TV Technology

For S3 Group’s cable, satellite and IPTV operator clients as well as our STB manufacturer and middleware and conditional access vendor clients S3 Group provides product upgrades to legacy equipment in the field.

S3 Group recognizes that deciding to undertake a significant upgrade of the system software of a “legacy” (or existing deployed) product in the field is a serious decision for an Operator and is only undertaken after significant analysis of the pros and cons.

We have seen a range of circumstances which can give rise to the need to perform such a significant software upgrade including:

• a requirement to switch to a different Conditional Access System due to improved security or business rules of a new solution or to address deficiencies in an existing system
• a desire to move to a different middleware solution or application run time environment
• a program to migrate all boxes in a newly merged network to a common software platform in order to reduce the lifetime support and maintenance costs and to ensure a common user experience
• a wish to add new features which may have been provided for in the original hardware design but which were not enabled in earlier software images, e.g. home networking support and external hard drives

Even when one or more of these circumstances arise, and there is a real incentive to consider a significant legacy upgrade program, there are many risks to rolling out such an upgrade which need to be considered carefully including:

• the possibility of degradation in performance of certain features on certain models particularly older boxes in the deployed population
• the possibility of increased customer service calls due to changed box behavior giving rise to increased call centre costs as well as the possibility of increased customer churn
• the possibility of some end users experiencing service discontinuity either during or after the upgrade cycle

And there are many factors which can increase the difficulty of having the upgrade completed including:

• variation in legacy box model types and capabilities
• lack of support from the original STB vendor either because they are no longer a supplier to the Operator or in more extreme circumstances are no longer in the business of supplying STBs at all
• lack of availability of some or all of the original personnel involved in the development of the STB
• lack of availability of source code for certain or possibly all of the existing system software (although this difficulty is usually mitigated by the Operator having an escrow arrangement in place for access to the source code)
• possible IPR and contractual difficulties in using software from different vendors in ways which were not envisioned in the contracts put in place for the original STB development

And yet despite all of these potential risks and complicating factors, S3 Group has still seen many Operators over the last number of years embarking on significant legacy upgrade programs. These customers of S3 Group’s have decided that the advantages outweigh the risks and challenges. They choose to work with S3 Group because of our ability to address the entire system challenge which such projects typically present. With an existing population of users who already have the hardware in their homes, the over-the-air software upgrade must be first-time-right and S3 Group draws on our over 200 man years of driver development and software integration on Set-Top Boxes (STBs) across multiple platforms for multiple networks to ensure that is what happens.

For further information or to speak to a TV Technology team member please email us at tvtech(at)s3group.com