Internet VOD Internet video on demand - CSI Magazine TV industry is based on the attractions of a...
Transcript of Internet VOD Internet video on demand - CSI Magazine TV industry is based on the attractions of a...
Alot of marketing material in
the TV industry is based on the
attractions of a near unlimited
choice of content, through multiple channels
and large VOD libraries. But operators,
broadcasters and DVD retailers are all now
having to face up to the fact that the internet
really does offer unlimited choice. If there's
something you want to watch, and you've
got a decent broadband connection, some
patience, and a little technical knowledge,
you can get it online. It won't necessarily be
easy to find, and once you've downloaded
it, you may have difficulty moving it from
a PC or laptop onto your digital TV set-top
box, but these are still early days.
The market for online downloads of TV
programmes and films is expected to be
worth $6.3 billion by 2012, according
to research from Informa; and during
the last two years, the major
Hollywood content owners have finally
begun to understand the potential
operational and cost benefits of
online content distribution, and have
started licensing download
service providers to distribute
their content.
New services to have
entered this market in
recent months include
Amazon's Unbox service,
which offers Hollywood
films and TV content for
rental or purchase - both
to website visitors
and to US TiVO
users, following an agreement signed
in February. Wal-Mart has launched an
iTunes-style video download service that
includes reseller deals with all six of the
major Hollywood studios. Apple has launched
Apple TV, which will allow consumers
to move content wirelessly from computer
to TV; and there have been announcements
from Microsoft, making content from MTV
Networks, Paramount, Turner Broadcasting
and Warner Home Entertainment available
for download to Xbox 360 hard drives. Intel
has also formed an alliance with a download
website, coolroom.com, to release downloads
of Hollywood movies at the same time as
they are released on DVD. Could this, in
combination with the spread of PVR, mean
the beginning of the end of TV
as we know it?
At the very least, these new
services certainly offer
a theoretical threat both
to the revenues of pay
TV broadcasters and
operators and to the
DVD rental/retail
model. “There's
definitely a market
for people who
just want to rent
the odd movie and not have to subscribe
to a service to do so,” says Miles Holden,
sales and marketing director at the British
Internet Broadcasting Corporation (BiBC).
His company offers download services direct
to consumers and through partnerships with
ISPs, retailers and other online businesses,
using progressive download technology,
which means consumers can start watching
a piece of content before the download
is complete.
But 'over the top' providers like this still
face some fundamental problems. Distribution
of content almost always depends on an ISP
network outside their control, making it
difficult, if not impossible, to guarantee
quality of service (QoS). Secondly, content
from the open internet is still most likely to
be downloaded to a PC, and - in the absence
of widespread, easy to use home networking
- that means it's unlikely that the downloaded
material will end up on the TV screen.
It's all about content aggregationSo most aggregator websites are forming
partnerships with broadcasters, operators
and content owners. The fact that so many
operators are now supplying consumers with
hybrid STBs with an internet connection
gives them a potential route into the living
room. For example, the US-based aggregator
Akimbo Systems now forms an important
part of AT&T's Homezone internet/VOD/
“The fact that so many operators arenow supplying consumers with hybridSTBs with an internet connectiongives them a potential route into theliving room.”
Internet VOD
Could the recent proliferation of internet VOD, in combination with the spread of PVRs, mean the beginning of the end of TV as we know it? And how will serviceproviders cope with HD on demand,asks David Adams
Internet video on demand
page twenty six www.cable-satellite.com Cable & Satellite International march-april 2007
PVR/TV service. Its content library serves
as Homezone's VOD library, offered through
a broadband connection that runs directly
into the Homezone STB.
Meanwhile, many broadcasters and
operators are developing their own internet
portals, effectively becoming specialist
aggregators themselves, while triple and
four-play operators are investigating other
ways of using internet connectivity to offer
VOD services. BT's BT Vision offering,
launched in the UK in December 2006,
is based on a hybrid STB with a broadband
connection and digital terrestrial input.
Running on a customised version of
Microsoft's IPTV software, and delivered
via the BT Wholesale Network, it offers
BT broadband customers access to Freeview
digital TV, through the V-box STB, which
also incorporates an 80 hour PVR.
Customers must pay a one-off set-up
and installation fee, on top of the broadband
subscription fee. They then also have
the option of accessing a large VOD library
on a pay per view basis, with prices of
£0.99 for TV shows and £2.99 for premium
movies, for a 24-hour rental period.
Consumers will also be offered the
option of subscribing to content genre
on a month by month basis: for £6 per
month to subscribe to the children's
programming library.
“We're targeting people who are
interested in digital TV but don't want
a heavy monthly subscription,”
says Richard Griffiths, director
of technology strategy and devel-
opment at BT Vision. “We manage
every link of the chain, and that
allows us to guarantee a quality of
service all the way to the STB. We
have a QoS mechanism in that
network so that when someone
presses play it grabs a 1.6MB pipe
all the way from the video server
to the customer's home, to offer
an uninterrupted TV experience.
That's a really important
differentiator for us.”
Operators that can't offer use
of their own dedicated network
may also find themselves pushed
by competition from elsewhere.
STB and TV manufacturers might
want to add an internet connection
to equipment for their own
benefit, because if they
formed alliances with online aggregators
(or become aggregators themselves) they
could offer consumers another source of
content. Consumers in the US can already
purchase the RCA Akimbo Player, which
can be used to access the Akimbo content
library, while BiBC's Holden says the
company is working with retailers who want
to use such post-sales services as a way
of cementing relationships with customers.
Responding to internet VODThe response of satellite players to the
rise of internet VOD will also be interesting.
BSkyB's PC download service forms part
of a broad strategy encompassing use
of the DSL network made possible by
its acquisition of EasyNet. Its Sky Anytime
offering, a rebranding of broadband and
mobile TV services for sports and movie
package subscribers, will soon be com-
plemented with new near-VOD services
(via satellite - to be launched
in March) and then eventually
'true' VOD services (via the
internet - to be launched at
an unspecified point in the
medium term). The Sky
Anytime on PC service
currently offers subscribers
access to a library of
300 titles.
Stephen Van Rooyen,
director of product man-
agement at BSkyB, is bullish
about a strong start to the
PC download service (over
a million downloads recorded
by the end of 2006), about
the attractions of PVR
services with plentiful
storage, and a satellite
network offering guaranteed
bandwidth for HD broadcasts.
“BT and cable are entering
the market with VOD propo-
sitions because they think
that's where they can make in-roads,”
he says. But with two million of our homes
with PVRs, and our complement to that with
the push and pull VOD services, we think
that will strengthen Sky's portfolio quite
dramatically.” But he remains cautious when
talking about the extent to which subscribers
will be able to use those Ethernet ports.
“We haven't considered whether we'd open
up the STB to the outside world,” he says.
“There are all sorts of implications with the
rights holders in relation to it being a closed
system. In the short to medium term, I don't
think that's something we're planning to do.”
But it may be dangerous for operators
and content owners to place too many
restrictions on subscribers. As Nick Fielibert,
vice-president, CTO and chief architect at
Scientific Atlanta, Europe and Asia, puts it:
“If you try to restrict the customer, to stop
them from doing something, and one of your
competitors does allow it, then you lose the
customer.” That's likely to become
more important as the complexities
and obstacles currently holding
back home networking are over-
come, allowing consumers to move
content from device to device. “I
Internet VOD
“Many broadcasters and operators are developing their own internetportals, effectively becoming specialistaggregators themselves, while triple and four-play operators are investigating other ways of usinginternet connectivity to offer VOD services.”
www.cable-satellite.com page twenty sevenCable & Satellite International march-april 2007
think the major problem if you talk about
Web delivery is within the home, getting
content from one place to another,” says
Noel Matthews, vice-president of advanced
media at Tandberg Television. “I've got
islands of content I can't move between my
PVR and my PC. The techie geeks might find
a way around it but, for the average
consumer, even the concept of downloading
stuff off the internet is going to be difficult.”
This year, one of the free, automatic
software upgrades BT Vision will provide
for the V-box will enable users to move
music and photos from the PC to the STB,
the first step in a strategy designed to
ensure that this STB will be at the heart
of a home network. But Richard Griffiths
stresses that this does not mean they aim
to create an internet experience on the TV:
“They're just going to have a remote control,
they're not going to have a keyboard.
There has to be an easy to understand
user interface.”
That need to make using the system
as simple as possible may yet mean that
media centre PCs remain a minority interest.
“Customers would prefer just the one device,
the STB that can do it all,” says Fielibert.
“If I've got to pay for content from an
aggregator and content from a VOD system
that comes through the STB, and they both
cost about the same, then the service that
comes through the STB will win.”
Towards HD on demandIf the rise of VOD services and multi-source
hybrid STBs do act as a catalyst for a growth
in home networking, the technical defi-
ciencies of an average home will be
highlighted again if consumers decide they
want more HD services. That will require
further improvements in network capacity
(inside and outside the home) and
compression technologies.
BT Vision has been designed as an
HD-ready solution. “The V-box, the video
server, and the back end servers could
all be used for an HD on demand service,
but we haven't got the HD content on
there yet,” says Griffiths. “The main
problem we would have delivering it on
demand is bandwidth availability on the
access network. At the moment, BT
Broadband is up to 8MB, and HD using
H264 probably needs 10MB. You also
can't stream in real-time.”
Instead of waiting until BT completes
the 21CN upgrade of its networks, the
current plan is to offer a 'push' or near
-VOD HD service. That would mean
the consumer would have to pre-order
movies, for example, at least several hours
ahead. “Until we get the access network
capable of streaming in real time, HD will
be a pre-order, download and play model,”
says Griffiths. He says BT Vision customers
may receive a software upgrade to enable
this capability sometime in 2008.
By contrast, BSkyB is already pleased
with its current HD offering. And while
acknowledging the potential difficulties
associated with making HD content
available on demand, Van Rooyen wonders
how important such a service would
actually be. “Delivery via satellite, with
guaranteed bandwidth and HD PVR with
plenty of storage, is a great way to service
HD for the next period,” he says. “Whether
or not customers want HD on demand
remains to be seen. For the mid to short
term, HD is about live TV, about football
and other sports. But if our customers
demand HD VOD, it'll be down to us to
find a way to satisfy that.”
Operators also face the challenge of
securing revenue from ever more flexible,
viewer-defined, and PVR-influenced
services. But research commissioned from
ICM by BiBC in 2006 revealed that 55% of
those questioned would rather watch
advertising and get programme content
free of charge than pay for advertising-free
content, with the figure rising to 74% for
the 18 to 24 year-olds surveyed. At the
same time, the growth of interactive adver-
tising, and more viewers using PVR and
interactive functions, which reveal more
of an individual, or family group's tastes
and interests, may help improve the
targeting of advertising.
But the spread of VOD, PVR and home
networking, of services that offer endless
quantities of content, available on demand
via internet connections and in part from
websites, and viewed using a plethora of
different devices, still won't mean TV content
ends up being consumed like most internet
material, insists Van Rooyen. “VOD and linear
channels will happily sit side by side with
one another. There will be a loosening
of the TV schedules, but there will still
be a schedule, particularly for sport and
big shows,” he says.
Even so, internet VOD is still set to give
the industry quite a shock.
“If the rise of VOD services and multi-source hybrid STBs do act as a catalyst for a growth in homenetworking, the technical deficienciesof an average home will be highlightedagain if consumers decide they wantmore HD services.”
“For the mid to short term, HD isabout live TV. But if our customersdemand HD VOD, it'll be down to usto find a way to satisfy that.”
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