Post Connected TV Summit 2012

• Group: Connected TV
• Subject: Review: Connected TV Summit 2012 – Game on!

Connected TV Summit 2012 was buoyant and there was a feeling, expressed by at least two speakers, that ‘the game has now started’ when it comes to distributing premium content over the Internet to TV screens. Key takeaways, after two days of thought leadership, were:

We are about to see a lot more cooperation between Pay TV operators and the CE industry. They see mutual benefit from working together.

The Connected TV platforms need to rationalise their apps development environments or risk limiting the content they can show and the audiences they will appeal to.

If anyone is under pressure now, it is the major connected TV vendors. They need to show they can scale and not be squeezed by next-gen Pay TV platforms on one side and HBB on the other.

Broadcasters are very buoyant about their prospects for spending longer with consumers, using Hybrid Broadcast Broadband to link from linear TV to catch-up services.

Second screen companion experiences will probably be the priority for broadcasters in 2012, however. Second screen is a threat as well as an opportunity for broadcasters, which makes it more urgent than HBB, which is simply an opportunity!

It is becoming apparent that Connected TV could increase the overall TV market, which explains why all the stakeholders seem so much more relaxed and less belligerent than they were two years ago, and why they are more willing to do business together.

Post show articles and analysis

As multi-screen TV matures, customer experience is key. http://bit.ly/KOPTVc

Pay TV future: vertically integrated or open CE? http://bit.ly/JstBNz

Verizon wants deeper partnerships with TV makers. http://bit.ly/J9qhRz

Xbox 360 hailed as a game-changer for Connected TV. http://bit.ly/K61pwh

BBC reveals companion screen app strategy. http://bit.ly/JjEsrV

Something was missing at Connected TV Summit: fear. http://bit.ly/KOP5jc

Siemens outlines case for ‘Operator as an app’. http://bit.ly/JiYgbF

zeebox named overall winner at Connected TV Awards

The social TV app triumphed at the Connected TV Summit this year, with BBC iPlayer, JAZZTEL’S JAZZBOX and the DIRECTV/Samsung RUI solution among the other winners.

Full list of the 2012 winners: http://bit.ly/tpkkm9

People Do Not Have a Chameleon’s Brain (Yet!)

I read this statement today in a press release from a Broadcaster:  “50% of our customers are online at the same time they are watching TV”.   What this says/means is that they are either ‘Watching TV’ OR looking at another device!  They cannot physically do both and follow what is on the screen.   This ‘device distraction’ means that they are actually NOT watching the TV and that is where the business of TV is getting confused.  Now is the time that TV executives need to realise that their ‘offer’ needs to include a way to harness that distraction!   Some people have understood it – many have not.

Second Screening

Shazaming Ads, Tweeting Faves, what are you IntoNow’ing? Just some modern terms for the new paradigm of multi-tasking TV viewing on second screen!

2nd Screening of the Past

The BBC is adding 2nd Screen interactivity to the Antiques Roadshow. The future of the past?

The Secret Sauce of Second Screen Interactivity

Having seen the iTV Doctor’s session at TVOT (ACR panel) I realised that the significance of the Companion Screen is much underestimated by the traditional Broadcasters & Network Operators who have moved sluggishly in the traditional middleware space.

A product that can, if well integrated into the TV Show, become a truly value-added part of the TV experience. I believe the Companion Screen can only be the new paradigm that is interactive TV. I recently bought an iPAD – I know! A little late to the game…but here’s the thing…My 5 year old runs it intuitively. She watches videos on it, she plays games and she is learning languages with it! For her it is fun and she has not a care regarding the technology. Just tie that fun together with her favourite TV shows and you can see how it will make it educational. With that aspect we will have solved one part of ‘meaningful business’ in Interactive. I would pay to go interactive with these benefits.

The only downer on the TVOT presentation that left me disappointed was one of the panelists showing a ‘Order Pizza’ as part of the Social Media demo – OH NO! Not the ‘Order a Pizza before the show button! We have griped about this for years as we ALL have been guilty of showing this since the 1990s and is a little too cliche…but then again the presenter was fresh out of school!

I truly believe that we are starting to see the “secret sauce of interactivity” and it is for me the Companion Screen all the way – A combination of ACR, Apps and Synchronisation that hwill truly give an immersive service, befitting of today’s multimedia world.

I am excited again!

Interactivity Changes Radically – Is Embedded Middleware DEAD?

The Companion Screen is being exploited as an interactive device…It is an easy route as it is naturally connected to the Internet by WiFi…accessing WWW pages. So we can see Broadcasters & Network Operators and those that produce TV Content exploit this easy access to another device. Broadcaster and Network Operators use their existing IT infratructure to create portals and they have the Companion Screen ‘connect’ during the transmitted show! Easy, Low Cost interactivity!

So do we need DSMCC Object Carousels which work as slow as snails anymore? Do we need AIT and XAIT anymore? Is HbbTV dead before it launches? Do we need Red Button apps and heavy interactive Java Applications or do we just allow for the TV programme to be extended by Web-Access to Value Added Content on other screens that are bought in retail and carry standard Browsers?

It is an interesting point and one which will in effect change the landscape of many Companies who have been flogging the seemingly slow uptake of interactivity in embedded, proprietary and open-standard middleware! We are going from the old world to the new world which is in fact the old world of Web TV! LOL!

Party Friends – Good Luck

I partied with a bunch of NDS folks at Cable Congress. It showed that despite our work and our rivalry we could share time together as just people! It was an early morning finish and it was fun. I am now trying to work out whether it was them celebrating the recent Cisco event (having prior knowledge) or whether they are just ‘party lovers’? Was the news this week also a shock to them as it was to the rest of the industry? My email and phone still rings with news, analysis and commentary! Will my ‘Party Friends’ now be concentrating on what the absorbtion by Cisco will do to or for them? If I were them I would be quietly apprehensive. Consolidation is necessary at so many levels in our industry, however when it happens it generally results in some carnage. I wish my ‘party friends’ well for the future! Good Luck!

The Tech Press Disconnect

I read this on twitter this morning: “There’s a very real disconnect between some of those in the tech press and actual human beings, it seems.”. And I agree!

Smart TV the 80% – 20% Reality

    In Consumer Electronics vis a vis the General Public all the ‘Tech Specialists’ of the world assume that everyone understands technology the way they do.  The world is naturally more sophisticated, people are more tech savvy and there is definitely a trend towards a better understanding of a very complex TV world but fundamentally we must not believe all the hype.   Most people do not understand television technology (80%)!  Even High Definition is confusing to people.   In fact a recent report in the Telegraph regarding real transmission quality amongst the UK HD broadcasters only highlighted that the average consumer is being duped…by the very industry that is selling the new technology dream.   

Most people (80%) do not use but a minuscule part of their ‘smart device’ no matter what the technologists believe.    Forbid that it goes wrong and an error message pops up…then what?   We do not automatically all understand and fix the problem and then carry on … we often see that the device loses that functionality and we have a reduced service or usage.  Due to the complexity there will be an increase in the need to support devices, people and the whole convergence issue brings many, many of those requirements which have been left un-budgeted.

The demise of Internet TV (the 1st time around) was due to the fact that it cost too much to support (After Sales) that it was financially a burden to those that tried to deploy it (Microsoft at the time).  The complexity of device, software updates and driver updates cannot be underestimated.  An iPhone on average requests over 150MegaBytes of data each week to keep Apps ‘up to date’…Something that the TV has been able to avoid so far.

Putting all devices in one is also a cyclic affair…HiFi went as a unit and then back to separates and back to single device, Fax-Scanner-Printer same story – Lose one piece and you lose it all.

Smart TV is only another story in the long history of consumer electronics and its need to Converge, Diverge, Converge … 20 % of us really understand.

The Story Rolls On – OTT No Free Ride

http://advanced-television.com/index.php/2012/02/14/one-winner-in-neutrality-game-of-chicken/