Liberty Global Partners With Ericsson to Expand DVR Services in Latin America

Ericsson and Liberty Global have struck a new two-year deal between VTR in Chile and Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico, both part of LiLAC Group (Liberty Latin-America and Caribbean, part of Liberty Global Group). With Ericsson’s Video Storage and Processing Platform (VSPP), the TV operators will be able to expand the reach of their Digital Video Recording (DVR) services (known as Catch-up TV and Restart TV) across their countries.

Latin American TV consumers are rapidly changing their habits and expectations, where they now want to decide what they want to watch and pick-and-mix their own services. The new deal addresses this issue, allowing LiLAC Group to build innovative and compelling consumer experiences.

Ericsson’s VSPP simplifies the recording capabilities and provides enriched functionalities for LiLAC’s linear TV services. It also offers a unique, proven infrastructure that allows for seamless augmentation and replacement of legacy television services with new cloud-based services.

Furthermore, Ericsson’s VSPP provides outstanding performance gains and greatly simplifies Cloud DVR and video on demand (VoD) architectures, allowing operators to avoid many of the complexities and costs associated with these new services.

Adrian Gioia, Head of TV & Media, Ericsson Latin America and Caribbean, says: “We are looking forward to supporting LiLAC Group in delivering ever-improving content, quality and features that delight TV consumers and meet their unique and ever-changing needs. With our solution we are addressing all customer segments with unique configurations, while providing LiLAC Group with the ability to future-proof and grow as they see necessary.”

Derek Yeaomans, Logistic Manager at VTR, says: “We consider DVR a very attractive entertainment service for our customers and we are pleased to now provide them with an enriched user experience that lets them enjoy the service even more. Working with Ericsson makes us confident we will continue to succeed in meeting consumer expectations into the future.”

With a recent history of more than 50 transformation programs delivered globally, Ericsson’s consulting and systems integration services represent the perfect combination of competence, scale and presence that help TV and media organizations meet their goals. With a global team of media experts ready to take on complex media transformation projects, Ericsson is the market leader in Cloud DVR deployment and services, having performed multiple deployments and with ongoing trials with major Tier 1 operators around the world.

Ericsson Wins CSI Award For Dynamic Ad Insertion
The Ericsson Video Storage and Processing Platform (VSPP), with ad-insertion capabilities for video-on-demand (VOD) and time-shifted content on set-top-boxes (STB) and over-the-top (OTT) devices, received the CSI Award for ‘Best Cloud/Virtualization Innovation.’ CSI Magazine’s annual accolades celebrate excellence and achievement in the broadcast, video, OTT and Internet of Things (IoT) sectors. The award was presented at the IBC conference in Amsterdam on September 9.

The Ericsson VSPP directly responds to the challenge of monetizing time-shifted TV and cloud DVR services by delivering targeted advertising to audiences based on region, channel and timing rules. By leveraging real-time ad mining intelligence, advertisers can increase the value of their advertising and ensure that their campaigns are calibrated to the needs of the consumer, delivering more engaging and relevant marketing content.

“Truly seamless content delivery and consumption is a crucial differentiator in today’s video experience, although, for advertisers, their campaigns’ true value are based around delighting consumers through engaging, intuitive and most importantly, relevant and personalized content,” says Elisabetta Romano, Vice President and Head of TV and Media, Ericsson. “Our flexible, simplified cloud-based platform enables TV service providers and programmers to gain new sources of advertising revenue, while ensuring their subscribers have a far more rewarding and satisfying time-shifted TV viewing experience, without repetitive and non-relevant ads. We are delighted to receive the CSI Award recognizing our VSPP solution and it is a testament to our commitment to facilitate industry players in their drive to deliver the ultimate viewing experience.”

The newly enhanced solution enables old advertising in time-shifted TV, cloud DVR and VOD content to be dynamically updated with new targeted and personalized ads, whenever consumers watch it. It builds on the VSPP’s powerful, software-based infrastructure, which integrates and virtualizes the storage and processing capabilities of as many commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) servers as required. The Ericsson VSPP is optimized for media and designed to sustain very high recording and playout concurrency, while greatly reducing server requirements. Through its added capabilities for VOD and time-shifted content, the solution delivers support for server-side, network-side and client-side ad insertion.