional level, with ASI output) to receive the RF signal and outputs it to an ASI port. The ASI port carries from 6 to 15 programs in digital MPTS format. The MPTS stream feeds into Aviva’s AD800 ASI-to-IP Demultiplexer. Each AD800 has up to 8 ASI ports. Each 1U high AD800 can demultiplex up to 120 programs and outputs them in multiple SPTS IP streams via a Gigabit Ethernet port. This solution is clean and easy to manage. It saves all the MPEG-2 encoders, 6 to 15 times of DVB-S STBs, the management of these STBs, the many A/V signal lines and the many RF signal splitters. On top of all that, it saves lots of space and power in the headend machine room.
Furthermore, Aviva’s latest SD100 integrates the satellite receiver with the demultiplexer to create a compact IRD with IP output and multiple SPTS streams. This product save even more equipment and space than the above solution.
Aviva’s strong engineering team, with extensive deployment experiences, has developed many practical products for the digital service deployment. Our total solution can help cable operators deploy the interactive services in a very short time, without the messy integration problems of mixing various hardware and software products from different vendors. We welcome your inquiry and we will help you seamlessly deploy the digital cable services.