Awards

Awards, Converged Experiences

Motorola Home’s Medios+ won the award for Best Multiscreen TV Solution at last week’s TV Connect show in Europe. With recent customer announcements from the likes of Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Bouygues Telecom, Maxisat and Massillon, we had a feeling we were on to something great, but it’s especially validating to receive a prestigious global award confirming it.

 

As Joanna Jones, Events Director for TV Connect, said: “[Award] winners are a true showcase of the excellence that keeps the industry advancing… [They] continue spearheading new developments in the connected entertainment ecosystem.”

And spearhead we will. We’re seeing the connected entertainment ecosystem shifting to multiscreen, and Medios+ is leading that transformation.

Earlier this month, we published our annual Media Engagement Barometer uncovering the evolution in consumers’
multiscreen habits. In brief, we’re watching a day’s worth of TV each week, a third of it is pre-recorded, and we’re streaming a considerable amount of it on mobile devices around the house and on the go.

That’s where Medios+ comes in. It’s a platform that helps service providers deliver the multiscreen experiences that free us to enjoy our favorite media, wherever and whenever we want. So maybe it’s no surprise that Medios+ won Best Multiscreen TV Solution.

We look forward to bringing you the Future of TV, whether it’s on your TV, tablet, smartphone, PC, or all of the above.

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Awards

Jed Johnson, a Fellow of our Technical Staff, was conferred the DLNA 2012 Outstanding Contribution Award for his work as chair of DLNA’s TC Authentication Task Force and as editor for the DLNA Diagnostics Guidelines.

We caught up with Jed to find out more…

Q: Jed, congratulations on the award! So that we have some context: what’s DLNA?

JJ: DLNA stands for Digital Living Network Alliance. It’s a trade association that creates guidelines that companies use to make their multimedia products interoperable.

Q: Why is interoperability important?

JJ: Multi-vendor interoperability is very important to our customers. When you have a multi-vendor environment, say your living room, it’s important to specify the interface that goes on a set-top, for example, so that service providers can deploy different hardware from multiple vendors and be confident that it’ll all work. It’s the same advantage for consumers: you plug in a new piece of hardware that you bought at a store, and it works with your other hardware, regardless of the brand.

Q: We heard you got the Outstanding Contribution Award for your work on authentication and diagnostics. What’d you do? 

JJ: I worked on a project focused on premium content guidelines called CVP-2 , chairing a working group on authentication and editing diagnostics protocols. guidelines. We wrote a set of specifications that go into DLNA’s certification process. So when new hardware is submitted to DLNA for CVP-2 premium content certification, it has to meet these guidelines.

Q: What are these guidelines, and why are they important? 

JJ: The guidelines are for authentication and diagnostics–essentially security and management. Motorola has a notable history in security standards.

Authentication is important because it gives service providers a way to control access to premium content. When a device is running on DLNA’s authentication protocol, the service provider can tell, for example, that it’s an iPad; that it’s an iPad owned by a particular customer; and that that customer has a subscription to HBO, thus it can enable HBO on the iPad.

Diagnostics are important because they allow service providers to diagnose problems on the home network. This standardization lets them use a single tool for figuring out what’s going on between products from different vendors.

Q: What’s next for DLNA and its premium content guidelines CVP-2?

JJ: The industry is seeing a bump in media consumption and a proliferation of connected devices that consumers aren’t purchasing from service providers. CVP-2 DLNA’s premium content guidelines sets the stage for those devices to serve as end-points for media. A key hurdle for service providers is authenticating an end device when it isn’t purchased from them. And authentication is important because it enables them to deliver protected media directly to the device, rather than through an intermediate device like a set-top. DLNA is going to enable this kind of direct distribution and let consumers choose the devices they use to stream and consume their media.

Thanks Jed, and congratulations!

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Awards

Author: Steve Musallam, Product Manager for Network Infrastructure

Now that the glitz and glamor of the ceremony has passed, it’s a good time to reflect on Motorola’s recent Emmy Award for its CherryPicker digital program insertion (DPI) platform and its local ad insertion capabilities.  This Emmy reflects more than a decade of innovation and leadership by the CherryPicker team. They were among the lead members in drafting SCTE-30 & 35, the industry standards DPI is based on, and with CherryPicker they implemented SCTE-30 & 35 in a way that maximizes compatibility, reliability and performance.  Using these industry standards, the CherryPicker helped enable the market for local ad insertion, and above all, I believe this Emmy recognizes that significant industry contribution.  Today CherryPicker works with virtually every digital cable and IPTV environment in the market, achieves industry-leading splice rates, and continues to set the standard in visual quality. 

Beyond local ad insertion, CherryPicker has a long-standing heritage of innovation and leadership in the digital cable space, and has struck Emmy gold once before.  In 2007, the CherryPicker (then a part of Terayon which was acquired by Motorola later that year) won an Emmy for “pioneering development for combining multiple transport streams which are already encoded, using rate-shaping and statistical re-multiplexing.”  These cost-effective innovations helped pave the way for digital cable systems by transporting video efficiently, while maintaining the highest possible video quality.

Having won Emmys for both statistical multiplexing and local ad insertion, CherryPicker has solidified its place as a truly innovative solution in the cable space.  Our DM 6400 and CAP-1000 products are operating within the networks of the top 10 video providers in the US, and more than 100 MSOs worldwide. 

We are extremely thankful to our customers for their loyal support over the years.  And, of course, we are so thankful to the Engineering Achievement Committee of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for the recognition.  After all, it is an honor just to be nominated!

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Awards

Motorola Wins Emmy for Technology & Engineering!

January 3, 2013 : BY Motorola

And the winner is…. Motorola Home! 

We’re the proud recipient of an Emmy Award for engineering creativity in localized ad insertion.  The Engineering Achievement Committee of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences recognized Motorola’s CherryPicker video processing platform for its contributions to the base IP architecture and Digital Program Insertion (DPI) for serving localized ads across digital programming—an essential part of next-generation cable advertising. 

CherryPicker is celebrating its 14th anniversary as a leading digital video platform for cable that uses statistical multiplexing to convey the best possible video quality using the least possible bandwidth. The result is that cable operators can seamlessly and economically insert localized ads into their programming. 

Motorola has a long history of Emmy Award-winning products and solutions—recognizing outstanding achievements in encryption and security, digital TV processing, standards and set-top boxes. This year’s award marks the company’s ninth Emmy. 

We’ll receive the honor on January 10 at the Bellagio Hotel during the International Consumer Electronics Show. Congrats to the CherryPicker team, and everyone at Motorola Home, for this amazing honor!

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Awards

Marwan Fawaz is the EVP of Motorola Home. He’s also a cable aficionado, industry luminary and rainmaker. Now, it’s official.

Marwan was named to this year’s CableFAX 100. The annual list profiles the most impactful leaders, pioneers, influencers and out-of-the-box thinkers in cable.  

As CableFAX puts it, “This is truly the mother of all power lists…the only consideration is power and influence…no one gets on this list unless they can literally make a phone call, sign a deal or send an email that affects thousands of lives and fortunes.” 

That’s Marwan.  

With more than 26 years of experience in the broadband communications industry, encompassing engineering, technical operations and business development, Marwan embodies the honor. Not only is he responsible for leading Motorola Mobility’s Home business, which includes video network infrastructure, home device portfolios and converged solutions, but he has also held a wide variety of industry leadership roles throughout his career and is one of the top strategists developing solutions for tomorrow’s IP transformation. 

Congrats Marwan! Motorola is proud to see you recognized for leading the charge and pioneering the smart, simple connected home of the future.

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Awards

Our awards shelf back at HQ has started to bow under the weight of all the accolades that SecureMedia has won this year. That’s five and counting, to be precise—adding to a series of major customer wins including Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Massillon Cable

This week, Motorola’s Jim Welch accepted a Vision Award at TelcoTV on behalf of SecureMedia® Encryptonite ONE™ HLS+. This marks the product’s second win at TelcoTV—the largest U.S. conference focused on broadband network service providers—since it took home the inaugural award for Best Content Security four years ago. 

Double awards! What does it mean?? We caught up with Jim to find out… 

Q: You’re accepting yet another award for SecureMedia Encryptonite ONE HLS+. What’s the secret to all these wins?

A: Okay, I admit it… I’m an awards junkie, so let’s get that out of the way. 

It’s been a great year, and this time it’s the TelcoTV Vision Award, and it’s absolutely a testament to the way that Medios SecureMedia has been solving the challenge of video content security for over a decade using open-standards, future-proof technology. Since we’re software-based, the technology is extremely flexible, extensible and scalable. 

To address the need for a great entertainment experience on multi-devices we worked directly with the content studios to create an even better security solution for delivering video based on Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). As a result, SecureMedia’s Encryptonite ONE HLS+ solution is not just about encrypting the content—it’s about providing advanced security features like device authentication, device authorization, tamper detection and clone detection and much more.

We also work with leading CE manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Sony and Roku to have them support our innovative HLS-based security solution, so we’re covering a wide range of devices. We solve what works with what. And that’s paramount when we’re talking about multi-screen and entertainment everywhere experiences. 

Q: Multi-screen and TV everywhere were huge themes at SCTE last week. Why is SecureMedia so important here?

A: This goes back to SecureMedia’s history of working with industry standards while maintaining our technology’s flexibility and extensibility. New platforms and devices are coming out all the time, and SecureMedia, because it’s built on standards, works across the entire matrix. So using our technology, service providers don’t have to think about the device or the DRM scheme, format, etc. each time they’re sending out content. 

Q: And why is that good for service providers?

A: We have yet to see a service provider who doesn’t look relieved when they find out how SecureMedia simplifies the video distribution process and saves them on storage costs. When you’re talking about delivering content to multi-screen, you’re not just talking about maintaining the technology for one video on one configuration on one device. You have multiple videos formats, screen resolutions and platforms to address these devices. The challenge is encoding and transcoding the right content to the right devices, the right display resolution, etc. And the storage costs of taking an entire library of content across all those permutations is going through the roof. 

Now, we take care of all this work. SecureMedia puts all these devices on a common playing field, and today’s most popular encoders out there support our technology. So service providers just encode once and encrypt once, and it goes out to all right the devices. They reduce their storage costs and have complete control over the entire process. 

Q: So does that mean that Verizon can limit the number of times I watch the Call Me Maybe video on my tablet?

A: The technology can do it. That’s all a part of permission rights, which SecureMedia handles. Maybe this content provider doesn’t want their video on a tablet. We can take care of that but the best part is that our companion Medios solutions, VideoFlow CMS and/or Connect SR automates this whole process, so customers like Verizon don’t have to worry about studio multi-device contract licensing rights. SecureMedia takes a lot of the headache out of truly secure video delivery. 

Q: Okay, let’s be honest, security isn’t the sexiest thing that Motorola offers, but is it underrated?

A: We leave the sexiness to the marketing team. *Laughs* From a technology standpoint we’re invisible. But as we have shown time and time again, we’re proven and approved. Bottom line, if service providers want to distribute premium content, they need content protection. So you’re right, on the consumer side it’s not too sexy, but if it’s seamless and it works it doesn’t matter. The service providers like that, and consumers, even though they don’t see it, they love it too, because they get to watch their favorite programs and movies. I think that’s the beauty of great technology—it just works. It doesn’t get in the way of the experience.

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Awards, Events, Home Devices

Highlights from SCTE Cable-Tec Expo

October 23, 2012 : BY Motorola

Motorola was Orlando’s main attraction at the 2012 SCTE Cable-Tec Expo last week. Sorry, Disney World. 

In case you missed it, let’s start with a video of Marwan Fawaz and Matt Bell, our senior execs, talking about Motorola’s influence on the cable industry’s IP Transformation. 

 

One of the points they highlighted is our strength in video.

The headliner for that, and star of the show, was the new GT-3 ABR transcoder, which Broadband Technology Report, CED Magazine and IPTV News called out for the way it screams through data to let cable operators capitalize on multi-screen and get in front of new services like 4K. 

Another point was how we’re impacting future of the cable industry. 

As you know, a big part of that has to do with bandwidth. Motorola’s been working the angles for the smart, simple connected home, and our recent breakthrough with SCDMA (a DOCSIS technology) involved widening cable networks’ usable spectrum to tap elusive upstream bandwidth for the connected home. 

Rapid TV News reported on our SCDMA deployment at Cablevision Mexico, and Light Reading called us “the main pioneer of this approach to cable upstream.” Thanks, Light Reading.

The future of the cable industry wouldn’t be complete without multi-screen, so we’re taking you back to Marwan at IBC for some perspective how some of the discussions there influenced what we saw at SCTE.

Marwan talked about how the Future of TV has a lot to do with speed and connectivity. At SCTE, we saw speed addressed with GT-3, and EDGE Manager handled the connectivity component. 

We also announced that our EDGE Manager is Time Warner Cable’s new platform of choice for device management. Advanced Television took notice, and Light Reading said that it “sets a high bar for device management and delivers an advantage in multi-screen deployments.” We couldn’t agree more.

On to speaking…               

Our brilliant technologists were out in force at SCTE, laying down the knowledge and flying the Motorola colors at seven separate sessions. If we were to randomly choose among these stars in the sky, we might select John Ulm’s talk from “The bandwidth Hunger Games” track, which you can read about in CED Magazine.

And lastly, our here’s the final tally on recognition and awards: 

  • Jack Moran was named chair of a new SCTE working group for DOCSIS 3.1, as reported by Multichannel News and FierceCable.
  • Dean Stoneback received the SCTE Excellence in Standards Award for 2012, as seen in FierceCable, Light Reading, and Multichannel News.
  • Dr. Robert Howald was conferred one of Communications Technology’s highest honors as an inductee to the CT Hall of Fame, Class of 2012 for “unique contributions to voice, video, and data.”
  • And Communications Technology’s Platinum Awards competition, recognized several Motorola products, including Medios DreamGallery, winner of the Cloud Software for Providers category, and APEX3000, 4Home Connected Gateway and SecureMedia which took home honorable mentions.

Congratulations to the teams behind our award-winning products. And thanks to all our employees who represented Motorola at SCTE and to everyone who dropped by to see our speakers and our products. 

If you were at the show, please share your favorite moment in the comments!

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Awards, Converged Experiences, Events, Home Devices, Network Infrastructure

Broadband Technology Report published its 2012 Diamond Reviews this week—an annual report recognizing top products and technologies serving the cable industry.

This year, four Motorola Home products received a 4 Diamond review or better. Click the links below to see the corresponding review:

 

Each of these is a category leader, but together, they represent a critical cross-section of Motorola’s end-to-end multi-screen product stable. These products help operators address the complexity of multi-screen, HD and TV everywhere applications in three main areas: network, cloud and home.

On the network side, the APEX3000 received special recognition from BTR judges for “[pushing] the envelope on performance density and redundancy” and for “[ruling] video QAMs.” Its high-density QAM can scale to meet tomorrow’s distribution challenges with unheard of energy efficiency: <1W per QAM channel.

In the cloud, Medios SecureMedia and DreamGallery address content security and navigation, respectively. Both are paramount in a multi-screen world, with its flow of new content and devices.

Judges lauded SecureMedia for taking the “heavy lifting off the hands of the operators” by simplifying and managing encryption across devices and platforms. And DreamGallery was recognized as a “powerful application and a clear differentiator in the quest for customer eyes on multiple devices.” We couldn’t agree more.

On the home front, the SBG6782 pleased judges with its ability to distribute digital multimedia content throughout the home via coax and Wi-Fi.

Together, they’re four leading ways that Motorola is driving the Evolution of TV.

If you’re at SCTE this year, we invite you to come by Motorola Mobility’s Home booth #2812 and see our diamonds in action.

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Awards, Converged Experiences

Broadband-IP&TV Asia is an annual event that took place a few weeks ago. It brings together content providers, operators and technology partners to explore broadband and IP&TV advancements in emerging and advanced markets, with a focus on delivering growth in an evolving ecosystem and enhancing the customer experience for the connected consumer.

This year’s event attracted more than 1,000 attendees, and more than 150 visionary speakers and transformational players from both advanced and emerging markets representing 62 countries participated — including Motorola Mobility. 

At the event, Motorola Mobility showcased the latest in video solutionsinnovation in its sleek booth display including the Motorola SecureMedia HLS+ solution which ultimately took home the “Asia Broadband Innovation of the Year” award.

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Awards, Converged Experiences, Home Devices, Network Infrastructure, Top 5

We’ve been talking about TV Everywhere for quite some time and how tablets are a game changer for the cable industry. Check out this CNET article on tablets becoming the consumer device of choice, lending even more credence to the value of our Televation solution for multi-screen entertainment in and around the home. Additionally, FierceCable wrote about efforts by major home networking and wireless standards groups to work together to help support multiple services in the connected home.

The Cable Show is just around the corner and this year our own Patrick Wright-Riley will be joining a panel of executive to speak at the CIO.IT | Competition. We’ll also have a dozen other speakers at the show, hope to see you there. Last but not least, we are proud to share that Senior Product Manager Frank Pantuso II was recognized this week among Multichannel News’ “40 under Forty” honorees for his demonstrated thought leadership on Televation. Congratulations, Frank.

1. Tablets expected to become preferred computing device (April 24) By Steve Musil, CNET: Tablets are quickly becoming the consumer device of choice, threatening to disrupt the PC market, according to a new report. Sales of tablets are expected to hit 375 million by 2016…

2. Home networking, wireless industry groups develop common home networking goals (April 26) By Sean Buckley, FierceTelecom: A number of the major home networking and wireless standards groups have come together to examine and find common ground to help service providers support multiple services in the consumer’s home.

3. Video Infrastructure Tops $800 Million: (April 19) By Staff, Broadband Technology Reports: According to Infonetics Research, following annual declines in 2009 and 2010 during the global recession, the video infrastructure market (VOD and streaming content servers and video encoders) grew 6% in 2011 to $803 million.

4. NCTA Names IT Finalists (April 25) By Staff, Broadband Technology Report: Eight executives of vendor companies for cable industry IT services have been chosen by a selection committee of cable CIOs as finalists in the third annual CIO.IT | Competition, a program of solution-based presentations scheduled for the CIO.IT program at the NCTA‘s Cable Show 2012 in Boston. 

5. “40 under Forty [excerpt follows]” (April 23) By Staff, Multichannel News: Each year, since 2006, the editors of Multichannel News have chosen 40 movers and shakers under the age of 40 who are helping their companies grow and succeed, while playing an important part in mapping the future of the multichannel video and telecommunications businesses. These individuals represent a cross-section of disciplines: networks, operators, finance, technology, programming, marketing and customer service. But they all have one thing in common: they’ve come a long way in a relatively short time and continue to make invaluable contributions in their area of expertise. By no means intended as a comprehensive list, here is a sampling of some of the key people, under a certain age, moving and shaping the industry…

“Motorola Mobility’s Senior Product Manager Frank Pantuso II (38) is responsible for delivering new, engaging technology to transform the way consumers experience home entertainment and management. He currently leads the product development of the award-winning Motorola Televation product, a solution to securely deliver a full cable subscription onto a tablet, wirelessly. 

The Televation product team, led by Pantuso, took just over a year to develop the offering, leveraging Motorola Mobility’s extensive intellectual property in video, mobile and content security. Televation has been received with great enthusiasm, according to Motorola, and is currently part of an initial trial of Comcast’s AnyPlay offering in select markets. An electrical engineer by training, Pantuso has more than 15 years of product management, marketing, and sales experience in the digital video space starting his career at Sarnoff (formerly RCA), then moving on to Samsung after receiving his MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University. He joined Motorola in 2007. 

‘At Motorola Mobility, we’re committed to helping our service provider customers deliver the connected lifestyle in the home with innovative, industry-leading technology that is simple to use, deploy and manage,’ he said.”

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