 | Issue: | EMEA 2012 |
| Article no.: | 7 | |
| Topic: | With Internet TV, quality is key | |
| Author: | Mike Galli | |
| Title: | Vice President of Marketing | |
| Organisation: | ViewCast | |
| PDF size: | 336KB |
About author
Mike Galli is the Vice President of Marketing for ViewCast Corporation, a developer of industry-leading solutions that helps companies deliver video to broadband and mobile networks. Mr Galli has more than 20 years of experience in the video industry, including extensive knowledge of IPTV systems, Video on Demand, CDN systems, DRM, online advertising, streaming video, enterprise software, as well as service provider and direct-to-consumer video business models. His diverse technology background is the result of working for a variety of companies ranging from computer networking and Internet to software and telecommunications.
Article abstract
Despite the great interest in Mobile Internet, the PC is still favoured for long video watching. The larger TV screen is also gaining momentum. Internet STBs (Set Top Box) are starting to surpass PCs. Several European services now provide Internet TV as a hybrid solution with terrestrial local antenna option. Users have developed a taste for Internet TV, but they now demand higher reliability and quality. Advanced compression, wide broadband (4G) and improved traffic management enable OTT (Over The Top) improve the resolution and video screens are no longer ‘Triscuit’ size. However, the demand for ‘any screen’ flexibility presents an opportunity for service providers to win subscribers back.
Full Article
A recent Yankee Group report, 2012 Mobility Predictions: A Year of Living Dangerously, predicts that TV Everywhere (authenticated content models) that include streaming to tablets will provide the most important boost to mobile video viewership by consumers. This should come as no surprise, as the iPad 3 has proved to be another hot seller for Apple, adding to the more than 55 million iPads sold since it was launched in 2010.
With my personal interest in the field of mobile technology devices, I notice that more and more of our mobile society is consuming media via the Internet, utilizing their mobile devices. Going hand in hand with the increased adoption of mobile devices as a source for media delivery are the numerous opportunities for broadcasters, local affiliates and advertisers. Beyond capital expenditure savings, Internet TV enables expanded reach to grow audiences while reaching them directly and interactively, resulting in deeper engagement through rich media communications.
What is driving mobile?
There are two main drivers motivating service providers to provide video service on the Internet and mobile networks: customer satisfaction and new advertising models. We have already seen the effect of NetFlix on the traditional service provider’s business. NetFlix’s growth in the online portion of their business came about not only from their very simple fee structure, but also because their service was able to achieve a level of quality that consumers were happy with.
The new advertising models would entail ads that are tied into someone’s location if they are on a mobile phone, for example. Here, again, quality is important. The ad might be for a new movie or for a new car. However, if it is a video ad, it’s important that the ad is of sufficient quality or the user will simply navigate away.
PC delivery is still a focus
Despite the mobile ’craze’, many consumers still watch a lot of video content on their PC and many of them also connect their PC to a TV set. In short, the PC has not received the attention that it deserves as it still remains a very flexible and powerful platform. With a high-end processor and a good graphics card, a PC can be transformed into a high-end set top box. Add a tuner card for over the air broadcast and you can watch local TV stations as well as Internet content. Tuner cards today can receive HD (High Definition) content and can also provide features such as interactive program guides and DVR (Digital Video Recorder) capabilities.
Internet STBs are starting to surpass PCs
When the first Internet set top boxes came out they worked fairly well. In most cases the user interface was not very good and there was not very much content to watch, unless you were interested in low-quality TV stations from around the world or religious TV stations. NetFlix was the poster child for OTT video service and Roku (a company that has spun out of NetFlix) offered a very nice product at a reasonable price, but the industry needed more, and more was what they got. Now it is common for these devices to have NetFlix, Hulu, Pandora, Amazon and other services that today’s digital consumers crave. In addition to this type of services, today’s next generation devices now offer HD content on a fairly reliable basis.
We are also starting to see hybrid Internet set top boxes. They offer a connection to the Internet as well as another connection type such as a local antenna. To be fair, Tivo has had this product for some time now, although in their case the Internet connection came last. Their service offering, user interface and feature sets are all very high quality. In the early days their prices were fairly high, but today their products are priced well.
In France, Netgem launched a service through the FNAC store chain offering their hybrid set top box that enabled a connection to the local digital terrestrial signals as well as a connection to the Internet. The ‘Netbox’ was one of the first of its kind and has done fairly well.
The BBC has finally launched the long awaited YouView service, similar to the service that Netgem launched. However, the YouView service has a number of set top box options and very robust content offering. It is expected to do quite well. The BBC may not be the first, but they tend to do an excellent job when they launch services.
How about the traditional service providers?
This opportunity has not been lost on service providers, eager to offer mobile video content and to move away from simply providing the ’pipes’. However, for service providers to monetize the mobile video experience, they must provide a high-quality solution, which is much easier said than done. Additionally, the increase of broadband throughput rates, the expanded availability of broadband access as a result of 4G and Wi-Fi, combined with increasingly efficient compression and transport technologies give service providers the opportunity to offer an ‘any screen’ experience to consumers – a significant advance in service providers’ battle against over the top.
As more take advantage of new Internet TV and video on demand products, the industry standard for higher resolution and bandwidth is raised. Because more mobile devices can function as set top boxes, they now require the same encoding profiles that TV sets do. Although many customers do not have sufficient bandwidth for 1080p, there has been a steady movement from 720p to 1080p, even in the Internet space.
Reaching new video customers
Service providers are also looking to use the Internet formats to reach customers who have been too far away for traditional video service. In this case they are experimenting with Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming format to deliver video over their own broadband Internet network to set top boxes that now can receive this format as well as the traditional ones. This will enable more revenue for them and also means that their customers can now enjoy the same user interface and choice of TV and movies.
We have definitely come a long way since dial-up video…
In the early days of video streaming, viewer satisfaction depended simply on delivery. If video didn’t stop, stutter or lose synch with the audio, it was considered high quality. Back when most consumers only had dial-up access, the video resolution was very low – showing screens of similar in size to a Triscuit brand cracker, so this was commonly referred to as ‘Triscuit video’. It was also common to use a very low frame rate – as low as one frame per second! There was a big focus on audio quality since the video quality was so poor. There were even features to stop the video stream, but to continue on with audio when the bandwidth dropped to a low point.
However, as new devices have started to feature high definition retina displays combined with increasingly popular trends in video usage and delivery, such as live streaming, simulcasting, webcasting, mobile TV and video on demand, end users have evolved to expect much higher quality standards.
Where will we go from here?
Through higher resolution, higher speeds, and higher quality, innovation in streaming media technology and devices will continuously reshape the industry. Service providers, broadcasters, local affiliates and advertisers seeking to grow their subscriber base and monetize the Internet TV opportunity must keep their thumbs on the pulse of new innovations to satisfy the increasingly high expectations of end users.
There is also a need to keep an eye on cool new ideas and companies. For sure Google is one of those and the Google glasses are a good example of something that might cause a whole new video medium to develop. Google, Amazon and Apple are also good to watch in terms of developing a true shift from the traditional service providers.
One thing is certain – we live in interesting times where innovation continues to drive new realities for the future of streaming media on a very connected planet.
