We hear on a regular basis that Smart TVs are rolling out of the door of the high street. What I know as a veteran of interactive TV is that few of them get connected or stay connected. It is a fact that only if it is ABSOLUTELY IMPERITIVE for the TV to work will it ever be connected – AppleTV on the other hand is of that category – Pure OTT. Apple is not wrong to think of putting out a TV – We all understand iTunes and we are all carrying an iPhone – an iPAD (well a large portion of the Smart People are! Let’s see what Apple can do in this very fragmented domain!
There is actually no need to attend CES2012 if you do not want to. There are a plethora of Journalists/Bloggers and individuals that are giving a blow-by-blow account of a variety of or all parts of the show. What did we learn? That there is a lot of people burning electricity, creating things that we do not really need thus making the planet a worse of place. What we also learn each year is that the show statistics are impressive especially in terms of number of booths, participants and visitors. Wouldn’t it be interesting to know how many KWs of electricity are ‘burnt-up’ by all that ‘tech’! What about the increased use of transportation i.e buses, hire cars and taxis all polluting the Nevada atmosphere? The amount of trash that is generated – holy-moly! It is an incredible when you see the show end with all the tons and tons of building materials, cabling along with all manner of detritus dumped out the back! Surely this is something that should concern the ‘Green Movement’! However we hardly hear a thing regarding this very strange phenomenon called the Trade-Show. A place where everyone gathers to ‘peacock’ around for a few days desperate to sell their wares to someone! Is a trade show the size of CES and for that matter CEBIT in Europe a wise thing considering the need, according to our scientists, to save our planet? However we have to ask ourselves this: If the show did not exist could we still do business in consumer electronics. I personally think we could but the Journalists/Bloggers and individuals, who we have seen grow in ever increasing numbers, would have to find another way to let us all know what they saw and what they think about it! It is fundamentally a very strange world we live in!
If you look at the world through a pair of eyes then naturally we surmise that there might be more, especially considering the lack of use of the most part of our brain…therefore specialists stating that we might neurologically partake of data and images in the future is quite plainly stating the bleedin obvious don’t you think…Its a natural thought process not actual established fact.
I am vexed at this though! Why? Because I see that we strive forward as a collective group of mostly engineers hell-bent on trying to convince the world that 3DTV is the next step…when it may damage eyes to the point that we had better, and pretty soon find the answer to the absorbtion of images neurologically because we may be on route to blinding a generation….The folly of the human being and the “no sir, nicotine is not harmful!” attitude of businessmen is a frightening legacy!
The European Broadcasting Union has called for an initiative on DTT standards for Hybrid TV! The European Commission tells me the market will decide on an interactive TV middleware standards selection! We all keep building them – different ones from different camps and we laud them and applaud them and then they do not go anywhere blocked by the very Broadcasters who wanted them! Yes then we have the Broadcasters a little while later crying out for Standards and the European Commission believes its playing its part! I wrote a book in 2005 with a colleague called Interactive TV Standards ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0240806662 ) which was as a result of a huge industry push for Standards in the late 90s. At the time the technology was not as advanced as today, however not that far removed from. Java has stood the test of time…HTML morphs year in year out. Today it is still Java and HTML so why do we need to invent more – CHOOSE ONE FOR EUROPE AND DEPLOY IT EVERYWHERE – MANDATE IT AT EU LEVEL!
The UK has this time refused to join the latest EBU initiative and plods on with MHEG5 and possibly HbbTV if YouView ever sees the light of day. Italy has deployed a massive 12 Million of DVB-MHP decoders – Companies follow slavishly the Standards work spending millions of dollars to see the someone else invent something else to do the same thing and disrupt the market. So why don’t we drop the standards game and just get on with an all out technology war so that we have an eventual winner? Well we will not because we have a physical landscape in Europe that does not permit this – Economies of Scale for TV Manufacturers needs a Pan-European Standard. The European Commission has failed to understand this part of the business and has allowed the lobbyists and dinosaurs who chair the committees to sway decisions, write half hearted reports, pretending the goals have been achieved. Madame Croes, they haven’t served the European Consumer well! The proof is in the latest call for Standards in Hybrid Broadcasting from the EBU who in the document name 3 Standards already built for the job. What a mess!
People in the UK have recently claimed in a survey there was too much choice and they are overwhelmed. The ordinary person in the street has trouble fitting a plug or changing a light-bulb and we completely over estimate the intelligence of the ‘average joe’ (as they are called in the USA) with respect to Television mechanics. Clearly we have a new generation, we advance, we learn…but do we offer anything other than the swamping of the masses with TV Everywhere? Youngsters who consume “more” today mostly on their laptops will develop different viewing habits to us oldies (like try to avoid paying like they do for music) that is sure but they eventually turn into ‘hard-working’ adults where viewing takes place from 8pm to midnight and on weekends only! – They will have families to visit, friends, play sports, go out, go on holiday, get married, have children and their lives will fill up. They will regress to tired TV watching like we all do in the main.
The very exercise that you all talk of (cord cutting, TV everywhere, Search for what you want etc). I have asked ordinary folk (i.e. non TV execs) to do – they give up searching after 15 minutes, they get tired, bored and fed-up very quickly or frustrated and then go to look for now and next (linear TV) and they are not content after a long day in the office to sit down and search for what they want when they want where they want. That is the premise nay the mantra that we live by in the TV industry today but it is far from the truth or reality. The majority of Cable in Europe is still heavily analogue. Satellite cannot go OTT readily. Even AppleTV functions well but requires effort to find something even if it is simple to use, it requires conscious effort. The PVR gives huge additional viewing. OTT costs money in time, equipment and will eventually in subscription fees all round. We are a long way from the final landscape of TV it is becoming very much overwhelming what we can do with the same set of TV programmes that are in the main repeats (back-catalogue). Linear TV still makes it easy for the viewer, taking the strain out of selecting something to clear the mind, entertain after a long day in the office or playing with the kids in the park. We are even overwhelmed by the amount of news there is about new TV technologies…I wish to be here in 50 years to see what it turns into…I wont!
It is time to discuss the reality of Social Media which I believe is very misunderstood by many Companies. Here is an example The Company behind Strepsils & Lemsip want you to follow them on Facebook! – In order for them to get you to do that they have to advertise on Broadcast Linear TV (Quite expensive)! So all those brands that try to drive you to individualising your Brand preferences (Rollerball, News Channels etc) have merely increased their OPEX in order to do so. To gain what? Followers and Fans of medicine, a writing instrument, yesterdays stories?
Broadcast TV blasts a 30 second Ad into the subconscious (whether you “like” it or not, in order to plant a seed…”buy my brand”. On the other hand a call to action like “visit” a Facebook or Web page needs a conscious effort from an individual … and quite frankly you have to be pretty strange if you want to be a fan of cough or flu medicine. On a daily basis I am being asked to go to a Facebook page fro something. I have my own promoting a book and it gets NO VISITORS, not because the book is not interesting but because it is a pain in the ass to actually go out of your way to be a Fan of something. Initially novel but the amount of time needed to do all this “following” makes it a full time job! I have blogged 3 articles this morning and its been 3 hours of work!
Therefore certain Brands relying on Social Media will just wither and die from lack of interest. Yes I say it again there are just too many Brands for people to follow on a personal basis this day and age. We are swamped with Companies asking us to go to their Website, Social Media Sites, Newsletters etc. We Will have our favourites for sure but out shopping we fall upon Brands that spark an impulse buy because the Brands have been bombarding us via TV & Print media…
Social Media is not all bad! I am actually a fan of Twitter as it can be (if understood) well used to succintly tailor a tease message. It can surprise and delight with stories that you may never have fallen upon due to the clever use of the enticement in the small amount of words. However the results of some Twitter experiences leave a lot to be desired. The Twitter Feed during the Eurovision song contest (a much maligned competition but loved by billions) highlighted that if you give the common person a voice you might not enjoy what you get. The result of the 2011 Eurovision Twitter Feed was a purile, bigoted, unhealthy diatribe that added nothing to the event. It merely brought out the worst in the simpletons who used it to pour out unfettered racist comments.
Facebook can be as dangerous: I bought a Print Server from DLink it didnt work as it said it would on the box. I tried for several long hours to make it work. No joy! So I thought lets see how good their Social Media game is! I took the Facebook route to get straight to the Company. The entire list of comments were about how bad, dificult and rubbish their products are. There for all to see! Happy customers dont really want to be fans or comment and adore the DLink brand because the purchases are once in a blue moon technology needs and if they work people just get on with life, the Internet and other more fun Facebook stuff with actual friends. What was interesting was the Social Media Monitoring Manager (more OPEX) wrote to me and asked if I had contacted tech support!!! If a brand new product – ‘PlugnPlay’ – needs Instant Tech Support then something is wrong. I suggested they buy it back from me, especially if they are confident enough about their products and their Brand…no answer! DLink is now scratched off my list of Brands.
Its a dangerous game to follow the Facebook bandwagon. Many PR disaters ‘a la Qantas’ are going to happen because for many it is not the professional place it is thought to be! Sure there will be lots of stories of how wonderful it can be and the control is in the hands of the public etc. However you have to assess your place in the market, what you believe you will achieve and not just run blindly into Social Media thining it is going to be the answer to customer loyalty = more revenue = happy people. It might just jump up and bite you on the ass! Social Media is merely the opening of Pandoras box when you allow the public a voice.
When is a Standard not a Standard? It would seem that it is when it is officially recognised by a Standards Body…after that it just becomes a pawn in the marketing and lobbying of Support Groups for their preferred flavour. First of all it was MHEG which was standardised and not taken up globally for DTT, then came the turn of ACAP & MHP, now its the turn of HbbTV…HTML5 is on the horizon some say Android will reign supreme!
At the recent OTT World Summit held in London where the “worlds television executives” gathered to hear the latest and greatest sales pitches from all & sundry there was yet another Standards discussion. We hear it all the time – We need a Standard! Actually what we get is – My TV system is better than your TV system, My Standard is better than your TV Standard etc. This is not grown up, nor intelligent, always arguing that we do it this way because it’s better than your way! What is at stake? All that SDOs are trying to fix the age old problem of implementing Value Added Services on top of Programming nothing more! It will not help world peace, it will not feed starving families it is just Interactive TV – STOP the fighting! Reunite the SDOs and let’s agree and get on with it so we can develop decent value added services that make a difference! And by the way they are not news portals, nor teletext with pictures thank you very much, we did that 20 years ago!!
It is a fairly tiresome business keeping up with all of this infighting that has taken place over those last 20 years or more, WHY? Because little has changed. As mentioned above the latest proponents of a World Standard for Digital TV is the HbbTV Forum. Their presentation did not have any earth shattering statements, they did not discuss how the particular “product” is made or how it matches up to other Standards – nor the miserable amount of expensive receivers that have NOT been shipped into Germany. They only managed a few stretched truths about its success, but lobbyists and supporters are are guilty of that. (Yes me too!) Despite the announcement today from Spain that it has selected this latest and greatest technology (It is not news it is lobbying) it changes nothing to the overall problem. Take-up and use of Advanced Services needs only one thing – Good and Useful Value Added Services that bring added value to the consumer. Teletext and URLs to video links will just not cut the mustard at 200 Euros a STB! Spanish TV will not flourish because of this selection. France and Germany are a gauge! Counter Lobbying haha!?
Back to the problem of people and standards! During the ensuing OTTWS Panel discussion I stated that the basic technology is still the same. There is a Presentation Engine and a Execution Engine and they either work together or they don’t depending on your chosen poison. Nothing has changed since Digital TV ever appeared. Android is the latest sexy STB & iDTV middleware that we all race to implement as is HTML5 but what are they if they are not Presentation and Execution Engines? Who owns or controls the IPR? You see where this might be heading.
So here is the solution – With Hybrid & Convergence being axiomatic for Digital TV solutions we should ultimately look at CONVERGING Standards Development Organisations and Standards Bodies as well. Do we need different groups rubber stamping a technology? Do we need SDOs all feeding off of each others work? Do we need multiple Standards? Most of all do we need to waste Company time, effort and money on following these different strains of the same thing? And more so is it right that we have disingenuous people sitting on one organisation who have influence, also sitting on the competing one, also in a position of influence, just so their Company ultimately gets their technology (IPR) into one or the other or both of the Standards! Not to mention the ‘blockers’ who attend so their Company can get about selling as much as possible of its proprietary implementation before a standard can be achieved. Because that is all that this is about in reality – Selling stuff.
Standards have become a pawn in the IPR game and the more we move along the more we go backwards to a fully disparate systems all pretending to be “the solution”. But then again why worry about any of this because as I have been told by the authorities that do have the power to change all of this – “Young man, the ‘market’ will decide”! – However from what I personally experienced at the OTTWS which is symptomatic of the Digital TV business, I may never get to see that happen!
Why does Social Media think it is the answer to Marketing – What a daft use of peoples time – Qantas confirmed it had hired four full-time social media managers in the past year to keep tabs on what people were saying online….Who cares about those idiots who choose to speak uninvited.
We always talk about European and American TV landscapes – Here is a view from another Continent: http://theothermichaeljackson.blogspot.com/2011/10/whats-on-tv-tonight-probably.html?showComment=1320061290592#c6901989116059378356
Barriers are falling, borders are reshaping, allegiances are changing. You have all heard it, all seen it – ‘Everyone wants to be in TV Programme Delivery!’ I really love that there is always optimism spouting forth when debate takes place in our world of Digital Television, but rarely do you get anyone contributing in an honest, open, rational manner or even an openly negative manner, for people are afraid to tell it as it is anymore. It is a shame, as we only hear and see the hype! How much hype can we bear before we are no longer fooled with people actually getting down to reality? You have to have your own personal Blog and ‘rage against the machine’ to be heard, comment and discuss openly. However, even that is just scattering seeds on a huge terrain with no certainty of successful seeding – People call you egotistical, self-opinionated, a loud-mouth, too negative, scaremonger, moaner etc. Reality is that the Digital TV landscape is a mess since digitization came about and the attempt to become the next “big-thayng” in TV has seen mounting technical chaos:
Black and White TV, Colour TV, Analogue, PAL, PAL-M, SECAM, NTSC, SECAM-L,High Definition Analogue, Standard Definition Digital, High Definition Digital, 3DTV…Ultra High Definition TV, Super Ultra High Definition TV…WebTV, OTT, TV Everywhere, MOCA, DLNA, G-Hn, Bluetooth, 3G, 4G, LTE, ATSC, DVB, IRIB, etc. etc.…TV technologies to deliver Video, Audio and Advanced Services with Tru2way, MHP, EBIF, HbbTV, DASE, BML, CE-HTML, Flash, Gateways, Multi-Tuners, PVR, NVOD, PushVOD for the same masses of eyeballs that watch TV between the limited hours of 7pm & Midnight. Its Terrestrial, Cable, Satellite, IPTV, Microwave, Internet…on all devices, in all rooms, in the car, on the phone, on a tablet…even the refridgerator gets a mention…My goodness what a state we have gotten ourselves into!
And by the way all that is ‘standardised’ so we can achieve economies of scale…hahaha!
Back to point and the title – The Digital TV – ‘Shifting Sands’: As you can see everything changes, Nothing stays the same – Especially Digital TV! Depending on where your Company stands in times of disruption and turmoil that a shift causes determines your status. If your Company is the ‘water’ or ‘wind’ that shifts the sands you are the cause and are in a position of power…If you are the ‘sand’ being shifted all the time, then it is a different response to this market as you are often powerless. There are ways to anchor yourself for a while but it means a fight to stand strong against a disruptive wave that might when things calm down see you in the same position, yet much weaker or potentially stronger than before. It appears that much of the shifting sand equals hype and you have to know what to believe, to follow but most of all what to ignore!
This is the present scenario for many Companies in today’s Digital TV Technology! Many projects and initiatives around new-technologies have been launched – far too many and FAILED! In fact there is a glut of technologies for the same purpose and the positions of Companies are ever changing. I know what it is like to be the sand, constantly shifted (for the last 20 years), which is an uncomfortable position but part of the business. The glut of technology finds you moved somewhere else in terms of being one of the considered Companies in RFPs, RFIs, Business Opportunities. A short time later, shifted again with the last technology being usurped by a technology that had been rejected for TV some years before!
I have been in Companies that have placed there anchor firmly and when the tides of excitement (hype) pass they continue to go about their business. One anchor was ‘hardware’ and hardware was (I said was) changing at a lesser frequency: that is now not so! Our TVs are not good for the 15 to 20 years anymore, they are obsolete in a year or two. France which intoduced Digital TV saw the consumer needing a different decoder each year for the last 4 years and it still threatens to move to DVB-T2 so more change needed. In fact there is a huge problem in that technology leap frogging (shifting sands) now appears to be constant, as well as over the supply of new and better value added service mousetraps, by a myriad of new Companies! Companies who, when asked to supply in mass quantity, suddenly realise the dificulty that is scalability (both supply of technology and corporate growth) in this fickle technological TV world…We have what appears to be a digital technology runaway train, that simply is, in the main, irrational when it comes to good business acumen…a business that should, like all businesses, obtain ROI and Profitability, Growth and offer Sustainable Employment. There are not many Companies going to achieve the 100 year-old status anymore!
Analogue HD failed to grow globally, 3DTV is a waste of investment as it turns out, UHDTV (Ultra High Definition) what for? To try to find the sweet-spot that will make you millions of dollars, differentiation, technological advancement? No its just to keep TV Engineers in work… Nothing more. Good TV Programmes dont actually need 3D to be successful!
We have seen masses of Broadcasters & Operators chase a technology based solution for their markets and fail – BluCom at Astra – Business model failed. MHEG-5, MHP, HbbTV for Public Service Broadcaster DTT interactiveTV – Business Model Failed. IPTV – MULTI Billions of dollars investment for a very small % of TV subscribers in comparison to Broadcast TV. Good ROI – Not at all!. 3DTV good ROI – Nope! Now Connected TV is the Valhalla, so was WebTV which failed back in the 90s – not because web was weak in them days but the cost of Customer Support was ignored and no Business Model…Sony last week tried to justify “carriage charges” for its Connected TV platform to Broadcasters who already ship the same Content to a TV antenna for no carriage charge … Business model not thought out or just plainly ignored. Trying desperately to claw back the money for the ROI. There are too many other examples to write about here. In the main as one technology tries to mature another pops up to distract the CTO and he runs around like a headless chicken too frightened to ignore it, in case it is the next big thing, and to frightened to invest in case it isn’t. Hype is prevailing over Business Model.
Why are CE manufacturers becoming Broadcasters? Because they have run out of traditional market growth for their products…The TV is now a commodity (better off as a monitor) and we all have a couple or 3. So what do they do next? Like Tesco the Grocery Store you becomes a Content Provider, a Broadband provider and a Bank … etc. etc. How soon will it be before MediaSet or Comcast becomes a Bank, Credit Card provider or Supermarket?
So as it stands some of us Vendors are trying to ride the tide of technologies, anchored in the fundamentals that we believe in and we manage to keep our head above water in the hope that some of these waves pass by without damaging the foothold we have…We adapt for sure, however we have been victime of wastage, massive Digital TV distractions where our hard earned money has not been spent for the benefit of the Consumer but lost due to the Shifting Sands…Whilst everyone else is trying to be in everyone elses’ business we will surely see massive consolidation and the “nettoyage” that is borne of technology bubbles…or we may just float away taken by the wind & water, forever changing direction and not ever reach the end goal of Stable Digital TV for the Consumer. Then again we might not get shifted anywhere, especially if our Company anchor is good.
