There is some speculation based on the flimsiest of a job posting (Apple To Bring iPhone OS To New Gadgets) that Apple could be looking to expand beyond the iPad device, as that being a first step beyond the phone and handheld information device world – perhaps into the mainstream TV world.
Apple have had Apple TV for sometime but that has taken a different evolutionary approach, basing itself on the full OSX implementation rather than the more single focused one found within the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad devices. It is not that much of a stretch though to see Apple switch the OS, just as Microsoft has now pushed their Windows Phone 7 into the single tasking world, from the more PC like 6.5 and earlier. What could this do though since the Apple TV has had very limited success?
Personally, I see this as a bit of a long shot and a market that would be a tough nut to crack, for a couple of reasons. The TV and STB market are now sparking off technologies such as OCAP, Flash, MHP/GEM/True2Way and HTML – technologies that have taken years in the making for the STB makers of today. The other reason, is that these technologies offer the ability to emulate the ‘App Store’ and grid model quite easily, rather than having the need to implement OSX on a new device. The TV market is finalising its transition to the Linux OS world, away from proprietary OS and Middleware combinations. All Apple would be, is just another proprietary OS and Middleware. I am not sure that Apple would have the clout to reverse this trend quickly.
Do you believe Apple could move into the TV world?
Posted in Consumer Device, Development, STB.
Tagged with Apple, Apple TV, Consumer Device, DTV, Flash, GEM, iPad, iPhone, MHP, OCAP, STB, TV.
This week I have been returning to old thoughts about how things have changed over the last 10 years and what I see today as the rising challenge of Digital Terrestrial/Satellite combined with an Internet return path on Hybrid boxes.
The decade started with Digital promise as wider scale EuroDOCSIS acceptance gave way to wider deployment of Digital Cable TV, and quite early on the race took place in Europe to deploy Video on demand services over that infrastructure. This was all very traditional with the EuroDOCSIS side of the boxes pretty much restricted to control messaging for unicast style QAM video streams (sometimes with CA protection, mostly without … ahem).
This was the USP (Unique Selling Point) of cable, which in actual fact the cable companies were relatively slow to monopolise against the incumbent Digital Satellite and fledgling Digital Terrestrial services. Many of the European operators only managed to get commercial VoD delivered in scale at the end of 2005 or even 2006. In the meantime, those other technologies were developing reponses to the lack of high bandwidth return path, and were creating PushVoD services combined with the innovation they initially created in Europe – DVR or PVR boxes.
After 2006 we entered the golden era of cable – where VoD services took off, and customers caught the bug of on demand content, nicely feathered by the cable companies. They enjoyed a nice little earner, but now D-Sat and DTT are fighting back, although this is not just duplication of commercial VoD – they are fighting back with the the addition of OTT content – content generated through other sources such YouTube and Video Podcasts. At least it seems this way at these early stages before things like Canvas and HbbTV have launched as second generation attempts, after companies like BT and Homechoice/Tiscali TV/Talk Talk TV have laid arguably unsuccessful groundwork.
So how will Cable fight back? what will be the response to the loss of their USP? Is there another USP for Cable? What are the challenges and advantages for the Hybrid world?
More on my thoughts about that in future post.
Posted in Consumer Device, Content, DTT, DTV, IPTV, STB.
Tagged with Cable, Challenge, Hybrid, VoD.
Now that Sky have announced the launch of their 3D channel in April and touted the super secret Pub shows this weekend, I might be changing my mind a little. It will be a feature of every TV in two years but will be barely used and event driven. Definitely not something that will justify the investment.
A bit like Quadrophonic sound or DVD-A ( that is audio if you have not heard about it ) 
Posted in Content, DTV.
Tagged with 3D, 3DTV, BSkyB, Sky+.
Ten years ago, if you asked many chief executives of cable and satellite companies what industry they were in, most would have said TV. Those that were transitioning to MSOs, would say that they were in the Dual play or triple-play entertainment and communication services business.
Today, I am not so sure that they would have the same answer. In fact, I believe some would now be saying that they are in the Consumer Electronics business in part. The actual answer is that many of these MSOs are underway with a major internal reorganisation of their businesses – to be become something that is not yet named, something that combines Consumer Electronics, Entertainment and Communication Services. This is totally in response to the desire not to be left as being ‘just the pipe’ for other people’s services. Time will tell how successful these operators will be, because based on the dynanism in the market and what consumers are after (at least the early adopters right now), they are losing that battle, and are beginning that death spiral to be the pipe only… and that will mean quite major changes to their business considering that most are unhappy with the revenues of being just the pipe.
I have always said that I am in DTV, but now I am thinking about what those letters would represent also… Digital Technology Vision perhaps, rather than Digital Television.
Posted in Broadband, Cable, Consumer Device, Content, DTV, Mobile.
Tagged with Broadband, Change, DTV, Future, Industy, Pipe, Quad-Play, Triple-Play, TV.
As I sit here (not at CES and not having been there), it seems that all the news coming out of CES is talking about 3D TV, eBooks and tablet computers.
I find the industry preoccupation with 3D rather disappointing, and most of my industry technical colleagues are similarly underwhelmed, notably because even as being early adopters, we see major consumer issues with home consumption of the format that will block its acceptance by paying majority.
I believe that it will be a huge white elephant that will occupy the industry wastefully until they realise that it will not have universal appeal and has significant issues due to the need to wear special glasses, sit in specific orientation to the screen and has a motion sickness effect on a good proportion of the population, and also seems to be only suited to event driven, specially prepared content.
At least that is my view until some organisations asks me to be involved in a 3D development/delivery
Posted in Consumer Device, DTV.
Tagged with 3D, CES, TV.
Ever since the first PVR/DVRs were released, they have transformed the home TV experience.
No longer were you stuck to the schedule, you could watch a programme whenever you wanted, and they were an excellent replacement for tape or DVD based recorders. The only thing that could get in the way were obscure User Interfaces, something that many believe that TiVo solved. However TiVo never really succeeded at the first attempt in the UK, and is going to try again with a partnership with Virgin Media.
However the growth of on-demand services such as BBC iPlayer online, through Wii or through Virgin Media, or Sky Active, plus the many new OTT services are really starting to challenge the usefulness of the DVR – in fact so much that my own usage of the DVR is dropping off to near zero. I can see this starting to happen to mainstream viewers also as devices that make easy access to on-demand OTT services become more mainstream and user friendly. The only thing I can see going wrong is the industries mis-guided approach to the availability of content – the removal of content so customers no longer have access. It is in this respect that DVRs offer a clear advantage, allowing the customer to watch what they want always… at least as long as the CE device makers and operators continue to not listen to content owners.
So what does this mean to the future? If everything goes well then on-demand content will make DVRs obsolete (RIP the DVR). If content owners have their way, then DVRs will become the only way that customers will get what they want, when they want. In the real sense, the future is a combination of both, unless a new entrant or incumbent sees the light and moves towards ensuring the delivery of content in a TRUE on-demand basis, with content having release dates/schedules (as I have written about before) and then content always being available to the consumer. After all, I only have on-demand access to a subset of content on the main channels, and I have to use my DVR for those not online.
The only thing left is the business case, how will revenue be generated? and how will that revenue model be setup to increase content use, so that profits can be made? A pure pay per play model will always act against this. That is however for another post.
Oh, how do I get access to my On-demand content? A combination of Windows Media Centre on Windows 7, and a nice plugin by the name of TunerFree MCE. Great, but still not for the mainstream viewer… yet
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Posted in Consumer Device, Content, DTV, IPTV.
Tagged with DTV, DVR, Media Centre, OTT, PVR, Windows.
The entertainment world has become a complex place compared to 20+ years ago. Back then the UK had 4 channels and the biggest challenge was in ensuring that you had an in house distribution feed for those terrestrial analogue channels, that you had remote control capability and that on at least one TV you had a video player/recorder and a video rental shop account. Simple times.
Now we have a combination of analogue (for a short while at least) and digital services provided by at least two methods – terrestrial and cable/satellite, combined with a proliferation of PVR/DVR devices, video on demand, push video on demand, OTT services such as iPlayer, iTunes and others, music services such as iTunes, Napster, and Spotify, and other video/music content newly converted into digital forms. The world is a mix of scheduled broadcast and on demand content delivered from near and far storage. This is a very complex environment, which operators and consumer electronics companies are starting to fight over as they recognise that this is the future, and that this is where money can be made and lost, business models found and destroyed.
Much of the effort is on making this home environment interoperable so that content can be as easily as possible delivered to whatever device the consumer wants to watch it on, whilst making some sort of profit on the transaction – either from the initial content purchase or even the actual viewing event itself. Some of the effort is focused on how to find and distribute the content but not a lot, and this home ecology has many solutions which focus on where the content is and provide a user interface that reflects this. The User Interfaces are a mish-mash of TV, DVR, Network, Internet, or local content. This, in my view, is not going to be a success as it leaves complexity management to the consumer, a consumer who actually does not wish to even think about where the content is or what the content is in format – only whether it is video or audio, and what that content is – the TV episode, the music track, the film, the photograph.
The consumer in my view wants a cloud approach – not a cloud as in the current Internet view of applications somewhere out there - but a cloud into which content is placed and out of which content is played out, a cloud that comprises local and far storage that does not bother the consumer with exactly where it really is – the cloud hides that. It is about the content … stupid after all.
In line with this, a new UI needs to appear… something akin to the EPG – the Electronic Programme Guide you see on all STBs, something that I like to call ECG – the Electronic Content Guide. This would be a UI that concentrates on the content and not where it is, that presents the content to the user as content they already have access to full time, content that they can have temporary access to, and content that can be shared around. This ECG would include in that view content that is being made available from the past, from the present and from the future. This would present the consumer with an old film that the person owns for example, give them access to content that is being played out now such as a football event and content that will be available in the near future such as the next episode of a hot new TV series. The challenge will be in presenting it with today’s technology and with the involvement of today’s content owners, distributors and device manufacturers.
More on this soon. What do you think of the UI and home ecology of the near future?
Posted in Cable, Computers, Consumer Device, DTT, DTV, IPTV, Networking, Radio, STB, Satellite.
Tagged with Content, ECG, EPG, In Home Networking, UI, User Interface.
In 1998, I worked for a company involved with cable companies in Poland. As part of my role at the time, I had to work with our IT teams there and in one key respect we had a major problem. The main headquarters in an University of Warsaw co located building was connected to the outside world using a set of low bandwidth leased lines. I say low bandwidth now but back then we were talking high speed, greater than 64Kbps links. This was fine within the country, and allowed email and Internet access to a wide variety of sites but there was one major problem. For any sites outside of Warsaw or Poland (which was most of the sites anyone wanted), the actual data transfer speed peaked at 2.3kbps. Yes, that is a decimal point in there. This was for a major company, a company located in a good place in Warsaw. For the senior management at home in the suburbs of Warsaw or even outside of the city, the Internet connectivity local loop was dial up (as it mainly was in the UK back then), but then we were still talking about lower than 2kbps data transfers at best. For many of the management, they found that they could not get anything due to the quality of the phone lines and even that they had to wait 18 months for the phone line to be installed into their apartment.
In the UK, I was enjoying full line speed 128kbps to 256kbps leased circuits for the main business location (which was increased to 2Mbps by 2000) and at home we had ISDN2 services giving me 128kbps service to my home. Cable connections were giving 256/512kbps services and ADSL was in trial. The comparison between the two countries was stark.
Now fast forward 10 years and the roles are reversed. In the UK we have up to 8Mbps services over ADSL and for those lucky few, we have between 20 and 50Mbps on cable and ADSL2+ services for the home. Many business make use of the lower contention ADSL services with the same speeds. Poland however has just launched 120Mbps services. Yes you see it right, 120Mbps. And more importantly, that speed is available against International sites.
This is an important message to Digital Britain and the UK government… up your game unless you want us to be left behind.
Posted in Broadband, Networking.
Tagged with 120Mbps, Broadband, DOCSIS3.0, FibrePower, High Speed, IP, Poland, Polska, UPC.
IBC this year was interesting for me from the perspective that it was a show with only limited ‘new things’. This was an evolutionary IBC not a revolutionary one. HD is bedded in, IPTV is mainstream, OTT Video is a developing situation and the next new thing development is up for grabs.
I did not see that new thing in my view, although 3D TV and widgets were making their play.
Now widgets are interesting but I am very unsure about whether the sit-back experience is really the place to have a mini screen real-estate grabbing application that interacts with the viewer, mainly because I believe the screen is for video and that is the important thing for me and everything else is a distraction. The other aspect is the TV is still a one to many experience, and widgets are one to one in my opinion. So I am a neutral on Widgets and really require further persuasion.
I am not so neutral when it comes to 3D. I am not a believer. 3D is being pushed by content owners, hardware and software providers and even by some operators. However the issue I have is that 3D is not mass market in my view and it has never been more than a novelty since the initial excitement with 3D Cinema in the 50s. So why do I say that it is not mass market? This is because of the two primary types of 3D ( with glasses and without glasses ), there are human factor issues with both.
Having to wear glasses feels dumb, a proportion of viewers do not get the 3D view without headache inducing concentration, and those who already have prescription glasses either have both sets on at the same time or have quality issues with what they see on screen.
The non-glasses version has positional issues in its current form, pretty much the same focus issues for those with prescription glasses, and the 3D effect does not always work with every person.
Then also both types of 3D have motion sickness issues especially with current cinematic techniques, something that gets me personally as I am in that 5% of people who suffer the motion sickness effect after only a short period of watching.
All this is without discussing the technical and cost engineering, and content issues that need to be resolved before this really could attempt to be mainstream.
So there you go, 3D is the modern New Clothes for the Emperor of TV and I feel like that little boy pointing it out. It will only be a novelty for animation and Computer Gaming for me. Am I right? Am I wrong? What do you think?
Posted in Broadband, Cable, Consumer Device, Content, DTT, DTV, IPTV, Mobile, STB, Satellite.
Tagged with 3D, IBC, IBC09, Mass Market, Novelty, Widgets.
Are you in Amsterdam for IBC2009? at a loose end after all the vendor or customer meetings and want a relaxing drink in convivial surroundings? A number of Amsterdam bound and Amsterdam housed Digital TV professionals are going to be meeting up for an informal drink inside/outside (Weather dependent) of Hoopmans (http://www.hoopman.nl/hoopman.htm ) in Leidseplein, Amsterdam on Saturday 12th September at around 21:30 and onwards.
It is nice and central, and easy to find and is on the main tram routes (1, 2, and 5). If you want to come along, then please do but it would be great if you could RSVP beforehand. On the night itself, if we are not obvious you can drop us a call on +31 652390599.
Ian Nock and Ken Carroll
UPDATE: For those of you who are on Linkedin, you can RSVP via the event link http://events.linkedin.com/IBC2009-Informal-Social-Meetup/pub/121942
Posted in DTV, General, Networking, Profession.
Tagged with Amsterdam, Digital TV, Hoopmans, IBC, IBC2009, Meetup, Netherlands, Professionals, Social.
