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Componentised TV Services

Written by Ian Nock on January 31, 2012 — 1 Comment

A little under a month ago I started (but didn’t finish) a blog post about how the launch of Netflix in the UK (and the ready availability already of Lovefilm) created a special situation for the UK, caused by the quality of the Freeview/FreeSat platform. This situation was that it was perfectly possible to hand craft a decent linear, PVR and Premium content service without going anywhere near a Pay TV provider like BSkyB or Virgin. The threat of these component services towards BSkyB was palpable, with BSkyB’s advantage only being the availability of Premium Sports content and a limited number of channels only available on that platform like Sky One.

Various people have complained about the lack of content on Netflix and even Lovefilm but the content available compares fairly well to what is on Sky Movies and for the really premium content you could end up buying a DVD copy of the movie you want for almost the same price as the VoD version.

To me, I could get a very decent TV and Premium package for £250 (for the HD Freeview+ box with iPlayer) and £10 per month (if I took Netflix and Lovefilm at the same time via my ‘Connected TV’). This is the future, componentised TV services where you find and add the components to your package.

We can now see BSkyB’s response to that through the combined announcement of allowing non-Sky Broadband customers access to Sky Active+ and the announcement of the launch of an OTT service targeted at those customers who do not have a Sky TV Satellite subscription. This is initially a defensive measure but very clearly it moves to being an offensive measure to acquire more customers than they can reach via dishes (because so many people either do not want or cannot have the dish), and also a setup for Sky TV not caring about the delivery mechanism for its TV and dropping the association with Satellites. All they would need to do now is allow access to this OTT service from a Freeview STB (Picnic anyone?).

This is the key issue that should be taken away from all of this, the important thing for customers is content, not the way it is received. Sky are taking action here to ensure that all the obstacles to people paying for their (Sky’s) content are removed.

As for Youview, when and if it launches, this very clearly puts them at the back of the pack with very little to distinguish them in this setup.

Also posted in Blog, Consumer Device, Content, DTT, DTV, IPTV, OTT, Satellite | Tagged BSkyB, Connected TV, Freesat, Freeview, Lovefilm, Netflix, Picnic, Sky Movies, Sky+, Virgin, Virgin Media, Youview

Ubuntu TV… nice

Written by Ian Nock on January 11, 2012 — Leave a Comment

Saw these post online showing the Ubuntu UI and I must say that the Unity UI stinks as a PC UI but as a TV UI it is sure pretty. I hope someone will post some video of it so we can see if its flow is as nice as the static shots.

It’s still just a proof of concept, which is a bit of a disappointment, but Ubuntu TV was here at CES making its public debut.

via Ubuntu TV eyes-on — Engadget.

Also posted in Blog, Consumer Device, Development | Tagged Canonical, TV, Ubuntu TV, UI, Unity

Google TV and 3D TV

Written by Ian Nock on January 6, 2012 — Leave a Comment

The pre-CES announcements are coming thick and fast, and particularly interesting are the announcements around Google TV. Google are announcing that they have engaged with multiple parties in the delivery of Google TV integrated into TV sets, particularly LG and Samsung. Samsung was understood to be getting involved already last year, so they are not a surprise to now be involved.

Now cast your mind back to Le Web in December, and the following;

“By the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions that you see in stores will have Google TV embedded in them,” Schmidt said.

And now you can see the root of his comment, that they have done the deals to get Google TV embedded with products from way over 50% of the TV market.

However that does not mean that customers will be buying TVs that contain Google TV – its usefulness is not proven even amongst the tech community, without going anywhere near ordinary consumers. Its biggest issue is still the same, what content can you access? where are the content deals? where is the content security support? Until they solve those issues then Google TV will, in my view, stay a novelty. It shares its problems with Connected TV sets overall to be honest, but those are somewhat further down the line to securing deals to have content from Netflix, Acetrax and Lovefilm on them generally. I look forward to the coming months to see how this will shape out.

And in keeping with its importance, we come to 3D TV… a postscript to real news. As we saw at the last IBC, 3D is notable by its huge absence, 3D is largely absent from CES. There is a lot to be said about it but in my view it comes down to this… 3D does not give a sufficient advantage to viewing content which people wish to view as it did not for cinema in the 1950s. Anyway, roll on the full CES next week and let us see what else comes out.

Also posted in Blog, Consumer Device, DTV, IPTV, OTT | Tagged 3D, 3D TV, CES, Google TV, LG, Samsung, Sony

STB Bugs

Written by Ian Nock on January 4, 2012 — Leave a Comment

I have worked with a number of clients in the delivery of new STB code and new STBs over my career. I have prided myself that I could work a team to identify bugs that ultimately would be seen as customer defects (the difference between bugs and defects is something worthy of an entire post in itself) and then work out the best resolution and then get it implemented. However I would limit myself to dealing only with a certain type of bug and not real live ones.

Man, those Greedy Cable Companies have some nerve, am I right? Always showing up late, charging us for channels we dont want, under-delivering on broadband speeds. But at least theyre not infesting our homes with bugs! Oh, wait.

via Mans Comcast Box Floods Home with Cockroaches.

Then again, a resolution is clear and simple to these bugs compared to the average timing issue.

Also posted in Blog, Development, Testing | Tagged bugs, Cable, defects

Carrier IQ and STBs

Written by Ian Nock on December 5, 2011 — Leave a Comment

The furore around Carrier IQ’s diagnostic and usage logging on mobile phones is a salutory lesson for the TV operator industry about logging too much information and not informing the viewer sufficiently. What! I hear you say, usage is tracked on my STB? Of course it is tracked particularly on IPTV and OTT services, as you would see if you read the contract or AUP that you signed up for when you got the service. This is a very useful part of the service for the operator, that allows it to generate business intelligence about its service, the UI, the channels that are watched, the usage of trickplay etc, which as is my view of Carrier IQ, is not inherently bad in itself.

So where are the lessons? The first is making it more transparent and allowing it to be turned off…. If you don’t offer an Opt-Out then you surely are tempting the ire of your viewers. Operators should offer this option but rarely do.

The second is in the implementation, where many solutions track everything on the box right down to individual keypresses and UI state (yes, logging whether you are watching X-Factor or something less salubrious), and then post the whole thing up to the backend over unencrypted or poorly secured connectivity along with personally identifiable information. The backend solution is then responsible for anonymising the data. Solution providers for these solutions should offer the anonymisation and filtering down to the target data BEFORE it leaves the STB but many, if not most, do not.

Don’t get me wrong, these service providers almost certainly comply with the laws of their lands but once awareness of just how much information is tracked leaks out then they may experience their ‘Carrier IQ’ moment. So before TV services experience this, usage analysis and tracking solution providers and operators should clean up their acts before legislators and customers get involved, and way before operators deploy data centric services such as recommendations and personalisation.

Also posted in Blog, Consumer Device, DTV, OTT | Tagged AUP, Carrier IQ, Contract, Diagnostic, EPG, guides, logging, Personalisation, Recommendation, Software, Tracking, Usage

Memories of IBC2011

Written by Ian Nock on September 30, 2011 — Leave a Comment

It has been over two weeks since my heady five days at the RAI in Amsterdam, the first without construction work for the first time in quite a few years. As always there was an awful lot of catching up with friends and ex-colleagues, but there was a serious amount of tech fun to see particularly around Halls 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 13. If I was to sum it up in one sentence, I would say second screen and titchy high end STBs.

2nd Screen was everywhere, with quite a bit being shown about how you can content from anywhere to anywhere which is certainly showing promise, with some of the demos even actually make use of content protection that content owners will accept. However more efforts are needed there to make this really mainstream, mostly from real world experience being fed back from those early deployments that are creeping out. I certainly am very optimistic that 2nd screen can make the jump from small operator to big during 2012.

It seemed like every STB maker was pushing new higher powered boxes, which are definitely needed to cope with the early signs of new UIs as people try to compete with the swooshing UI that is NDS’s Snowflake (shown in its V12 form this year). There was definitely much effort to try and move away from the simple Grid Guide, however it is still yet to proven that there is customer acceptance of these new approaches. Intel were also there with more examples of the use of their Atom derived chipsets certainly pushing the envelope in raw power to meet those demands, although there were definitely some awards to be given to some companies who were really making the best of the older chipsets.

There was also quite a bit of ‘Do you want to see our Android based box’, however I did not really see anything new in this respect as to be honest this is just another flavour of Linux with a Java based middleware on top with a UI that is generally not suited for being driven by a remote control. Some work to do with those between now and next September and STB makers need to be reminded that just because you can, does not mean you should.

There was one glaring fact though that was obvious to all, and reported in several places since then – the almost complete absence in the STB halls of 3D. Is this a clear sign of the sentiment that is coming through.. that 3D is not the draw for viewer eyeballs? Second screen has certainly blotted out the interest in 3D, and that is definitely a whole lot more desired by the customer, definitely more mainstream. There was a lot of 3D though in the Production halls but is that a sign that the ‘meh’ness of 3D just has not passed back up the content pipeline yet? 3D to me is the new Teletext – in every TV but used by a small minority of diehard viewers.

There was also a very positive sentiment with regard to business at IBC considering the economic situation, although to be honest IBC2008 was like that and just a few short weeks after that IBC the market dropped quite a bit for some months as the banks sorted themselves out and companies paused or dropped new projects until Q2 2009 came along. I hope that this does not happen this time and that between now and IBC2012, projects will continue to deliver new innovation into the viewers living room.

Also posted in Blog, Broadband, Cable, DTV, IPTV, OTT, Satellite | Tagged 2nd Screen, 3D, 3D TV, Amsterdam, Android, CA, Content Protection, DRM, IBC, IBC2011, Intel, Linux, NDS, Netherlands, RAI, Snowflake, Tablets

Blackarrow Consulting at IBC2011

Written by Ian Nock on September 9, 2011 — Leave a Comment

IBC has rolled round again and we will be enjoying the delights of the RAI – hot dogs and Coke Lite that are almost as expensive as Inkjet Printer Ink (that is the most expensive thing by volume on the planet I understand) – for the 14th year in a row, over the coming days starting today – 9th September and going through to the end. As for many it will be a hard work expo with quite a bit of networking with the aim of not expiring under the green bottles, and hitting those 9am and 10am meetings feeling refreshed (and not damp under rain). The weather forecast is mixed from warm days to rainy days… Amsterdam is always a little different.

The word on the street is that we will see ‘Cloud’ everywhere, whether it is content delivery or production, and quite a number of hybrid broadcast/IPTV and OTT solutions. We shall see really what that brings, and whether there is good business, poor business or pure hype.

If you want to meet up at all then feel free to tweet me at @iannock, and follow me there as I tweet the occasional on-the-spot experience from the show.

Also posted in Blog, Broadband, Cable, Computers, Consumer Device, Content, Development, DTT, DTV, Gaming, IPTV, Mobile, News, OTT, Profession, Radio, Satellite | Tagged Amsterdam, Broadcast, Digital, IBC, IBC11, IBC2011, IPTV, OTT, Production, RAI, TV

Google TV second coming (in the UK?)

Written by Ian Nock on August 27, 2011 — 1 Comment

Some months ago when Google TV launched in the US, I thought about the possibilities of how this could work in the UK. The UK and the US markets are very different, most notably the lack of overall control that pay TV has on the market in the UK. Now we have the news coming through that Google TV will be coming to the UK.

Hey! Britain! Guess what? You’re getting Google TV!

via Google TV coming to the UK within six months – Engadget.

Since the original launch in the US, the flaws in the Google TV product have been seen clearly and it is not just the lack of content caused by wholesale blocking by the content owners in the US that caused Google TV Version 1 to be a dead duck. The product was clumsy and ill thought out, and pushing the long dead (ill)thoughts about ‘Web TV’ and thus failing as they did.

With the prevalence of the Freeview DTT and Freesat DVB-S platforms in the UK, we hope and believe that there will not be the wholesale blocking of the product as has happened in the US. This will allow the product functionality to shine through we hope and that is where improvements need to be made.

The Honeycomb version of Google TV will need to resolve the issues of usability of the current Google TV products and refocus on video content along with Apps that are TV centric. After all, the reason that most people watch TV is for video, not for the apps. TV apps need to be additive to the video experience and not detract by spreading themselves all over the far screen, making use of the second (close in) screen for that additive experience. If they don’t do a good job then I can only believe that Google TV will become the second Wave… and go the way of Wave and Buzz before it.

I have not seen much of the mock-ups as yet but hopefully that will change at IBC2011 next month. See you there.

Also posted in Blog, Consumer Device, Content, DTT, IPTV, OTT | Tagged Freesat, Freeview, Google, GoogleTV, Honeycomb, OTT

Practical DLNA Fail

Written by Ian Nock on July 15, 2011 — Leave a Comment

As an early adopter, primarily due to my involvement in the business, I have been using home media streaming solutions for many years. I have evolved from my early PCTV solutions, via proprietary PC based server solutions through to what I have in day to day operation today. I have a Windows 7 PC as a Media server combined with a Western Digital NAS device. The PC also acts as the Media client as it is hooked up on the back of my Flat screen TV, providing me with adaptable if a little clumsy access to both in-home and Over The Top services. It works, sort of. That is not working in the way ordinary people need it to work – straight away with a nice swish UI.

This is a set of features that the industry is now pushing out there through Connected TV and enhanced STBs, mostly with DLNA Digital Media Player support. I have had one of these now for nine months in the shape of a Humax Fox-HDR-T2 PVR. This offers support for playback off the Windows 7 PC and the NAS, over the network and does this in a basic fashion. The UI offers a ‘Storage’ selector, which allows the selection of the internal HDD, USB or the Network. Selecting Network, gives access to my video selection of DivX encoded content. It also gives access to photos and music. However the whole experience is a bit of a let down on multiple fronts. I would not wish the photo and music functionality on my worst enemy, and the move functionality requires the navigation of so many levels of folders just to get to my content that members of my family cannot bear to use it and prefer to fire up the PC directly and navigate the fiddly controls that Microsoft provide in Windows Media Centre. At least the STB does play 99% of my content, although that excludes my Apple movie content of course. All in all, very clumsy and not ready for the average viewer and human.

Now Humax have released the Media Server functionality for the box, and it has been suitable downloaded and upgraded (an awful process that they should be shot for – why put the OTA code ONLY on HD DTT muxes! I know, I know, it is a HD box, but it is also a great SD PVR as well for the majority of people today. The resultant experience is reminiscent of a TV upgrade process – awful.

However getting the Media server to function, shows exactly why DLNA is not yet ready for the consumer. Serving the content was fine as long as I used the Windows 7 PC (no hope under Windows XP but that is not Humax’s fault and the less said about Vista the better), and then only if you took the less obvious route (accessing network and then trying to pull up the content just got empty folders… oh yes you had to run Windows Media Player first and then select the Humax box in the Other Sources list to get to the visible content). Playing the content though resulted in an unusable couple of frames a second with the worst video tearing you have ever seen and stuttering audio. At least, this was the experience with the built in Windows Media Player software. Running up XBMC (an alternative DLNA Server and Player), gave a much more fluid experience with proper playback of the content with none of the tearing and frame loss. This demonstrated an awful lack of compatibility with the most common and built in Digital Player software in the world. How did Humax test this and decide it was fit for human consumption? Saying it is Beta is NOT a defence, not when you put it out for general use.

Speaking with my brother who has the same Humax elicited similar tales of woe, but his exacerbated by his attempt to get it working with his Sony Bravia Connected TV. He simply failed to any of his PCs to work with without the XBMC approach, and the TV simply saw the top level content only – anything in a sub-folder (which includes anything recorded in a series) was invisible, and the top level content wouldn’t play.

I should not attack Humax too much (why oh why did they not make sure it works smoothly with Windows 7 and Windows Media Player? as well as with the main makes of TV – Sony Bravia is not rare) but this shows how putting home media sharing out there for normal people is far from ready as Benjamin Schwartz has stated in recent blog post during a Connected TV conference. I can only agree with him, but only to the extent that device makes and software makers really need to up the game and stop blaming each other, and come up with software and hardware that just works out of the box. That really cannot be as hard as they seem to be making it.

Also posted in Blog, Consumer Device, DTT | Tagged Compatibility, DLNA, DMP, DMS, Home Networking, Humax, Media Centre, Media Player, Microsoft, Plugfest, Usability, Windows, Windows 7

Content Protection in an Unmanaged World

Written by Ian Nock on July 7, 2011 — Leave a Comment

Sometimes I see an article that has so spot on a set of messages, that you just have to draw attention to it…

Andrew Glasspool, Founder and Managing Partner at the business and technology consultancy firm Farncombe. “There is the potential for a train smash when Connected TV has become mass-market and you try to put really high value premium content on devices that are 2-3 years old,”

via Videonet – News and Analysis – Connected TV protection: heading for a train smash.

This is more than Connected TV in my view, as the article does say, this is about making available high value video and other content on any CE device, from Connected TV down to the simplest mobile phone. How do you keep it going? I believe device blacklisting is going to become much more prevalent, and very noticeable to the general public. Not just a train smash, more someone taking the line and bridge away under the train.

Also posted in Blog, Consumer Device, Content, DTV, IPTV, Mobile, OTT | Tagged Android, Apple, CE, Connected TV, Digital Rights, DRM, iPad, Mobile, Security, Tablets

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