The conditional access and middleware markets are at a strong inflection point as two-way capabilities over broadband networks reach an increasingly larger percentage of subscribers on all platforms - especially cable and IPTV, but also satellite and terrestrial offerings. Consolidation of vendors together with pressure from open source platforms such as Android Open-Source and RDK have further put pressure on elements of the middleware market, with a corresponding shift from licensing to service revenues. Standardization that sits on top of web technologies, including HTML5 and adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming, have caught on in consumer electronics devices as well as mobile / tablet platforms and are rapidly spilling into traditional television networks, upending the traditional middleware value. The market competition (and cooptition - where vendors cooperate on some projects while they compete on others) is at a historic high.
This database looks at vendors delivering software to multichannel video platform distributors (MVPDs), especially conditional access systems (CAS), digital rights management (DRM) solutions used for multiscreen (TV Everywhere) offerings, and middleware functions. Middleware functions include customer-facing experience components, notably electronic or integrated program guides (EPG / IPG), DVR capabilities, video on demand (VOD) components, interactive television, advanced advertising (measurement, interactivity, and t-commerce), and search, recommendation, and discovery.