Part II of our interview with Editor John Moulding who recently completed the “Supporting the ‘any screen, anywhere’ video consumer,” report now available on Videonet. We tackle the drivers behind whole home video, current definitions of “cloud-based TV” and the technical challenges that operators still need to overcome to meet consumers’ expectations.

Videonet’s latest industry report, “Supporting the ‘any screen, anywhere’ video consumer,” provides an in-depth exploration of current whole home video approaches available as they are developing. One choice is to to deploy a powerful media gateway that repurposes content for various consumption models in the home network. Another option being aggressively promoted is to deliver traditional digital TV services via the ‘cloud,’ or a network-centric approach, in parallel with a variety of over-the-top services that have the right format, resolution and DRM to match the devices being used.

A key component to any digital TV or video delivery standard are is the ability to generate revenue. Creating the right experience that consumers are willing to pay for will most certainly generate continued innovation.

Progressive digital TV operators may have to embrace novel technologies that have been designed to effectively scale and solve IP video issues and apply them over their delivery networks. By integrating OTT and adaptive rate streaming technology with pay-TV services, operators can enhance ARPU, subscriber loyalty and lure incremental advertising dollars.

Let’s the OTT opportunity, the challenges associated with Internet TV services, and how we think the adoption of more open standards can help bridge the gap between those challenges and opportunities.

Some operators have created the consumer expectation of free content and now they are having a hard time putting the “genie back in the bottle” when it comes to charging a fee for that content. It really puts into question the first mover advantage efforts by OTT providers to offer free content, as it appears they have potentially cannibalized their own long-term revenue streams. The question is if they can successfully extract money from existing and/or new viewers.

Sitting at a cafe in Heathrow airport after the IPTV World Forum and sipping a cup of very good coffee, I am pondering over my impressions from the show. It is a fascinating and very fragmented world. Too many components, too many dependencies, too complex integration and most likely an involved customization effort. (I saw this echoed [...]

It seems there is a bit of a new storm brewing around Apple devices and their support for Flash plug-ins - especially around video support on the new iPad. Even one of our favorite and very pithy analysts Peter White is weighing in.
It would seem that it’s about time that someone called Adobe’s bluff here! This might be construed as [...]

Mark Holmes of ViaSatellite recently tackled the latest issues around content piracy and theft of service in Asia. While analog cable systems are the biggest target for piracy, satellite pay-TV operators are certainly feeling the impact of service theft. Quoting the deputy CEO of CASBAA, “The nature of the satellite business is that it doesn’t [...]