By: Mathew Pitt-Bailey, Product Communications, Alcatel-Lucent
I know what you’re thinking. Here is another article about “the cloud”. There’s been a lot of talk, a lot of promise – in short, a lot of hype about how the cloud will transform our industry. But when is it going to start delivering?
Well actually, it already has.
Earlier this year, we hit a pretty significant milestone for deployments of our Cloud DVR solution. Across our various customers – which include Swisscom, Telefónica and Telecable – we now have almost 30 petabytes (that’s 30 with 15 zeros after it) of cloud DVR storage capacity installed.
Now, compared to the world of data storage, 30 petabytes isn’t that much. But in the world of IP video, it equates to around 1,000 years of high-definition content.
Think about that for a second. 1,000 years. That’s more than 4 million movies. Or a week’s worth of catch-up TV for 50,000 HDTV channels. Or, if you prefer, the entire Netflix “master” catalogue 9 times over (source: Vance, Ashlee, "Netflix, Reed Hastings Survive Missteps to Join Silicon Valley's Elite", Businessweek).
That’s a lot of content.
The other thing to note about these numbers is that one of the most important benefits of cloud DVR is that, where content rights allow, the storage can be shared. Regardless how many people want to record this Saturday’s big movie, it only needs to be stored once. So we require significantly less storage space when compared to personal DVRs and set-top boxes.
And when you also consider that the 1,000 years of cloud DVR storage capacity is actively being used by more than 1 million people, you get a real idea of the scale of adoption of this technology.
I think in those terms, we have a compelling case for saying that cloud DVR has truly come of age.
Today cloud DVR is primarily used for catch-up TV and live pause/rewind services. But as more content owners and pay TV providers reach agreements on content rights that will open the floodgates for personal cloud recording as well.
Related links
- Alcatel-Lucent to make private copy cloud video recording cost-effective and copyright-compliant
- Alcatel-Lucent enhances and virtualizes content delivery to enable pay-TV providers to cope with the explosion of IP video traffic
- Alcatel-Lucent to make private copy cloud video recording cost-effective and copyright-compliant
- Cloud DVR keeps your TV from wasting space
- Cloud DVR comes of age
