• In a worldfirst, Nokia will demonstrate "skim storage", which cuts the cost of cloud DVR deployment by up to 40 percent
• The Nokia Bell Labs innovation will allow TV and video providers to serve programming to time-shifted viewers at a fraction of the storage and compute now required
• Additional optimizations dramatically reduce latency and lag times to bring a responsive and real-time experience to Internet TV subscribers

NAB Show, Las Vegas - Nokia today introduces exciting new innovations developed by Nokia Bell Labs for the Velocix IP Video portfolio that help operators deliver a more responsive and immersive Internet TV experience - but at a fraction of the cost and resources. Nokia will unveil "skim storage" at the NAB Show, alongside several new innovations to bring Internet TV closer to the traditional broadcast distribution experience.

Skim storage is the result of groundbreaking work by Nokia Bell Labs researchers that will form a key part of the Velocix Cloud DVR solution, addressing the currently high cost of storing time-shifted video. Nielsen Company research shows that 90 percent of TV shows are watched within seven days of release, yet even though they are rarely watched again they must still be available for viewing*. Just-in-time transcoding (JITX) has been used to cut storage requirements in half, but JITX requires significant computing resources. Skim storage can now reduce the required computing resources by removing 80 percent of the complexity of JITX. This in turn accelerates the process, which saves on processing power and reduces latency - while still maintaining quality.

Nokia will also showcase additional innovations that speed playback and decrease live broadcast lag for Internet TV subscribers. This means online viewers can now enjoy - on all their screens - the responsiveness and near-live experiences they have come to expect from their traditional TV service. These video delivery optimizations introduce near real-time transformation schemes for video packaging, storage and personalization, allowing network-aware optimization of video delivery and ensuring the best possible viewing experience whether from traditional distribution over 'wired' connections or watching on-the-go over wireless networks.

Key Facts:

• Skim storage stores a small amount of information in addition to the highest content profile to simplify the execution of the encoding process and reduce the complexity by five compared to standard JITX techniques.
• Playback start-time measures the time from user selection to the start of content stream. Velocix real-time schemes cut this to below 2 seconds, compared to start times up to 10 seconds common in Internet TV commercial services.
• Delay in liveTV distribution over adaptive bit rate is typically 30 seconds or more. Nokia optimizations reduce it to 3 to 5 seconds.

The demonstration of the Nokia skim storage solution at the NAB Show is deployed on the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Edgeline platform.

Dr. Tom Bradicich, Vice President and General Manager, Servers, Converged Edge, and IoT Systems at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, said "We are extending our longstanding partnership with Nokia to showcase how Cloud DVR deployments can be made vastly more efficient. HPE Edgeline converged edge systems play a key role as a cost-effective, high-performance transcoding platform. Combined with Nokia skim storage, service providers, cable companies and other content distributors will efficiently deliver time-shifted content from their data centers, and remote locations across the Intelligent Edge."

Paul Larbey, head of Nokia's IP Video business, said: "As the TV industry is moving to IP, adaptive bit-rate streaming is becoming the de facto technology for delivering TV services, but it comes with its challenges. We have developed unique innovations that make this technology even more robust for live TV, and deliver a massively improved business case for time-shifted TV."

Nokia's Corporate CTO and President of Nokia Bell Labs Marcus Weldon said: "As we innovate to create the Future X Network, we identify the key challenges and the current limits to what is possible; we then invent solutions that dramatically change what is possible. Skim storage and related video innovations will dramatically change the 'Internet' video experience for users, both for conventional video programming and in the 360-degree video and VR/AR future."

With a leading product portfolio and a global team of 750 video experts, Nokia draws on deep knowledge, an end-to-end systems integration practice and premium partners to help service providers bring these advanced services to market.

For more information on this release, please stop by Renaissance Hotel, suite 730, at the NAB Show.

As part of NAB, Nokia is also unveiling its next generation of immersive OZO technology solutions that will push the boundaries of possibility in virtual, augmented and mixed reality. Experience OZO Reality in the North Hall, Booth # N1002VR.

* Nielson, December 2016. One Step Beyond: Looking past the 7-Day Window for commercial audiences.

Source: Nokia Media Annoucement