Humax has been selected as a second source for the “Worldbox,” a next-gen class of hybrid QAM/IP video devices from Charter Communications that will support the MSO’s new downloadable conditional access system (DCAS) and its cloud-based interface and applications.

A Charter spokesperson confirmed the selection of Humax, but wouldn’t talk about the financial terms of the agreement or what percentage of Charter’s Worldbox business would be going to the South Korea-based supplier.

But the selection is a clear indicator that Charter intends to source boxes from a variety of suppliers using an “open” downloadable security architecture that is also in use at Cablevision Systems. Samsung Electronics and Humax are among the known vendors Cablevision has picked to supply “Future Services Portal” boxes that utilize its DCAS.

At the International CES earlier this month, Cisco Systems was revealed as the first supplier of the Worldbox, which will initially feature two models -- an HD-DVR and an non-DVR HD client device (the Cisco-made non-DVR model is pictured above). Cisco has been tapped as a “key” supplier of Worldboxes through 2015, providing a “substantial share” of them to Charter, while also supplying the platform’s downloadable conditional access system and digital rights management platform.

Charter hasn’t announced any other Worldbox suppliers. However, Arris hopes to be in the mix, as it will have “equal opportunity to bid on the Worldbox [business], as any other competitor,” Bob Stanzione, Arris’s chairman and CEO, said last week at an investor conference.

 Humax officials have yet to comment for this story, but the selection by Charter obviously gives its U.S. cable ambitions a boost.

Last April, Time Warner Cable announced that it had picked Humax to build the MSO's first device based on the Reference Design Kit (RDK), a preintegrated software stack for video and broadband devices that is being managed by Comcast, TWC, and Liberty Global.  What is not known is how that deal, which centers on an IP-based HD client that can support TWC’s next-gen UI, will carry forward if and when Comcast and TWC complete their proposed merger.

Humax has also been linked to the Xi3, an IP-only, RDK-based client device that Comcast is developing for its X1 platform (a Humax-made model passed through the FCC in 2012). Comcast, however, has been using Xi3s made by U.K.-based Pace for its initial rollout.

4K streaming services remain in short supply, but the number of homes around the globe that can support those streams are on the rise, according to Akamai’s latest quarterly State of the Internet Report.

Noting that adaptive bit rate 4K streaming generally requires about 15 Mbps of sustained connectivity, Akamai found in its report (for the third quarter of 2014) that 12% of connections to Akamai around the world were considered “4K-ready.” Year-over-year, global 4K-readiness climbed 32%, Akamai said.

Akamai found that South Korea was most prepared for 4K streaming, with two-thirds (66%) of its connections to Akamai at or above 15 Mbps, followed by Hong Kong (37%), Japan (33%), Switzerland (30%), Netherlands (29%), Latvia (29%), Sweden (29%), Norway (21%), Singapore (21%), and Belgium (21%).

In the Americas, 19% of Akamai connections in the U.S. were delivering 15 Mbps during the period tested, down 2.3% quarter-over-quarter, and 14% in Canada, down 15%. In Akamai’s report for the first quarter of 2014, about 17% of the U.S. was prepared to deliver 4K via broadband, versus 13% for Canada.

Viewed through Akamai’s lens, Delaware was the most 4K-ready U.S. state, with 39% of connections offering 15 Mbps or more, followed by Connecticut (31%), Massachusetts (29%), Washington (27%) and Washington, D.C., New Jersey and Rhode Island (26%).

Akamai’s reports continue to focus on 4K streaming as new services emerge. Among U.S. MVPDs, DirecTV and Comcast have introduced relatively small 4K streaming offerings. Dish Network outlined its initial 4K plans at last week’s International CES, noting that its new 4K Joey will be capable of streaming in 4K but will initially obtain 4K content via satellite for playback on the new device, which will support HEVC and HDMI 2.0. Netflix and M-GO have also launched 4K streaming offerings, with M-GO unveiling a 4K download service last week.

Overall, global average connection speeds for Q3 2014 dropped 2.8%, to 4.5 Mbps, but remained above 4 Mbps for the second consecutive quarter, Akamai said

South Korea topped all countries in that category, with an average speed of 25.3 Mbps, followed by Hong Kong (16.3 Mbps), Japan (15 Mbps), Switzerland (14.5 Mbps), Sweden (14.1 Mbps), Netherlands (14 Mbps), Ireland (13.9 Mbps), Latvia (13.4 Mbps), Czech Republic (12.3 Mbps); and Singapore (12.2 Mbps).  Those levels were high enough to keep the U.S. (11.5 Mbps) and Canada (10.3 Mbps) out of the top ten.

Among individual U.S. states, Delaware had the highest average connection speed (17.4 Mbps), up 37% from the year-ago quarter, trailed by Washington (16.3 Mbps), Connecticut (15.3 Mbps), Utah (14.8 Mbps), Washington, DC (14.6 Mbps), Virginia (14.5 Mbps), Massachusetts (14.4 Mbps), Rhode Island (13.5 Mbps), Michigan (12.7 Mbps) and New Jersey (12.5 Mbps).

With HDMI streaming sticks from Google, Roku and Amazon still all the rage, it follows that the cable operators will eventually offer set-tops box in this popular form-factor.

While we’ve already seen Alticast trot out demos of an  RDK-based set-top-on-a-stick, Broadcom used this week’s International CES to show a new design, the BCM72502, that will serve as the innards of HDMI sticks capable of providing “operator-level functionality and security.”

As for what’s going inside Broadcom’s design, it will pack an HEVC decoder and HDMI 2.0 (elements that will be key as operators expand into 4K video), 802.11ac WiFi for in-home wireless distribution, and an option for Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) 2.0.

Boiled down, the platform, which is currently sampling, will give MSOs the ability to tap into designs that so far have been relegated to the OTT world, but pack enough punch to deliver “full-featured set-top box functionality.”

According to Broadcom, MSOs will have the option to use the same platform to provide full-service IPTV using a multi-room gateway/client architecture, to a standalone dongle for “entry level” OTT offerings.

You can remove the “limited edition” label from TiVo’s recently introduced Roamio OTA DVR, a model that is targeted to cord-cutters and consumers who have never taken a traditional pay-TV package.

Following last fall’s debut of the model, TiVo announced Wednesday that it has rolled out the $49.99 model on a nationwide basis. Users of the broadband-connected Roamio OTA, a device that does not come with a slot for a CableCARD but does work with digital antennas and supports an array of OTT video, are also subject to a $14.99 per month service fee for the underpinning TiVo service.

The TiVo Roamio OTA is equipped with 500 Gigabytes of storage, four tuners, is compatible with the TiVo Stream video-transcoding sidecar, and also supports TiVo’s new OnePass feature.

TiVo didn’t say how many Roamio OTAs have been sold, but company CEO Tom Rogers toldMultichannel News in November that the device “seems to be selling pretty well.” The Roamio OTA is currently a retail-only product, but Rogers also said TiVo is in talks with cable operators about an MSO-optimized version that can be offered to their broadband-only customers.

"TiVo continually innovates to meet the shifting ways consumers want to access their TV content, and we recognized that sections of the market were underserved -- including those choosing OTA for TV and those looking for higher-end DVRs,” TiVo CMO Ira Bahr said, in a statement. That proved true with the demand for the TiVo Roamio OTA after our initial seeding in 400 Best Buy stores this past fall.

"While we are believers that the TiVo service with a cable subscription is the best TV experience out there, we recognize there are those without cable and satellite that have recording needs.”

Channel Master, whose subscription-free DVR+ platform also has cord-cutters in mind, announced this week that it will soon add a "LinearTV" feature that will itegrate live feeds from a variety of OTT content sources, including Bloomberg, Al-Jazzera America, WGN, and WeatherNation, among others. 

Las Vegas -- Amid all the new 4K TVs, connected wearables and other fancy gadgets, this year’s International CES has also served as a progress report of sorts for DOCSIS 3.1, cable’s next-gen IP platform that will be capable of delivering up to 10 Gbps downstream and as much as 2 Gbps in the upstream.

As we reported Tuesday, Broadcom used the show to introduce the first D3.1-based CPE reference design, dubbed the BCM93390.  I had a chance to drop by the Broadcom booth, and they did in fact have a living, breathing design that was kicking out about 4 Gbps in the downstream, tying it to a prototype FPGA-powered cable modem termination system (CMTS). 

And what you see here is just an initial design for OEM partners to follow as they develop the actual DOCSIS 3.1 modem and gateway products. Jay Kirchoff, VP of marketing for Broadcom's broadband and connectivity group, said the chipmaker will be working to shrink it down posthaste. Broadcom is sampling the design now, and is in verification for production for the second half of 2015.

And new D3.1 products will cost more than a DOCSIS 3.0 design – no surprise, since the initial wave of D3.1 products will be hybrids that support both DOCSIS 3.0 and DOCSIS 3.1 traffic, a decision that will help cable operators seed the network with D3.1 CPE as they migrate to the new platform.

As a reminder, CableLabs is expected to start official D3.1 certification  testing by mid-year. Some big operators, including Comcast and Liberty Global, are expected to move ahead with initial deployments in the second half of the year.

And Broadcom wasn’t the only silicon vendor getting its DOCSIS 3.1 on here at CES. STMicroelectronics  is also demonstrating its platform. A spokesman said the chipmaker has been demoing its wares with CMTSs from Arris and Cisco Systems, and confirmed that the company was one of six vendors that participated in last month’s CableLabs DOCSIS 3.1 plugfest.

Las Vegas – International CES – Charter Communications and Cisco Systems used this week’s gadget-fest to unveil the “Worldbox,” a hybrid IP/QAM video device that will use downloadable security and a cloud-based interface that will serve as central components of the MSO’s next-gen video platform.

The companies also announced that Cisco will serve as  a “key” supplier of the Worldbox through 2015 as well as the device’s downloadable conditional access system (DCAS) and digital rights management platform (Charter will use Cisco’s VideoGuard Server for the DCAS and its VideoGuard DRM for security on client devices).

Financial terms were not disclosed, but Cisco will supply a “substantial share” of Worldboxes while also continue to provide CableCARD boxes to Charter until it migrates current and acquired systems to the new DCAS solution. Execs here said the DCAS in use by Charter shares the same “open” architecture for the downloadable system now deployed by Cablevision Systems.

Here during an event for press and analysts, Charter and Cisco showed off the Worldbox and the cloud-based guide that will grace it. Charter has already developed two versions of the Worldbox – and HD client (pictured) above and an HD-DVR model that will come equipped with 1 terabyte of storage. Both models contain 16x4 DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems, 1 Gigabyte of RAM and USB connections “to enable future applications.”

Charter expects to start deployments of the Worldbox and the new downloadable security system in select markets in “early 2015,” an MSO official said. Charter is currently testing the Spectrum Guide with tens of thousands of customers in Ft. Worth, Texas.

Looking ahead, Charter expects to deploy downloadable security to its current systems this year, and then will continue deployment to acquired systems that will come way of a deal that hinges on the pending Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger.

Charter will also look to deploy the new guide to all set-top boxes across its footprint, including older boxes that don’t speak IP, by leaning on a system from ActiveVideo Networks that processes the guide on the network and send the video content and the interface in an MPEG stream. Update: Zodiac Interactive is supplying the software stack powering the device. 

That network-based approach  “makes every box and every TV in the Charter footprint state-of-the-art,” Tom Rutledge, Charter’s president and CEO, said. It also means Charter won’t have to swap boxes to get its new UI deployed broadly. "Smart networks make dumb screens smart," he added. "We can take any kind of device and make it a sophisticated device." 

Rutledge also talked up the economics of the new platform, calling it a “breakthrough in terms of cost and capability.”

While Cisco is Charter’s initial source for the device, Charter is expected to add others into the mix. Charter said it is working with vendors toward manufacturing compatible boxes for the retail market as well.

The network-based processing system will also pave the way for Charter to render its UI on retail boxes. Here at the show, Charter showed a proof-of-concept of the Spectrum Guide running on a Roku box.

“We are proud to join Charter today to showcase the leading edge IP and cloud-based video solutions they are developing, and the Cisco products at their core, Cisco chairman and CEO John Chambers said in a statement. “We are proud to join Charter today to showcase the leading edge IP Charter’s new video solution, featuring cloud-driven video experiences offered across many devices will be a huge win for Charter subscribers.”

Broadcom is using this week’s International CES to unveil its first system-on-a-chip based on DOCSIS 3.1, the emerging CableLabs spec that is paving a path toward multi-gigabit speeds over HFC networks.

Broadcom, the first chipmaker to introduce a D3.1-based chipset, unveiled the BCM93390, a modem reference design that also bakes in 802.11ac WiFi radios that, it claims, can also pump out in-home wireless speeds of up to 2 Gbps.

Intel and STMicroelectronics, which is demonstrating DOCSIS 3.1 here at the show, are among the other chipmakers known to be developing DOCSIS 3.1 silicon.

The initial crop of DOCSIS 3.1 modems will be hybrids in that they will also be capable of supporting both DOCSIS 3.0 and DOCSIS 3.1 traffic. The aim there is to provide cable operators with a relatively smooth migration path as they light up fresh DOCSIS 3.1 spectrum.

As for Broadcom’s entry, the company said it complies with the D3.1 specs, meaning it will feature support for two OFDM (orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing) channels that are each 196-MHz wide, two 96 MHz OFDM-A upstream channels, 32 single-carrier DOCSIS 3.0 QAM downstream channels, and 8 single-carrier DOCSIS 3.0 QAM upstream channels.

Broadcom noted that the chip also integrates PacketCable voice and e-router apps, as well as RDK-B, an emerging, unified version of the preintegrated software stack for set-tops as well as DOCSIS-powered broadband gateways. The original version of the Reference Design Kit, which is being managed by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global, supported only hybrid QAM/IP and IP-only video devices.

Broadcom said the BCM93390 DOCSIS 3.1 design is currently sampling, and did not announce pricing or when it expects the SoC to reach commercial availability.

CableLabs, which conducted its first D3.1 interop last month and will host its second one later this month, expects to start official DOCSIS 3.1 certification and qualification testing as early as the second quarter of 2015.

DOCSIS 3.1 is a more efficient platform that aims to support capacities of up to 10 Gbps downstream and at least 1 Gbps upstream by utilizing blocks of OFDM subcarriers and a the introduction of the Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) forward error correction scheme. In addition to paving the way toward cable’s eventual all-IP migration, DOCSIS 3.1 will enable cable operators to deploy gigabit speeds on a broad basis without having to pull fiber all the way to the premises. 

Broadcom’s announcement also shed some light on when some of the world’s largest cable operators expect to start rolling out DOCSIS 3.1.

“The next generation of DOCSIS technology supports the Gigabit speeds our subscribers will increasingly demand over time,” said Balan Nair, Liberty Global’s EVP and CTO, in a statement. “DOCSIS 3.1 will enable Liberty Global to deliver an even richer experience once we begin deploying this cost-effective technology during the second half of 2015.”

“DOCSIS 3.1 is a critical technology for Comcast to provide even faster, more reliable data speeds and features such as IP video to our subscribers’ homes by harnessing more spectrum in the downstream,” added Comcast EVP and CTO Tony Werner. “By more effectively using our cable plant to grow our total throughput, we expect to offer our customers more than 1 Gigabit speeds in their homes in 2015 and beyond.”  

Las Vegas – International CES -- The 3D-TV market was a dud in part because many sets required pesky and expensive glasses and because there was a relative dearth of content available in the format. 

One company that aims to reverse 3D-TV's fortunes is Stream TV Networks, a Philadelphia-based firm founded in 2009 that has developed a proprietary glasses-free 3D platform that has progressed to the point that it can fit on Qualcomm-made Snapdragon chips that can be embedded into televisions.  

Stream TV Networks touted its progress here on Monday, announcing the completion of its systems-on-chip (SoC) and an array of technology partners, including a handful of TV makers. Combined, those elements that make its platform, dubbed “Ultra-D,” ready for commercial rollout, Mathu Rajan, Stream TV’s CEO, said.

Stream TV Networks, which has previously demonstrated its technology running on separate conversion boxes, said its glasses-free approach can work on high-definition sets, but notes that the extra pixels that 4K brings to the table allows it to create more depth and separation of the images and render more impressive 3D effects. The company claims that its Ultra-D conversion process allows consumers to watch 3D images at different viewing angles, rather than a small “sweet spot,” and isn’t saddled with the headaches and motion sickness that some consumers get when viewing 3DTV with glasses.

On the partnership front, Stream TV Networks has agreements in place with companies such as Hisense, PDC (a joint venture of Panasonic, NTT Docomo and Mitsubishi), Skyworth, Konka, and Cello Electronics, a TV maker that currently focuses on the European market but is looking to expand into North America.

The Stream TV Networks platform can convert 2D to 3D, but it is also starting to urge content owners and distributors to develop native content – including live TV and post-produced video  -- for the glasses-free platform. It’s starting discussion with unnamed content owners and content creators, sports leagues, cable channels, and pay-TV providers, according to Bud Robertson, the company’s vice president of business development.

IZON, a company that has handled 2D-to-3D conversions of movie titles such as Gulliver’s Travels, Hoodwinked Too!, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, signed on last year to release Ultra-D-enabled products in collaboration with Stream TV.

Stream TV Networks will also be looking to work with cable operators and other pay-TV distributors. While delivering content in Stream TV’s glasses-free format does cost some extra bandwidth (the company estimates that it requires an extra 8% to 10% in bandwidth headroom), cable operators won’t be required to carve out bandwidth for separate 3D channels in order to take advantage of the company’s technology, Rajan said. 

Still, cable operators and other pay-TV distributors will likely want to see a market with TVs outfitted with Stream TV’s technology develop before they justify freeing up the relatively small bandwidth headroom required for the new glasses-free format.

Other target markets for Stream TV Networks’ approach include digital signage and games. Stream TV has already developed a software development kit for games. 

Tacking on a feature that’s tailored for consumers who like to binge on TV series, TiVo has introduced OnePass, a system for its DVRs and mobile apps that tracks every episode of shows users want to catch up on and displays them in their “My Shows” folders.

OnePass is cross-platform, as it sources TV series from live or recorded TV, video-on-demand and various streaming apps that are supported by the TiVo platform, including Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and Hulu Plus. OnePass also provides an option that lets users include all content that is recorded or offered via streaming, or select only from DVR recordings or only from streaming video sources (an option that lets users save DVR recording space).

TiVo said OnePass will be available to TiVo Roamio and TiVo Mini devices in February. OnePass will be added to the TiVo app for iOS devices in February, and on Android devices in March. A TiVo official said the company will support OnePass to its platform optimized for MVPD partners starting in March. TiVo ended its fiscal third quarter with 928,000 TiVo-owned subscribers, and 4.2 million subs through MVPD partnerships. 

“As we continue to see exponential growth in binge watching and the nearly ubiquitous presence of OTT video subscription services alongside traditional cable, TiVo continues to fulfill our mission to deliver the best entertainment experience for viewers," said Jim Denney, TiVo’s VP of product marketing, in a statement.  "With OnePass, we can shorten the time to get users to the content to which they subscribe much easier than needing to search individual services.”

TiVo also announced that it will offer iHeartRadio, a streaming music and digital radio service, on TiVo Roamio, TiVo Mini and TiVo Premiere devices in the “next few weeks” as part of a rolling update.  iHeartRadio’s library includes more than 20 million songs, 800,000 artists and 2,000 live radio stations, according to the company.

Here at CES, TiVo said it will demo a range of new products and prototypes, including OnePass, the recently launched TiVo Roamio OTA and TiVo Mega, its nDVR solution, 4K, and a “more portable TiVo experience” for the Google Chromecast and Roku devices. 

TiVo will also show off a new Android app set to launch in March, and a new premium sideloading feature for iOS users that will be available in the “coming months.  Its Digitalsmiths subsidiary, meanwhile,  will demo Seamless Insight, a new reporting and analytics platform for video service providers.  

Roku, looking to stay a step ahead of Android TV and other competing platforms, has added Haier America and Insignia (Best Buy’s house CE brand) to a growing group of CE partners that will introduce hi-def TV models that integrate Roku’s operating system and apps platform.

Extending its view beyond HDTVs, Roku has also set plans to support 4K/Ultra HD streaming in future integrated Roku TV models. It has already developed a Roku TV reference design for connected 4KTVs that it will license to original equipment manufacturing (OEM) partners. Word of the new partners and 4K plans come as the International CES gets underway this week in Las Vegas.

Regarding its newest integrated TV partners, Haier plans to launch its Roku TV models in the third quarter of 2015, starting off  Roku TV Series Smart LED TVs in sizes ranging from 32-inches to 65-inches. Haier’s coming 40-inch and 65-inch Roku TV models will also support “Full HD” resolution and an enhanced “Sound Chamber.”  Haier also announced that the 3.5 series of Roku Ready TVs will be available in the first quarter of 2015.  Those Roku Ready models are non-connected sets that are bundled with Roku Streaming Sticks that support Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) technology.

Insignia, meanwhile, expects to introduce several Roku TV products this spring and sell them exclusively at Best Buy stores and at BestBuy.com. 

Roku's first TV integration deals were announced last year with TCL and Hisense, which started to ship Roku-based models last fall. 

Roku has not announced how many Roku TVs have been sold so far (those products have “been well received by consumers,” the company said), but such integrations are key to its plan to expand its platform in a competitive market that includes Google’s new Android TV platform, the Apple TV, and emerging ones such as Tizen, which will be used in all of Samsung’s 2015 smart TV models.  

And Roku, which has shipped more than 10 million streaming boxes and sticks in the U.S. so far, believes that there are still plenty of opportunities to build its market reach. Jim Funk, Roku’s senior vice president or product management and strategy, cited Nielsen figures showing that most consumers still don’t have streaming players or smart TVs.

“It’s becoming mainstream, but not yet become ubiquitous,” Funk said, noting that Roku, which now offers more than 2,000 apps/channels, delivered more than 3 billion hours in streams last year.

More 4K Details

Roku said TCL is its initial partner to build 4K-capable Roku TV models, adding that it’s working with Netflix to provide 4K content for streaming via the Roku platform.

“As one of the first streaming services to offer 4K Ultra HD content to our customers, it’s important for Netflix to work closely with partners like Roku to give consumers more streaming options,” said Neil Hunt, chief product officer of Netflix, in a statement. “We look forward to bringing Netflix 4K Ultra HD content to Roku customers.”

Roku has not announced a roadmap for standalone streaming boxes or sticks that can support 4K streaming, but UHD is clearly becoming an important factor.

“We are very bullish on 4K as we believe that streaming will be instrumental in its adoption,” added Anthony Wood, Roku’s CEO. “Bringing 4K to the Roku platform will give consumers even more choice and control of their entertainment viewing, and deliver the best streaming experience available.” 

Linear video will never die, but it’s clearly not the primary way consumers in broadband-connected homes are consuming their video.

Amplifying the trend toward video-on-demand, the DVR and over-the-top streaming services, Parks Associates said a new study found that the average U.S. broadband household watches 17.4 hours of non-linear video per week, versus 11.5 hours of linear video.

That’s been the way of it for a while. A multi-year view of Parks Associates’ surveys on the topic shows that non-linear video consumption surpassed linear in broadband homes around 2012.

Of the respondents in the most recent survey, 11% said they watch non-linear video exclusively.

"Non-linear video accounts for 49% of the video consumed on the TV, and it is already the majority, 60%, of TV video viewed by consumers 18-24," said Barbara Kraus, director of research at Parks Associates, in a statement. "Growing consumer demand, alongside new OTT service announcements from HBO and CBS, is driving all players in the video ecosystem to add streaming capabilities to their devices.”

Parks Research also found that consumers in the 18-34 age group watch roughly half the amount of linear video as those who are 45 years old and older, and 6% of survey respondents aged 18-24 don’t own a TV set.

In a comparative look-back, Parks found in 2010 that while 14% of respondents in the 18-34 age group didn’t watch video on a TV set on a weekly basis, that figure rose to 25% by 2014.

In 2012, the average respondent watched 12.8 hours of broadcast TV on a TV set each week, a number that shrank to 10.1 hours by 2014, Parks Research found. During that same tim span, consumption of Internet video jumped from 1.6 hours to 2.9 hours.

Parks Associates released the study in part to call attention to the research firm-hosted Connections Summit at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 6 at the Venetian Ballrooms Level 1 (Casanova Rooms 601-603). Yep, it’s already time to start thinking about CES!

Execs lined up for the “Streaming Media Devices in the Video Ecosystem” at 1:15 p.m. include: Michael Clegg, SVP and GM of service provider business, Netgear; Jim Denney, vice president, General Manager, Product Marketing, TiVo;  Jim Funk, SVP, product management, Roku;  Elad Nafshi, VP, video product management, Comcast; Michael Paull, VP of digital video, Amazon; and GW Shaw, vice president, U-verse and video Products, AT&T.