KVH, Perception and ARRIS bring sailors waves of entertainment

KVH, PerceptionTV, and ARRIS Collaborate to Bring Sailors Waves of Entertainment

With sailors working so far from home for months at a time, having quality on-board entertainment is essential to their wellbeing. KVH has overcome the challenges of bringing up-to-date content to ships around the world through their IP-MobileCast service. This innovative entertainment service allows crews to view everything from Hollywood films and international television favorites through to up-to-date news coverage and sporting highlights. Content is securely delivered to devices across the ship using PerceptionTV’s reliable content delivery platform and ARRIS’s SecureMedia range so sailors can enjoy what they want to watch at a time convenient for them.

The Challenge:

Bringing Great Content to Those at Sea As the merchant fleet continues to grow, 57,000 ships as of 2013, there comes an increase in the demand for a quality downtime entertainment service. To fulfill this demand KVH, a leading provider of satellite, high-speed internet, television and voice services, needed a simple to use, content-rich, on-demand solution. This solution not only had to meet the stringent security requirements of content providers, but also solve the technical challenges of delivering content to ships at sea where conditions can make internet access difficult.

The Solution:

An Innovative Content Delivery Platform The 3-way collaboration of KVH, PerceptionTV and ARRIS was a surefire way to ensure KVH’s vision for the service became a reality. This required:

KVH to license and deliver high quality entertainment content, delivered over its IP-MobileCast satellite service to ships all over the world.

PerceptionTV’s innovative multiscreen technology to handle the on-board streaming to multiple screens.

ARRIS’s award winning SecureMedia series, to smoothly and securely play content on any approved device connected to the IP-MobileCast system.

"The IP-MobileCast service is revolutionary in the richness of fresh content that can be delivered to mariners at sea, who up until now have not had access to updated news, sports, TV, or movies on-board their vessels," said Martin Kits van Heyningen, KVH Chief Executive Officer. "Now, mariners in the middle of the ocean can experience an incredible amount of news and entertainment content the entire time they are at sea, and maritime operators can benefit from providing crew welfare services reliably and affordably".

How It Works KVH’s IP-MobileCast service beams content down to an onboard 2U rack mountable media server. Present on the server is the content delivery platform from PerceptionTV which streams KVH’s programming to its interactive companion app installed on set-top boxes, computers and personal devices all around the ship. PerceptionTV creates linear TV channels on the fly from the content storage server, so crew members can enjoy a home-like TV viewing experience streamed over the wired and wireless networks on-board.

To watch content on mobile devices, registered users simply download the iOS or Android IP-MobileCast apps, customized and branded by PerceptionTV for KVH. Should they move between ships, nothing needs to be reconfigured or downloaded again, ensuring access remains simple.

Security and Reliability ARRIS’s SecureMedia Encryptonite One™ System provides an extensive range of conditional access and DRM tools, allowing KVH to distribute up-to-date content while meeting the strictest Hollywood studio security requirements. Strict hybrid encryption channels ensure that content is persistently encrypted in storage and during the delivery process. Carrying out DRM authentication offline was critical to the success of the project as it meant that users did not require an internet connection to use the IP-MobileCast service.

With IP-MobileCast, management can rest assured knowing the crew is legally watching the content they are enjoying onboard.

About KVH KVH is a market share leader in the rapidly growing maritime satellite industry with more than 60 years’ experience in providing versatile, cost-effective services. Services are delivered to over 13,000 destinations daily in more than 140 countries.

About Perception TV Perception TV are creators of a complete and fully scalable IPTV platform with industry leading cloud-based features. They are developers of cutting-edge multiscreen IPTV solutions for telcos, broadcasters and ISPs with services delivered worldwide.

About ARRIS ARRIS is a global innovator in IP, video and broadband technology. They are the creators of digital TV and the first wireless broadband gateway, leading the standards and pathways for tomorrow’s personalized, Ultra HD, multiscreen and cloud services.