IPTV Digital Asset Management
Digital asset management is the system, software or processes that are used to store, transfer, categorize and distribute digital media. IPTV media management systems may allow for the modification of program content descriptive tags (Meta tags) along with the scheduling and transfer of analog (e.g. video tape) and digital media files. | ||
| 2wire Artesia Broadbus C 9 Networks, Inc. Cayin Technology Coremedia AG Crisp Wireless Dalet Digital Media Systems Dayang International Limited Dayport DiskStream Entriq ExtendMedia Focus Enhancements Forbidden Technologies GoTuit Media Corp Harris Hewlett Packard IMAKE Software & Services Konan Digital Maven Networks MCI Digital Media Technologies MCI Digital Media Technologies London Media Alliance Miranda Technologies Inc. Mizu Design Nexidia North Plains Systems Omneon Pheonix7 Square Box Systems SysMedia Telestream Inc. Venaca, Inc. Virage, Inc. Xytech Systems Corporation Yes Television | ||
IPTV and personalisation - delivering the exceptional customer experience
The emergence of IPTV as a serious alternative to traditional home entertainment services, such as cable or satellite TV, gives consumers great hope that a significantly improved customer experience has arrived (writes John Konczal, Global Industry Executive for Communications and Media at Sterling Commerce).
Home entertainment services have long lagged behind other communications and entertainment services, such as wireless service offerings, when it comes to giving customers more options to personalise their service to their individual needs. Today, it is quite commonplace for a wireless service consumer to be able to personalise their service from a myriad of different voice, data, and messaging services and of course, multiple hardware and accessory options.
Personalisation is quickly becoming a common feature of many consumer experiences including how they buy goods and services and even how they use their on-line services. In the world of home entertainment, such personalisation opportunities are few and far between. IPTV, with its advanced network technology, gives service providers the ability to deliver that personalised experience that consumers want and demand.
The compelling personalised buying experience
Personalisation in a communications services context means giving the customer the ability to control their service experience. It means enabling customers to select and change the services and options they buy, allowing them to tailor their service experience to their own unique interests at anytime. Such personalisation creates a compelling buying experience for consumers because they are in complete control of their own experience and it creates freedom of choice by removing common barriers that currently create a less than satisfactory customer experience.
IPTV networks, which send information over secure, managed, high capacity networks, empower IPTV service provides to deliver the personalisation that customers desire. For example, IPTV providers can offer customers channel personalisation and network technology, such as a return channel, and presents entirely new ways for customers to personalise their viewing experience and interact directly to influence their quality of service.
It is even possible to enable customers to interact directly and make real-time purchases of items seen while watching their favourite programme. Such technological capabilities can deliver customers the choice and interactivity they need to make real-time selections of the services and options that are tuned to their specific needs at that specific time.
Beyond technology: focus on the customer
Network technology alone cannot deliver true customer personalisation however. An IPTV provider’s entire customer management and service delivery infrastructure must be built with customer personalisation in mind. Take for example pricing and billing systems and processes. In the typical cable provider infrastructure, pricing and billing is fairly static where a customer is charged a monthly fee for the services and options they have purchased.
Limited service changes can be made, that usually result in a pro-rated fee based on when the change was made during the month. But in the world of IPTV, services can be changed at any time and possibly even multiple times during a day. The IPTV provider’s pricing and billing systems and processes must be enabled to support such dynamic change.
IPTV providers need to embrace real-time transaction-based pricing and billing that can price a customer’s real-time selection and accurately render a charge to the customer’s regular bill or possibly in real-time to the customer’s charge card. There is also an opportunity to embrace value-based pricing, setting prices that reflect considerations such as the value of the content and how the customer consumes– such as public broadcast, on-demand viewing, or download-to-own.
How a customer elects to manage their personalisation options is also a key consideration for IPTV providers. Customers may want to select an on-demand movie to watch or select a new channel to watch when they arrive home from work on any one day. The customer wants the flexibility to make this selection whenever they want, wherever they are – maybe consuming the content on their PC or even their smartphone.
Customers demand a true multi-channel customer experience where they can personalise their service from any number of interaction channels. This multi-channel experience is another means for IPTV providers to combine the flexibility and interactivity of the network with personalisation-focused customer management tools to create a truly compelling and differentiated customer experience.
Looking forward
As IPTV emerges as a true alternative to traditional home entertainment services, it is becoming clear that this new service type has the potential to deliver a vastly improved customer experience. But growth of IPTV revenue streams and gains in market share will not be based solely upon the customer personalisation capabilities delivered by IPTV network technology.
An IPTV provider’s ability to enable customer personalisation across its whole customer management and service delivery systems and processes will play a critical and differentiating role. Every interaction must provide the customer with a personal and involving experience to build trust in their brand, generate service uptake and ultimately grow revenues.
About Sterling Commerce
Sterling Commerce (an AT&T company) is working with some of the top European media companies to improve their customers’ experience by making sure that there is a seamless transition between different selling channels. So whether customers are making transactions through the high street store, online or over the phone, it will remain a single experience.
Sterling Commerce (an AT&T company) is working with some of the top European media companies to improve their customers’ experience by making sure that there is a seamless transition between different selling channels. So whether customers are making transactions through the high street store, online or over the phone, it will remain a single experience.
Source: IPTV-News
Got copper access? You could already be ready for IPTV
IPTV and other emerging next generation video services such as VoD and Network-based Personal Video Recorders (N-PVR) are generating a lot of excitement (writes Ido Shargil
, Head of System Engineering at ECI Telecom & Chairman of iSMART Consortium). But that excitement is not shared equally by all. Bandwidth-hungry next generation video applications require the high-speed broadband access that currently only Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) can deliver. So, existing broadband subscribers who want to enjoy these services, but are not in the planned coverage area of their provider’s fibre access network, will be left out in the cold.
Unfortunately, there are some residential areas where FTTH deployment is not currently considered cost-effective. Some of these areas are in established urban areas where street cabinets are more than 200m from residences where copper access infrastructure would need to be replaced by fibre, requiring costly digging, construction, licensing and regulatory approvals. Without alternatives to FTTH, network operators are simply not offering some customers upgrades to high-speed broadband services.
As demand for next generation services increases, these geographical holes in the FTTH roll-out can lead to loss of revenue from potentially lucrative new services and erosion of the subscriber base as residential customers seek those services elsewhere.
For now, fibre access is the only widespread option available to telecom operators who want to offer high-speed residential broadband. However, there are alternatives to fibre being developed for commercial use within the next year or so. Most of the world’s existing wire-line access infrastructure is still copper-based. By exploiting that copper infrastructure, network operators might soon turn to these developing technologies to provide residential customers with the bandwidth they need for services like IPTV.
While high-speed VDSL2 technology can theoretically reach transfer rates exceeding 100Mb/s, VDSL2 has not been broadly implemented in the access network because of the limitations of copper as a medium. Copper suffers from electromagnetic interference both from ambient environmental factors and from the signals transmitted over the other wires bundled in a shared cable. This interference dramatically reduces the signal quality and the practical distance that a VDSL2 signal can travel.
There are currently two technologies that can overcome the interference obstacle, each in their own way, and each with unique advantages and drawbacks.
DSL Bonding
Originally developed in the 1970s as a way to multiply LAN speeds in an access or backhaul network, DSL Bonding technology can combine multiple copper pairs to provide a faster broadband connection. Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, ECI Telecom and other major telecom vendors are working on bonding solutions for high-speed broadband. Although it has been implemented in a variety of applications, bonding is still not a mature solution for delivering high-speed broadband on a large scale.
Development is progressing. But there are a number of factors that could likely hold back broad adoption of DSL bonding technology for residential high-speed broadband services.
- The high cost of customer premises equipment (CPE) to support DSL bonding can be attributed to the general lack of interest on the part of CPE vendors who have yet to see a commercial solution.
- Also, the potentially high cost of implementation would likely offer little or no cost savings over fiber access for residential customers.
With these cost factors in mind, the most likely applications for DSL bonding technology are for backhaul and for business customers who are not in any provider’s planned FTTH coverage area.
Vectoring
The root cause of the shortcomings of VDSL2 over copper for high-speed broadband is in the noise that is generated by the transmission signals themselves. Today, Dynamic Spectrum Management (DSM) technology, also known as vectoring, is applied to data transmission lines to address line noise. In fact, vectoring can also be combined with bonding applications to optimize bonding’s bandwidth multiplying effect. Level 1 and 2 DSM technology have been deployed to an extent and have been successful in improving network performance by around 20% – not really enough, though, to make copper a usable medium for high-speed broadband.
Level 3 DSM (DSM L3), on the other hand, is a solution that employs both software and hardware-based signal processing to practically eliminate the most significant type of interference in copper cables – Far End Cross Talk (FEXT). This crosstalk among the many copper wires bundled in a standard cable is the leading cause of signal interference which reduces transmission performance. This is generally what makes copper unsuitable for high bandwidth VDSL2 transmission beyond 200 meters, or so.
For each line in the bundle, the DSM L3 processor dynamically estimates the channel FEXT and cancels nearly all of it using precoding. In other words, when the DSM L3 technology senses noise on the line, it creates ‘negative noise’ so that, in the end, the data stream reaches its destination reliably and at greater distances.
Street cabinets that currently house copper access points are normally too far from residences to be able to provide VDSL2 services. Without performance enhancement technology, using the vast existing copper access network to provide IPTV over VDSL2 would require operators to install many more costly street cabinets and build out the required infrastructure to reach the subscribers who are not in line for fiber access.
In recent testing by the iSMART Consortium, a leader in the development of DSM L3 technology, results indicate that when it is commercially available, DSM L3 technology could increase the coverage area of VDSL2 equipment by as much as ten times. In urban areas where street cabinets are within 1,000 meters from the premises – too far for standard VDSL2 – DSM L3, requiring one node instead of ten, could help network operators realize significant cost benefits with VDSL2 over copper access.
Since DSM L3 technology can be used with existing VDSL2 CPEs with just a software upgrade, it could become a cost-effective solution for service providers in terms of the ease and simplicity with which it can be applied to the existing infrastructure.
One thing that all residential broadband subscribers have in common is an interface to the existing copper infrastructure. For those subscribers who do not fall within any planned FTTH coverage area, those good old copper wires could still end up doing the job for years to come. What’s more, these new technologies on those old wires could make it possible for high-speed broadband providers to continue to serve their customers with the most advanced services.
Source: IPTV-News
Reliable streaming media delivery
Streaming video delivery is growing dramatically: according to the comScore Video Metrix, 5.5bn videos were viewed online in the UK during February 2010 (writes Dave Schneider, technical analyst at Ixia).
That's a rise of 37% over the same period in 2009, with YouTube.com continuing to account for the majority with 99.6% of all video views. Despite YouTube still dominating, the character of video viewing is changing as well, with more people watching longer content. This is reflected in cable provider Virgin Media’s recent launch of a broadband-based online movie rental service, where consumers can stream their choice of film on-demand to their computers.
There is also significant effort by broadcasters to make standard TV content available online. The BBC’s iPlayer replicates most BBC broadcast material and has been outstandingly successful: 120mn requests were serviced in January 2010, and according to Nielson time spent on the site increased by eighteen percent. Another success is US broadcaster NBC, whose coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics included live and recently recorded content, complete with adverts.
As the usage increases, so too does the consumers’ expectation of the service. User satisfaction, often referred to as their quality of experience (QoE), is the ultimate measure of a reliable service. For steaming media services, users expect the following:
That's a rise of 37% over the same period in 2009, with YouTube.com continuing to account for the majority with 99.6% of all video views. Despite YouTube still dominating, the character of video viewing is changing as well, with more people watching longer content. This is reflected in cable provider Virgin Media’s recent launch of a broadband-based online movie rental service, where consumers can stream their choice of film on-demand to their computers.
As the usage increases, so too does the consumers’ expectation of the service. User satisfaction, often referred to as their quality of experience (QoE), is the ultimate measure of a reliable service. For steaming media services, users expect the following:
- Continuous play – without start/stop pauses
- Absence of video or audio skips
- Quick response to user actions that select and start the video, as well as pause, rewind and fast-forward operations
- Availability of low and high resolution versions
The challenge for service providers is achieving this QoE in a rapidly media landscape.
The streaming media distribution network
Video began as a limited service delivered over closed, private networks, but has moved quickly to be syndicated delivery over multiple networks. At the same time, video sources have broadened to include live and recorded material; free services have given way to paid services; and the ability to receive video content on multiple devices via multiple networks has become essential.
The other issue for service providers is that users want to view the content on a broad range of devices. Content is collected from disparate sources and distributed to devices and platforms including hybrid set-top boxes (STBs), personal computers, as well as Internet-connected smartphones and netbooks.
That said, the five stages of an aggregation/distribution network remain the same:
- Content sourcing – aggregation of content from physical media, live feeds and other sources.
- Content management – editing and management of the content, including uploading with digital rights management, with content encoded for multiple forms of delivery.
- Content hosting – centralised library of video content, plus replication to other levels of a CDN.
- Media delivery – the process of providing content in response to user requests, either through bulk download or via streaming.
- Player – the software application on the end-user device used to view and interact with content.
The most common network protocol used to transport video over IP networks is real-time streaming protocol (RTSP). RTSP is a stateful protocol used to establish and control media sessions between a media server and client viewer. RTSP clients issue VCR-like comments to control media playback. The transmission of the audio/video stream itself is most often handled by the real-time transport protocol (RTP), although some vendors have implemented their own transport protocol. RTSP and RTP are almost universally used to implement IPTV’s video on demand (VoD) features.
Streaming media players
The final part of the infrastructure is the application used to manage the content, but this adds another layer of complexity for service providers. Most video players, such as the Adobe Flash Player, use proprietary protocols that provide additional functionality and flexibility. Flash has an almost total presence on PCs and Macs, and is used to deliver over 80% of online videos.
But other applications such as Microsoft’s Silverlight are growing in popularity within the player market. Silverlight uses HTTP as its top-level transport mechanism and for media streaming. Using HTTP as a single transport mechanism can result in significant internal cost reduction for end-to-end delivery. A unique feature of Silverlight is adaptive streaming capability, which allows the player to adjust the stream playback quality based on real-time network conditions.
Where the reliability problems occur
All of these layers of complexity mean that jitter, loss, and latency are inherent in every IP network. These factors are most often compensated for by buffering at multiple network levels. Players commonly buffer data before beginning a presentation and read ahead to guarantee error-free delivery. Other techniques that are often employed in IPTV deployments are not suitable for Internet video delivery, including forward error correction (FEC) and periodic retransmission of lost segments.
There are many network levels, however, that must be transited between the streaming source and the destination – the core Internet, edge and aggregation networks, wireless networks, and enterprise LANs. These uncontrolled elements contribute to jitter and loss levels that cannot be compensated for by client-side buffering alone. So what can service providers do?
Stress testing for reliability
Rigorous testing of all streaming media delivery chain components is required to ensure user QoE, and components and networks must be tested under load to determine their limits.
It is especially important to test the devices that perform special handling on media flows:
Media servers – establish client connections, and convert and deliver content.
Content delivery networks – with sophisticated, multi-level architectures that distribute content from a central site to caching nodes and then finally to streaming servers located regionally and globally. Each level, and combination of levels, must be tested – especially for delay.
Data center components – the data centers maintained by service providers must balance their voice, video and data traffic to deliver QoE in all categories. Sophisticated devices, such as application delivery controllers (ADCs) that use deep packet inspection (DPI), inspect information flows to determine their required priorities and characteristics.
Wireless networks – 3G and LTE networks in particular are experiencing increased video traffic destined for mobile devices. Wireless network nodes must perform functions similar to those found in the data center – identifying flows and prioritising video and voice traffic over data traffic.
Pre-deployment testing is the only certain way of measuring maximum performance and true reliability at all load levels. This helps service providers to forecast the QoE they can achieve from their networks, taking into account all the potential reliability issues. Additionally, live network testing can be performed in low volume and QoE measurements can be made on individual streams to determine instantaneous network quality.
Conclusion
The largest part of Internet traffic growth will be associated with video delivery, and substantial infrastructure components will be purchased over the next decade to handle delivery of vast amounts of video content. Testing of the components and networks associated with that delivery are essential in order to bring quality services to market, properly scale the network and ensure end-user quality of experience.
Source: IPTV-News
Weighing multiple security perspectives in the new world of pay-TV
The new decade brings security challenges to the pay-TV world that are not just about trying to outpace video pirates (writes Steve Christian, VP of Marketing at Verimatrix). Video service providers are contemplating landmark changes in their service profiles, which provide them the opportunity for them to take a fresh look at the value brought by security providers.
These significant changes, surveyed from a global perspective, include:
These significant changes, surveyed from a global perspective, include:
- Transitioning from analogue to digital
- Upgrading from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 (with or without HD)
- Adding hybrid IP-based solutions to broadcast networks
Pay-TV operators of all types, and at all stages of network development, are realising that a flexible and effective content security architecture can be the essential enabler of innovative business models and improve their competitive positioning. The shape and flexibility of an overall security solution has therefore become a critical strategic decision.
Evolving security threats
All pay-TV operators have the fundamental interest in securing their revenue from various types of revenue leakage, including theft of service. As pay-TV globally increasingly moves to digital, IP-based network delivery, operators must prepare for evolving security threats - and the commercial stakes for HD content are significantly higher than that of SD – and now 3D is on the horizon as well.
While the delivery of content to a new breed of IP-enabled set-top boxes (STBs) or other networked equipment brings potentially very significant changes to the economics of a pay-TV operation, it also raises concerns about unlimited re-distribution. Connectivity can actually be an asset for content management as it also creates greater visibility of content throughout its lifecycle. Two-way IP networks provide the potential for checking that digital rights management (DRM) rules are being enforced, and tracing individual content files.
All these factors lead to the imperative of monetising premium content.
Complex security considerations
In response, as operators are planning for these network upgrades, they must address a unique set of complex issues. The goal is to ensure the security path taken minimises costs without sacrificing their ability to meet service requirements over the long term. For example, any re-evaluation of security options, whatever the nature of the planning horizon that triggers it, brings into play a matrix of considerations having to do with legacy video formats, the proportion of subscribers affected by the new security system, the ages and types of STBs in the field, managing the infrastructure logistics, and the service providers’ longer-term service goals.
However, there are other perspectives that need to be considered regarding conditional access and rights management requirements.
Regulatory
Service provides need to consider their region’s regulatory environment in licensing and securing content delivery. The convergence between broadcasting and broadband can be a significant headache for regulators, with a blurring of previous demarcations between entertainment and communication and often even between the governmental agencies involved.
Great variations exist in regulatory ambitions and politics between countries. For example, some countries may want to block content that is critical of the government, while other countries are mainly concerned about material that is deemed culturally offensive. One common theme is a concern with copyright enforcement and an interest in developing tools that can help regulators police the system being created, such as digital watermarking.
Content owners
For the studios and content owners, the threat of large-scale piracy, which undermines the revenue potential of their product, is still very prevalent. Content owner’s focus is on enforcing digital rights through technological and legal processes to ensure that a single distribution channel does not impact potential revenue in other geographic or release windows.
However, they are also feeling the pressure for innovative business approaches from ever more demanding consumers and the growing capacity of broadband connections. Furthermore, new media outlets and video-enabled devices are up-ending established business models. Content owners are examining if more transparent and inclusive distribution policies will maximise profits through broader consumption or risk eroding profits through piracy.
Subscribers
Yet arguably, the most important perspective to consider is that of the subscribers. The new world of pay-TV has the potential of confusing customers as they find new options in consumption devices and new ways of accessing services. Apart from a new competitive front for pay-TV services and rethinking the content navigation experience, multi-screen delivery may challenge consumer’s understanding of their usage rights.
Tomorrow’s successful service providers must be able to offer consistency across all access points regardless of the potential back-office complexities. Most consumers are simply looking for clear and transparently enforced rules relating to the material they purchase. And operators certainly want to avoid a flood of customer service calls from frustrated subscribers.
IP-centric security approaches
Weighing all of these perspectives, service providers ultimately want to migrate to a security system that can serve as a single-source content security platform for services that are designed to reach multiple screens across multiple networks. They want a solution that can draw on encryption, conditional access (CA), DRM and watermarking techniques to dynamically apply whatever types of security are appropriate to each individual content stream no matter which delivery network is used and no matter what type of device is used to access it.
Fortunately, software-based security systems now provide the flexibility to escape traditional CA system restrictions without compromising security or adding complications to the consumer’s experience. In fact, software-based systems can provide new levels of security essential to new multi-device service models that would be impossible to achieve with legacy systems.
A unified, software-based pay-TV security system is a vital ingredient for operators looking to expand their service profiles, partly to meet regulatory, contractual and service protection obligations. Most importantly though, a unified security system that supports multi-layered protection, allows new business models to emerge and flourish.
Source: IPTV-News
What Are You Willing To Pay For IPTV On-Demand?
Angus over at Lifehacker has focused his latest Planhacker column on comparing the on-demand video pricing in the local market. Sadly, prices are very closely aligned across services right now, but hopefully with increased competition comes some, well, some gesture to the idea that these services aren’t all just bowing to the exact price requirements of the copyright holders (yeah, I can dream, right?)
So what do you think? Would you rather go get a better deal from your local video store? Or are some of these prices starting to tempt you?
Source:Seamus Byrne, Gizmodo
IPTV Slowly Emerges As TV Option
When Backspace's package called Walled Garden launches in a few weeks, customers will have access to local NBC, CBS and FOX channels, in addition to channels owned by Discovery Networks, A&E Television Networks, Lifetime Television, NBC Universal, and FOX Cable Networks.
Backspace chief technology officer Joseph Lea says that the service is comparable to the cable television packages that are available in their area, but for a smaller monthly fee. Charter Communications, the cable provider in the area, has basic packages starting at $49 per month. Backspace's comparable 50-channel starter package will cost $29.95.
"It's comparable, but in addition we also have a lot of video On Demand content and Pay Per View specials and we also have an interactive programming guide with a time shifting services that allows TiVo-like features," Lea said.
IPTV is digital television service delivered over Internet Protocol on a network that necessitates a broadband connection. In the past, download speeds have hindered this technology but with broadband so readily available, the television industry is bracing for IP adoption. Walled Garden requires download speeds that range from 128 kilobits to two megabits. Video content requires anywhere from 500 kilobits to one or two megabits, while the music channels need much less bandwidth.
Walled Channel runs on Backspace's own ISP called Digital Putty, which also offers separate Internet data packages that range from $14.95 to $69.95 per month. The ISP runs on a combination of copper and fiber.
Walled Garden requires a specialized Windows CE based set-top box, which customers can rent for $6 per month or purchase for $300. The box is a good investment, Lea said, because the hardware will remain virtually unchanged while any upgrades to the software can be done from the Backspace home office. The box can be operated with a remote control and a keyboard with a trackball mouse, which comes separately and can be purchased for $20.
Walled Garden is also a portable service in that users can log into their channels from a PC with an assigned username and password.
"We hear that people don't want to watch TV from their PC, but we're in the trenches and when it is available, people really do," Lea said. "They have the capability now with broadband. What we want to do is just give people an alternative choice and then follow the consumer and let them decide where they want to go."
The system will be capable of delivering high definition content but not in the immediate future.
"We have the ability to do high-def but we have not done that yet," Lea said. "Our goal was to take one tiny little step which was to migrate the entire cable service into an IP medium. We're not trying to change the world. We just wanted to give a different choice."
A comparable service in the Sacramento region from SureWest Communications has 17 HD channels. SureWest has been offering IPTV since 2004 and has approximately 17,000 customers.
According to Lea, the biggest obstacle in launching IPTV is getting licensing from the networks.
"We started knocking on doors years ago," he said. "Now everybody has standard language in their contracts for distribution over IP networks. It's taken a long time to get a line up but we're finally there and we are now in a position to launch Walled Garden in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties."
One concern about IPTV is about the reliability of the network. No one wants to risk being in the throes of an episode of 24 when a server fails. But Ron Rogers, a spokesperson from SureWest, said that the networks are prepared for this.
"If anything, I think it's more reliable," Rogers said. "When we initially launched, our CTO made sure we got the proper encryption so it's a very reliable network."
Although only smaller television markets have IPTV options, Lea said that Backspace has been approached by a larger cable company, which he could not name, to support an IP service in a tier-two market. He does not think that major cable providers will be able to support IPTV in time to meet the demand, which is why they will need support from the companies that already are in the business such as BackSpace and SureWest.
"We're basically telling the world, 'Hey, we're done, we've got a great lineup, and we're ready to rock and roll,'" Lea said. "And we hope to expand and build new networks."
Walled Channel runs on Backspace's own ISP called Digital Putty, which also offers separate Internet data packages that range from $14.95 to $69.95 per month. The ISP runs on a combination of copper and fiber.
Walled Garden requires a specialized Windows CE based set-top box, which customers can rent for $6 per month or purchase for $300.
Source:Natali Del Conte, PCMag
Internet TV vs IPTV...same but different
The development of IP (Internet Protocol) based video, in any of its forms, has meant that traditional players in the television industry have been broadening their outlook to move with the times. In addition to there being a new player in the TV platform space alongside cable, satellite and terrestrial services - IPTV (aka Telco TV) - there has also been huge growth in Internet TV services (aka Web TV), thanks to increasing broadband speeds and improved streaming technologies.
Collectively the impact of IP based video on the future of TV - regardless of type - is going to be huge, with the effects already being felt. But what are the key differences between IPTV and Internet TV that exist and impact how you should be dealing with these emerging services?
Technical differences exist...
There are detailed technical differences between IPTV and Internet TV - many too complex to cover for the purposes of this piece - and distinctions are becoming even harder to make as the operators launching services combine and develop different technologies to serve specific situations. IPTV can probably be best compared to Digital Cable, with operators running a fully managed platform over a closed network with a limited reach. Operators are then managing these services in the same way as TV platforms have always been managed - by providing a Quality of Service (QOS) through network management, bandwidth provisioning, routing management, failover paths and a variety of other QOS practices.
There are detailed technical differences between IPTV and Internet TV - many too complex to cover for the purposes of this piece - and distinctions are becoming even harder to make as the operators launching services combine and develop different technologies to serve specific situations. IPTV can probably be best compared to Digital Cable, with operators running a fully managed platform over a closed network with a limited reach. Operators are then managing these services in the same way as TV platforms have always been managed - by providing a Quality of Service (QOS) through network management, bandwidth provisioning, routing management, failover paths and a variety of other QOS practices.
Some of the key technical characteristics of an IPTV platform include:
- Broadcast channels, when provided over IP (rather than hybrid DTT), are streamed using multicast technologies.
- Operators run extensive QOS practices, managing the delivery of video to the consumer with minimal interruptions.
- Digital Rights Management (DRM) is standard, with operators providing high levels of video asset management and encryption.
- Delivery of content is device specific. This used to mean STBs but it's important to note that PCs are not excluded from true IPTV delivery as they can operate in the same way as a STB.
- Provisioning, billing and customer service methods are the same as traditional TV platforms.
Internet TV, however, relies on a much more open model by streaming content over the public internet and is available to the widest audience possible. Key characteristics can include:
- Delivery of video can be encrypted, and DRM can be used, but is not always adopted.
- Networks are not fully managed and there is no end-to-end bandwidth provisioning as operators cannot control the networks - as a result QOS is limited, but we are seeing development with some services.
- Channels are streamed using unicast technologies with peer-to-peer technologies also being used in some cases.
- Customer service is largely online and customer management is much less developed.
Even simplifying the technology debate creates problems, as operators introduce new methods of delivery and start to employ more efficient and varied methods of delivery (and devices). As approaches vary so do interpretations - which doesn't make it easy for rights lawyers!
Propositions vary...
So, perhaps a good thing to do is to also look at how the fundamental propositions of Internet TV and IPTV differ...
So, perhaps a good thing to do is to also look at how the fundamental propositions of Internet TV and IPTV differ...
Whilst many see Internet TV as the great enabler of long tail economics - finding a way of addressing all the niches of the world - it is slowly becoming more mainstream. That said, it is a more personal experience than traditional TV (and IPTV) and is predominantly accessed alone, sitting by the PC.
Using the PC as the main viewing screen for these services means that users are often at work, can be multi-tasking, or looking for some quick entertainment to break from what they are doing. Propositions are often made up of shorter form content where users are interested in smaller clips; however we are starting to see some changes in this as longer form content is beginning to increase on the web. For example, Hulu's proposition is based on movies and TV series - as is the case with Channel 4's 4oD service, the BBC's iPlayer and Proseibensat1's Maxdome service. TV channels (e.g. ITV in the UK), traditional TV platforms (e.g. Sky) and new entrants (e.g. Zattoo) are also beginning to simulcast broadcast channels. However, this doesn't necessarily change the state of mind of the user, and time will tell whether long form content truly works as well as short form. Even when it is long form the user's mentality is still predominantly that of snacking, catching-up and using the PC as a secondary method of video viewing.
As a result consumers are less concerned with the viewing quality of content delivered by Internet TV services. But this can in turn means that they are less inclined to pay and propositions are often built around ad-supported content such as Babelgum, 4OD, Hulu and Zatoo. Services with premium paid for content propositions often rely on download functionality to ensure a TV quality viewing experience - e.g. LoveFilm.
Internet TV is still in its relatively young stages (at least compared to traditional TV) so we are seeing a variety of propositions being tested - Short Vs. Long form content; Streaming Vs. Download; Pay Per View Vs. Subscription Vs. Free Ad-supported. Time will tell which proposition emerges as the strongest - but they will all co-exist in some way - and by understanding your target audience you can build the proposition that works for them. Many of the Internet TV services are recognising the need to get on to the TV and become more central to the user's experience. We are seeing the launch of hardware devices that are enabling this (such as Apple TV and gaming consoles) but operators in the Internet TV space also cross-over into IPTV in order to secure the all important service offering on the primary TV set in the home.
When it comes to IPTV you are certainly dealing with a proposition that is more in tune with traditional TV (cable and DTH). IPTV also has the advantage of being more flexible in terms of development so that it can enhance and expand its TV platform - especially with interactive services. However, the reality is that it is fundamentally a household product, allowing (but not limiting it to) communal viewing via what may be the primary TV set in the home. It should be offering the same quality of experience the consumer is used to and be offering propositions that are built to compete with existing DTH and cable services. We are seeing operators use a variety of packaging options:
- Tiered packages - e.g. TP (Orange), Poland
- Thematic packages - e.g. O2 Czech
- Tiered and thematic packages - e.g. Orange TV, France
- A la carte options - e.g. Now Broadband, Hong Kong
IPTV propositions are built around both linear broadcast channels, Video on Demand (VOD) and Subscription VOD (SVOD). IPTV, as is the case with cable, can use VOD to help differentiate themselves and compete with DTH so we have seen extensive VOD development. VOD is starting to become central to IPTV operators' propositions and they are using it to lead their marketing messages and drive uptake to higher tiers (often by bundling VOD and SVOD with these packages).
But what does this all mean?
So, there are key differences that exist between IPTV and Internet TV - whether it be technical differences, delivery device (STB or PC) or the proposition. Both types of TV service are still young compared to cable and DTH. Internet TV may need to develop and prove its ability to get on to the main TV set in the home. But it is making strong headway and we are seeing more and more launches of compelling Internet TV services. IPTV is also making its mark on the Pay TV industry with launches happening across Europe. Announcements such as Orange TV's (France) recent deal with Warner Bros. and HBO for first run movies and series indicates that IPTV operators mean business and will become serious content players.
So, there are key differences that exist between IPTV and Internet TV - whether it be technical differences, delivery device (STB or PC) or the proposition. Both types of TV service are still young compared to cable and DTH. Internet TV may need to develop and prove its ability to get on to the main TV set in the home. But it is making strong headway and we are seeing more and more launches of compelling Internet TV services. IPTV is also making its mark on the Pay TV industry with launches happening across Europe. Announcements such as Orange TV's (France) recent deal with Warner Bros. and HBO for first run movies and series indicates that IPTV operators mean business and will become serious content players.
To sum up, the key issue emerging again is that we are moving further into the multi-platform era and all TV players (TV channels, Pay TV operators, Content providers, Internet TV service operators) should take note and embrace these times by developing unique multi-platform strategies.
Source: 3vision
Previous Article
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
