IMS Research… A Farewell To STBs (SatBroadcasting™)

There is a new disruptive technology in the pay-TV distribution system with the less-than-catchy name of “open-standard secure media networking”. By the close of 2015, IMS Research is forecasting that this technology will displace at least 32 million STBs, replacing them with either an open-standard thin client called a “pay-TV DMA” or eliminating them entirely as TVs start to integrate pay-TV DMA functions.

By the end of 2015, IMS Research is forecasting that there will be 89 million homes with active open-standard secure media networks based on DLNA & DTCP-IP, up from 1.6 million at the end of 2009. According to Stephen Froehlich, a senior analyst in IMS Research’s consumer electronics group, “While this all sounds boring and becomes downright confusing once the acronyms start to creep in, this technology is the biggest threat to the digital pay-TV set-top box market seen since its inception. The ability to securely move video around a home network using open-standards opens up the architecture of the set-top box and home gateway, allowing any function to be located anywhere on the home network, or in some cases beyond it. In the US, several cable and satellite operators are using the DLNA + DTCP-IP open-standard framework to minimize the number of boxes that include proprietary technology as they roll out multi-room DVR services. Several deployments are beginning in 2010.

Froehlich continues, ”In the first wave, several US satellite and cable operators are looking to replace set-top boxes with what are essentially digital media adapters (DMAs) — an MPEG-4 AVC decoder with a network interface and nothing else. In the second wave, it appears that Samsung has taken the lead in adding all of the functions of the pay-TV DMAs (DLNA, DTCP-IP, and a remote UI standard such as RVU or CEA-2014) to many of their televisions, eliminating the need for a set-top box entirely. It will also be possible for most PCs to install pay-TV DMA software, allowing the PC to finally serve as the bedroom TV.”

IMS Research has inaugurated its coverage of the open-standard secure media network with a new report titled “Secure DLNA Video: Implications for Set-top Boxes & Home Gateways – 2010 Edition”. Other conclusions in the report include the fact that shipments of high-value broadband TV gateways (cable and DSL modems that include pay-TV conditional access decryption processor, DVR hard drive, and, in one case, up to eight cable demodulators) are set to experience a compound annual growth of more than 200 percent between 2010 and 2015.