First Published December 2020, The IABM Journal : https://theiabm.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Journal-115-2020-for-web.pdf
Pablo Rodriguez de Tembleque, ATEME
TVUp is a Spain-based company that has created TIVIFY OTT platform, a PayTV as a service with premium channels and content for both Spanish and international markets (B2B2C).TIVIFY runs via an Android TV set-top-box as the main device. The platform is distributed via two commercial models: Tivify (B2C) and Tivify PRO (B2B2C), enabling operators to give the best offer of linear and non-linear TV and to offer viewers the same advanced functionalities such as applications and games that big players in the market can provide.
The TVUp platform offers clients access to its own TV platform and channel bouquet and a wide variety of content through the Play Store, including YouTube, Spotify, Disney +, HBO, Amazon Prime and DAZN.
In setting up this service, TVUp required a partner with considerable OTT delivery expertise to ensure, above all, a premium viewing experience for its customers. As the leader in video delivery solutions for Broadcast, Cable TV, DTH, IPTV and OTT, ATEME’s expertise in delivering similar projects and best of breed technology in the form of its TITAN solution made it stand out to TVUp. “We have been closely following the evolution of ATEME and its encoding solutions for some time now. With a huge amount of experience and a strong local presence in Spain, ATEME was an obvious choice for us,” comments Francisco Sáez, CTO, TVUp.
Delivering flexibility and high quality
In order to obtain the flexibility and high video quality it desired, TVUp has deployed ATEME’s TITAN – a high video quality and high density video processing solution which it will use to deliver TV content, premium channels and apps via OTT. Thanks to this, TVUp is able to provide operators and users with myriad benefits, such as more efficient encoding and transcoding, leveraging ATEME’s adaptive encoding technology to do so.
With video bitrate impacting storage and delivery, many operators aim for bitrate to be reduced as far as acceptably possible in order to save costs. However, adopting a ‘one size fits all’ streaming approach to coding profiles lowers the quality of the viewing experience, especially when bandwidths are low. In such a fast-moving competitive environment, operators can’t afford this compromise. ATEME’s adaptive encoding and profiles optimization provides a solution to this, saving TVUp close to 50% of bandwidth, which has a considerable impact in lowering the CDN cost and the resultant total cost of ownership for live and VOD applications, all whilst ensuring high video quality at lower bitrates.
“Ultimately, the video quality is king for our customers,” comments Sáez (TVUp), “The flexibility in the creation of coding profiles for the setup of our live OTT TV channels allows us to provide a line-up of channels at very tight maximum bitrates with a magnificent quality of experience for our clients.”
Furthermore, ATEME’s dynamic chunking further optimizes the OTT delivery. Instead of the traditional approach of keeping chunks at fixed lengths, enabling the switching between shorter or longer chunks, which improves the playback efficiency and ensures low latency. A smooth viewing experience is critical for the viewer. Therefore, for TVUp, to ensure the lowest latency possible enables it to deliver on its promise of the best possible viewing experience.
A true partnership
Beyond ATEME’s superior technology offering, the two companies also share a common vision for the future of Pay TV, and this synergy has resulted in a close working relationship from the start. “Our work with TVUp is like a partnership,” comments Pablo Rodriguez de Tembleque, Director of Solution Engineering EMEA, ATEME, “We began by working closely with TVUP’s solutions architects and engineers on the proof of concept, and subsequently the deployment has been an incredibly smooth process.”
Sáez (TVUp) adds, “For us, ATEME’s expertise is invaluable. As part of the support the team offers us, they have undertaken a profile optimization review, bench marking our OTT layer to recommend which profiles could be removed, and where resolution could be lowered, for example. It is this kind of added value which has set our partnership with ATEME apart.”
Looking to the future
With success already achieved, there are more exciting plans to come from the partnership. Sáez (TVUp) comments, “We are very happy to have TITAN integrated in our ecosystem, it was a very straightforward process with great support from the local technical team. We clearly have a common understanding of the expected evolution of PayTV leveraging OTT technologies, and ATEME is the right partner for this amazing journey.”
With the platform currently deployed on a private cloud infrastructure, future plans involve a migration to a hybrid cloud solution. This will enable even greater flexibility for TVUp, and ensure it is able to continue delivery best of breed technology to its customers, with a competitive and innovative offering through TIVIFY.
Rodriguez de Tembleque (ATEME), adds, “Providing TVUp with our transcoding solutions demonstrates our capacity to address all opportunities and customers with the same passion and quality of support. Our local teams have been engaging with the TVUp team for a while, defining the best possible solutions to fit both their technical and business model needs. We trust that this is only the beginning of a long-term story and a solid partnership.”