Insight delivers on-demand services with Harmonic’s Narrowcast system
Oct 6, 2006 8:00 AM
Insight Communications, one of the 10 largest cable operators in the United States, is using Harmonic’s Narrowcast Services Gateway (NSG) with Privacy Mode real-time encryption to protect video-on-demand (VOD) content. The NSG with Privacy Mode offers Insight deployment and operational advantages, including a scalable and cost-effective mechanism for protecting its narrowcast service content.
The technology also enables Insight to leverage the benefits of IP-based video transport, ensuring that only authorized users can access subscription-based programming. The ability to scale in step with demand and, at the same time, securely transport video assets to the home is a critical business issue, said Patrick Forde, vice president, engineering, video platforms, Insight Communications. Streamlining its content protection scheme with Harmonic's real-time encryption solution provides Insight with a single-system solution for VOD delivery. The Privacy Mode capability was added to Insight’s existing Harmonic NSG-based infrastructure without the need to replace any hardware, which simplified integration with Insight’s live VOD service.
Among the other benefits, the NSG system eliminates the need to store multiple instances of the program in order to support different usage scenarios such as regular play and trick play for fast forward and rewind. By encrypting content at the leading edge of the open network, the NSG with Privacy Mode makes it possible for operators to increase their revenue potential by refreshing advertisements within narrowcast streams. Dynamically splicing advertisements also allows operators to increase the level of personalization by targeting based on the viewer's location and/or demographics. Cable operators can implement a state-of-the-art VOD service using the NSG in conjunction with Harmonic's CLEARcut storage encoding solution and DiviCom encoders, digital DWDM transmission solutions for the IP-based narrowcast backbone and HFC distribution systems to efficiently deliver streams to the home.
For more information, visit www.harmonicinc.com.
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