Things have certainly changed in the last six months.

• Cord-cutting may be still a much debated statistic, but is in fact a competitive threat to traditional pay-TV services, particularly with younger generations. This threat grows with the quality of services that can be delivered over unmanaged networks and the variety of devices that can be used to display high quality video services.

• Progressive operators are finding ways to add OTT services to their subscription packages. IMS Research forecasts that in 2016, OTT services delivered via pay-TV set-top boxes will generate $436 million in worldwide operator revenues.

• Innovation among television technology suppliers has far from run its course. New announcements from digital systems vendors appear every day, creating momentum for strong partner ecosystems that can provide operators with the advanced capability they seek, but with options and flexibility for deployment.

We are seeing this support largely for the standard of HTTP Live Streaming (as opposed to the proprietary HTTP Dynamic Streaming from Adobe and Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming) mainly because of its open standards-based approach, including the definition of a standardized stream encryption mechanism for live and on-demand content.

The natural effect of a standards-based protocol and growing technology support is of course a more cost-efficient platform, making HTTP Live Streaming ideal for the kind of large-scale services that these progressive operators want to add to their line up.

However, we recognize that we are still in the early days of developing the business environment for adaptive rate streaming and OTT video services – which is why we are organizing the Capitalizing on OTT Breakfast Forum the morning of March 22 just down from the IP&TV World Forum conference that starts that same day.

We are bringing together industry leaders from Harmonic, RealNetworks, AwoX, Minerva Networks and Heavy Reading to discuss revenue optimization strategies for OTT services to multiple devices.

These companies are far from the only strong contributors to the momentum in this space, but do represent distinct elements of the overall value chain. And as such are able to illustrate very effectively the growing body of both product and expertise that can be brought to bear on this new market.

The point here is not to talk about where the industry is currently positioned in regards to OTT video, but to illustrate a vital and growing phenomenon that will shape the next phase of industry development – the integration of these new delivery mechanisms within an existing managed network service. The presenters will be discussing specific technology decisions operators need to make when building an integrated OTT platform.

With the ability to secure OTT video, operators are also provided a platform to deliver – and more directly monetize – their existing and future premium content.

This event is for broadcasters and network operators that are evaluating adaptive rate streaming technology in order to expand their service umbrella. Not only will you have access to these industry leaders, they will provide a preview and focus of what’s most important at the IP&TV World Forum conference.

Skip the queue the morning of the show and attend our free OTT breakfast forum. You won’t be disappointed. Plus you can enjoy delicious bacon sarnies to start your day!

RealNetworks

Harmonic

Minerva Networks

AwoX

Several of the booths were astonishingly large and expensive. At Microsoft, an entire segment was devoted to the new Kinect controller for the Xbox 360. I paced off the Samsung booth, starting at cell phones and ending at Internet-connected washing machines. It measured 110 paces by 55 paces, or approximately the size of some of the CES keynote speakers’ egos.

Tablets

No booth was complete without a full lineup of iPad clones. There are tablets with cameras, 3D tablets, tablets with videophones, tablets that convert into notebooks and game platforms. If nobody else makes a killing on tablets, then Corning certainly will, as they are the sole provider of the special “gorilla glass” used on all of the touch surfaces.

3D

Last year’s show was all about 3D. The subject continues to be hot this year, particularly in the quest for solutions that don’t require the dreaded “dork glasses.” As before, the lack of standards and the lack of content are impediments to success, although the video game world is going 3D at full throttle.

Microsoft

Beyond the very strong presence for Xbox Kinect, there was a strong push for the Windows Mobile platform. Rumor is that the new OS has little market support, and that Microsoft is contemplating acquisitions including some handset vendors in order to catch up to the Apple and Google smartphone successes.

The MediaRoom demo was essentially unchanged from 2009, 2008, and earlier. It is reported that the entire MediaRoom business is now reorganized under the Xbox business unit.

Prior to the show, there was much anticipation a new Microsoft OTT box that would be based on the Xbox platform. Either the press was wrong, or the truck didn’t arrive in time – no OTT box on display.

Google TV #Fail

Prior to CES, Google had publicly requested their partners to defer GoogleTV announcements. Poor industry reviews, poor sales, and a very negative reception by content owners have sent the team back to the labs for more work. They are very smart guys, and they will get it right eventually.

Gesture systems

PrimeSense is the Israeli chipset vendor that powers the gesture recognition features of the Kinect. One TV vendor was showing gesture based navigation, eliminating the remote control. A wrist flick left or right changed channels; other motions would mute or adjust volume.  Rude gestures switched the set from CNN to Fox News.

Cool Toys

The Wired magazine booth featured this transforming electric motorcycle. It operates as a Segway-style device at low speeds, but extends the front wheel to conventional motorcycle format for the open road. No mention of their need for DRM…

Even in off years, CES gives companies something to talk about. Please see other interesting CES insights from Kurt Scherf of Parks Associates and the gang at TechCrunch.

We would love to know your thoughts from the show.

I’d argue the biggest impediment to perfecting these apps is content. The biggest impediment to gaining the rights to content is content security. And who already has access to high-quality content and conditional access (CA) / digital rights management (DRM) systems in place? Digital TV operators. We believe the cable, satellite and IPTV operators that already have the rights to broadcast premium content are in the cat bird seat to offer the best live mobile TV experience.

The demand is clear. According to Sandvine, real-time entertainment, including video streaming, now accounts for about 43% of North American Internet traffic, up from 10% in 2008! And for the first time in history, the number of households paying for TV subscriptions is falling, in part due to the rise of Internet TV and over-the-top (OTT) services.

The technology is finally catching up to this demand when you consider what adaptive rate streaming can now enable.

Now, in this new OTT world, the issue of content rights is complicated. Take companies like Ivi and FilmOn.com for example. They have developed technology that captures over-the-air broadcast signals and streams them to mobile devices – without consent from the networks.

Clearly these broadcasters are not thrilled with the so-called loophole that they found in the U.S. Copyright Act. Both of these companies are already in an embattled legal fight with content owners to see if they have the right to do this. According to some attorneys, the law is on the side of the networks.

We recently launched our ViewRight LIVE app in iTunes, which enables secure distribution of premium pay-TV services via WiFi and mobile wireless networks – of live TV. The app provides subscriber/device registration and device-level authentication. ViewRight LIVE also allows operators to customize and brand their mobile TV channel to match the look and feel of their traditional channels.

So with the content rights, technology infrastructure and now the security available to enable a superior live mobile TV experience, digital TV operators have a tremendous opportunity. I’d say it is better to beat fledging online TV operators in the marketplace rather than the courtroom.

What are your thoughts?

Please visit Videonet’s Official IBC Blog to read more.

And stop by our IBC booth – 4.B84!

It would seem that it’s about time that someone called Adobe’s bluff here! This might be construed as a clash of CEO personalities, a Silicon Valley technology tiff or simply good PR tactics, but I sense something more profound at work. Why should a single proprietary video codec, file format and delivery protocol become the de-facto delivery standard for OTT services?

Doesn’t this go against every other basic tenet of  standards use in web publishing? And doesn’t it fundamentally limit the ecosystems that help to monetize video in every other delivery system globally? H.264 video is the acknowledged open standard – yes backed by Apple, but also by every other vendor in the video world. Even Microsoft is on board now after trying to bend the world to their own video codec and file standards.

We should not confuse Flash video with Flash as a presentation engine. Lets face it – if you want to use Flash as an authoring system for animated web pages – good luck. It’s obviously found a niche there. But please don’t try and pass it off as the salvation of Internet video delivery.

As one of the more future looking alternatives, Apple’s HTTP adaptive video treaming proposal provides video monetization options that doesn’t lock us into siloed Flash delivery systems. It enables the use of best of breed hardware and software subsystems woven into the fabric of the web that lies behind HTML 5. And as we can see the iPad (and perhaps its imitators) being the preeminent non-TV video device in the home of the next few years. That’s probably a good thing for the video industry as a whole.

Am I overstating the issues here? Please share your thoughts.

And for more insights into HTTP streaming and its effect on OTT video delivery, please download our white paper, Adaptive Rate Streaming: Pay-TV at an Inflection Point.