DVB NATIVE IP FOR HOSPITALITY

Video consumption is continually growing worldwide, however, delivering a high-quality experience, irrespective of the available network, remains a challenge. In the hospitality industry, when guests want to watch popular content, particularly live sports, it can have an enormous impact on the venue’s connectivity service. For venues in poorly connected areas, latency issues, limited bandwidth and lack of affordable data packages are all part of the challenge for broadcasters and media providers needing to deliver quality video content to their audiences on any device.

Unlocking new business opportunities in the hospitality industry

Today’s guests expect services such as on-demand video, catch-up services and a live multiscreen experience, and media providers often want to deliver this OTT-type hospitality offer. However, given the way the internet works, a single OTT content stream accessed by each hotel room, particularly for popular HD content, would have a massive impact on the hotel’s Wi-Fi. Service congestion, caused by too many users trying to access the same content at the same time, results in a sub-optimal viewing experience, with re-buffering and pixelation causing frustration and dis-satisfaction.

New content delivery solutions based on the DVB-Native IP standard, combine satellite in the delivery mix, enabling hotels in poorly connected areas to receive OTT content without relying on the internet. Delivering an optimum viewing experience to all guests, by leveraging the efficiency of broadcast networks to distribute IP-native mABR content - commonly used for OTT services and targeted at devices like smartphones and Smart TVs - over traditional broadcast channels, it supports large-scale content distribution, offering the multi-screen experiences guests expect.

How does DVB-Native IP ensure audiences enjoy a better viewing experience at hotels?

At a hotel, a micro-cache gateway, based on the DVB-Native IP standard, receives the most popular channels via satellite. In the hotel room, these channels are delivered via the gateway cache, rather than the hotel’s connectivity network. Thanks to this solution, by offloading a significant part of the traffic from the hotel network to the satellite, the hotel can deploy a full streaming service in every room.  The solution is completely transparent for the end-user, who benefits from the service via an IP box in their hotel room, without any impact on the hotel’s connectivity, which is just used for the less popular channels and non-linear usage. The end-user experience and quality of content are identical whether the content is delivered via the hotel network or via satellite.

See it in action at IBC 2024

At IBC 2024, we’ll be demonstrating this solution in partnership with leading media and entertainment company Sky Italia, part of the Sky Group, and technology partners Broadpeak and EKT. Content from the SKY TG24 channel is retrieved directly from the operator’s head-end by the multicast ABR server located at the Eutelsat teleport. It is converted to multicast ABR and distributed via the premium HOTBIRD platform at 13° East. At IBC premises, the content is received by the DVB-NIP gateway and distributed to connected TVs and IP devices.

The solution is also being trialled at a selection of hotels and bars, enabling them to offer their clients broadcast quality content available through streaming, while avoiding the local network limitations that can affect live content.

Contact us here to schedule a demo and see how DVB-Native IP can benefit your content delivery, or see our brochure for more information.