The Tablet Is Changing the Face of TV

iTunes offers a handful of apps that allow subscribers to watch live TV on their iPhone or iPad. But just browsing through the selections, and more importantly the reviews, it seems live streaming TV to a mobile device has not yet been perfected! Most apps are aimed at niche audiences, require additional hardware to view the video or simply provide an inferior playback experience due to unreliable bandwidth to properly stream the video.

I’d argue the biggest impediment to perfecting these apps is content. The biggest impediment to gaining the rights to content is content security. And who already has access to high-quality content and conditional access (CA) / digital rights management (DRM) systems in place? Digital TV operators. We believe the cable, satellite and IPTV operators that already have the rights to broadcast premium content are in the cat bird seat to offer the best live mobile TV experience.

The demand is clear. According to Sandvine, real-time entertainment, including video streaming, now accounts for about 43% of North American Internet traffic, up from 10% in 2008! And for the first time in history, the number of households paying for TV subscriptions is falling, in part due to the rise of Internet TV and over-the-top (OTT) services.

The technology is finally catching up to this demand when you consider what adaptive rate streaming can now enable.

Now, in this new OTT world, the issue of content rights is complicated. Take companies like Ivi and FilmOn.com for example. They have developed technology that captures over-the-air broadcast signals and streams them to mobile devices – without consent from the networks.

Clearly these broadcasters are not thrilled with the so-called loophole that they found in the U.S. Copyright Act. Both of these companies are already in an embattled legal fight with content owners to see if they have the right to do this. According to some attorneys, the law is on the side of the networks.

We recently launched our ViewRight LIVE app in iTunes, which enables secure distribution of premium pay-TV services via WiFi and mobile wireless networks – of live TV. The app provides subscriber/device registration and device-level authentication. ViewRight LIVE also allows operators to customize and brand their mobile TV channel to match the look and feel of their traditional channels.

So with the content rights, technology infrastructure and now the security available to enable a superior live mobile TV experience, digital TV operators have a tremendous opportunity. I’d say it is better to beat fledging online TV operators in the marketplace rather than the courtroom.

What are your thoughts?

--content submitted by Verimatrix--

Did Adaptive Rate Streaming Get Enough Attention during the OTT Spotlight in 2010?

As the end of 2010 draws closer, we’d like to take a few minutes to examine some of the technologies and trends that have significantly impacted the market in 2010.

You’ll notice that OTT has been a common theme throughout our blog posts this year – we have tackled issues ranging from the likelihood of traditional TV operators embracing OTT video as a service to how service providers can capitalize on advanced OTT technologies to enable new streams of business to the growing support for HTTP Live Streaming.

In addition to helping operators maximize the effectiveness of their existing bandwidth, ARS also offers many advantages over previous video delivery techniques over the Internet. For instance, it naturally supports home firewall transparency, and a wide variety of use cases — it can deliver video across a combination of wired and wireless networks, through any combination of home broadband devices and firewall devices.

In our opinion, this is extremely important because the protocols that we’ve been using for IPTV, in particular, don’t have those properties, and as a result they don’t work very well around the home. In comparison with previous video techniques used on the Internet, such as progressive download, we see both improvements in operational cost savings for the service provider and in the quality of consumer experience.

And the improvements to the quality of the consumer experience are tremendous. This is so important because user experience is perhaps the most important determinant of success for businesses that rely on video delivery. People don’t expect their video material to stop and start and for the audio to drop; they expect a very seamless, continuous experience, and they are not very forgiving of delivery issues. ARS provides that seamless experience even when conditions deteriorate sharply or if sharing of bandwidth occurs.

In partnership with Harmonic, we worked with Ben Schwarz to author a primer talking about the impact of ARS. You will find a high-level technical description that leads to the technology trade-offs of the different flavors of ARS (from Apple, Microsoft and Adobe). It is written as a guide to help operators make sound selection parameters and consider business implications based on those decisions. You can download the primer at www.verimatrix.com/HLS

We think ARS is one of the year’s most significant enabling technologies, and we’re excited to see what’s in store for 2011. What ARS advancements do you think we will see in 2011?

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-- Content submitted by Vermatrix

Can Traditional TV Operators Embrace OTT Video as a Service?

There is an assumption by many market pundits today that the service operators in the world of Internet TV services and that of traditional pay-TV are totally disjointed. We think this is rather too simplistic.

Just like the world of e-commerce in the early generations of Internet, the shift of consumption did not totally upend the value of existing brands and consumer loyalties. A few new players emerged for sure, but by and large, the brick and mortar brands have become just as prominent on the Internet as they are on Main Street – the power of branding transcends the medium.

When you apply this logic to video, the service operators that make the leap to multi-screen delivery can indeed be the same names that dominate the pay-TV market in cable, satellite and IPTV today. They have the content, the subscriber relationships and the scale to make service delivery compelling whatever the physical distribution network, and in many cases they also provide Internet connectivity.

The challenge for existing operators is that this requires a fundamental shift in the way they think. Progressive digital TV operators may have to embrace novel technologies that have been designed to effectively scale and solve IP video issues and apply them over their delivery networks. By integrating OTT and adaptive rate streaming technology with pay-TV services, operators can enhance ARPU, subscriber loyalty and lure incremental advertising dollars.

This convergence of technologies also must encompass a proactive revenue protection and enhancement approach that enables digital TV operators to cast a much wider net with their service offerings. This shifts the central value proposition for the digital video enterprise beyond that of content protection alone, towards the broader perspective of revenue security.

Download Verimatrix's white paper, Pay-TV at an Inflection Point, and let us know if you agree.

Submitted from Verimatrix.

To Be Free, or Not to Be. Does VP8 Limit Revenue Potential for GoogleTV?

There is a wave of reaction and analysis around the Google TV and VP8 announcements, and I hope this doesn’t simply add to the noise level.

From the point of view of revenue security, I get the impression that rather than uniting the world behind a common (OK, supposedly free) codec, Google is really driving a wedge between commercial content and user-generated content (or at least not fee-based content).

Why do I think so? VP8 is not suitable for revenue generating video services because Google believes that “DRM is fundamentally in conflict with open source and open standards.” As a result, commercial content will continue to be distributed using standards that are compatible with protection techniques such as MPEG-2 transport stream and AVC coding. Non-commercial content may use the VP8 open source solution. Google is doing the same thing with YouTube – converting user-generated free content to VP8 while using Adobe Flash for paid content.

But in reality, these two worlds are really not exclusive as they might seem.

Some content may start as paid content, and later on may be distributed in the clear with commercials and eventually distributed freely. Other business models allow users to chose between paid but ad-free version or ad-supported version of the same content. Content providers or service operators are not likely to transcode each content for different distribution models if they can avoid it.

As a comment on Google’s apparent position here, I don’t see why an open source codec or open standard should be fundamentally incompatible with revenue generating services. This has been disproved by several standards organizations including MPEG, DVB or OMA, but that is a discussion for another day. The bottom line is that if valuable content will eventually be encoded and distributed using VP8, we’ll be able to protect it if the business model requires it (it is open source after all, isn’t it?) Read on NewTeeVee why open sourcing VP8 matters.

The other issue in debate is whether open source VP8 will stay free. It is unlikely that after a quarter of a century of digital video compression research, Google (or On2) would be able to come up with a codec that is of comparable quality as those developed by MPEG/ITU without infringing on anybody’s patents. If I remember correctly, Microsoft tried something similar with VC-1 and it did not work according to the original plan.

I don’t believe that any serious service provider will jump on the VP8 bandwagon without being able to accommodate all licensing fees into their business model upfront. Maybe this will speed up MPEG’s effort to create a royalty-free version of MPEG codec, which will avoid splitting the pay-TV and free-TV worlds.

Submitted by Verimatrix

Consumer Subsidized TV: The Role of More Open Standards

The era of the dedicated set-top box (STB) for each service to a TV is definitely coming to an end. What is emerging is a picture that involves a series of platforms that can support service specific applications or widgets selected and managed by the consumer. These platforms may themselves be based around standards such that service operators can create the applications that engage the consumer.

In certain kinds of systems, for instance the DirecTV view of the home media server, standards are only necessary to be able to share the content, they are not necessary to manage the device itself. That device, therefore, can be a completely proprietary system that is wholly owned and subsided by the network or system operator. It is most likely produced exclusively for that network operator, just like traditional STBs have been.

IP-based standards in such platforms also allows operators to cost-effectively deploy a security system and business rules that can satisfy all demands of content owners while creating the transparent usage model that consumers demand.

We believe that IP and the sophisticated protocols built on IP are the common building blocks to make digital convergence happen inside the home.

One such standards activity is the Open IPTV Forum – a cooperative of technology companies that is seeking to create an end to end platform for the delivery of IP video services. Another recent initiative is Project Canvas propelled by the BBC in the UK. A standard becomes important like this when it can enable multi-vendor participation.

As members of both the Open IPTV Forum and Digital TV (DTG), among several other standards consortiums, we are seeing the central role that IP-based technologies are taking. However, we feel that a key component to these specifications is the ability to generate revenue. Creating the right experience that consumers are willing to pay for will most certainly generate continued innovation.

We are watching Project Canvas and others like HbbTV closely, like the rest of the industry.

Blog posting material submitted by Verimatrix.

The Latest OTT Opportunity: Connected TV

Of all the new Internet TV delivery options, the connected TV is especially interesting to service operators: It’s already front and center in the living room, there is perhaps no expensive STB required, it features an already integrated remote control and has the potential for high-quality presentation without distortion or noise from connecting cables.

On the other hand, today’s connected TVs are fundamentally constrained by proprietary interfaces, wholly proprietary aggregation portals and simplistic navigational schemes. Limited or no storage means streaming-only presentation of content.

Our current feeling is that the Internet-connected TVs are primarily an aspect of a features game in a highly competitive consumer electronics market and is one of the options least likely to be exploited for premium video delivery services. The more likely scenario will be facilitated via connected devices such as Blu-ray players game consoles and last but not least via STBs, although these may take on a new identities such as whole home DVRs, media gateways, etc.

It is possible that connectivity may be used to blend the TV and Web experiences together. Operators can choose to make this happen on a TV using overlay or screen sharing applications, such as calling up an actor’s Twitter feed while watching his performance.

But given that living room viewing is a shared experience, it may be more realistic to see TV supplemented by other more personal phone or pad devices with better user input capabilities to provide such interactivity. I can attest with my own family’s habits, that it has become more normal for viewers to watch TV while working on their connected laptop!

I presented last week at the TV 3.0 – Future of TV conference (co-located with @DisplayWeek) . I was surprised to hear that nearly 20% of TVs shipped in 2010 will be network‐enabled, which is projected to reach about 60% in 2013!

And we are experiencing some interest from CE manufacturers to embed software-based security technology directly into these next-generation TVs.

Nonetheless, I came back with the opinion that STBs are not going away anytime soon. The issue (and cost) of customer support needs to rest with the operator who ultimately owns the quality of experience.

Submitted from Steve Oetegenn, Verimatrix.

Business Models for On-Demand Lifestyles

The CONNECTIONS Europe Summit afternoon begins with the Business Models for On-Demand Lifestyles panel moderated by Stuart Sikes, President, Parks Associates.

Where is profitability in the connected lifestyle? What are the “rules of engagement” (business, regulatory, consumer) for implementing access to new content and applications? This panel examines the critical factors for monetizing the connected lifestyle:

• Monetizing online content

• The role of advertising and other revenue-generating programs

• Understanding the needs of content producers and owners

• Application stores, microtransactions, and the mobile provider

Speakers include:
Wim Bus, Senior Vice President of Product Management & Operations, Civolution
Keith Donovan, Sales & Marketing Director, Intamac Systems
Rob Lewis, CEO, Omnifone
Theodore May, VP Content & Value Added Services, Synacor
Neerav Shah, VP Business Development, Verimatrix

Connected CE key focus at CONNECTIONS™ Europe

Executive Summit features Parks Associates analysts and industry leaders, November 4 in Amsterdam

Parks Associates announced the speakers for its upcoming CONNECTIONS™ Europe Summit, which will detail the Roadmap for Connected CE.

The Summit, hosted by Parks Associates on November 4, 2009, at the Mövenpick Hotel in Amsterdam, will quantify consumer demand and analyze business strategies as Internet-capable devices are added to the network and create new opportunities in sharing content and expanding interactive services.

Connected CE changes the equation for the digital home, creating demand for more Web-based and on-demand content and applications on a variety of platforms. Revenues from online video and on-demand video content will exceed $16 billion in Western Europe by 2013, driven by connected devices and multiscreen content strategies. CONNECTIONS™ Europe explores the business opportunities created by connected products and services, including their impact on consumer expectations and the ripple effect to other devices and systems in the home.

Rob Timmer, Senior Director Net TV, BU TV, Philips Consumer Lifestyle, will deliver the Keynote Address for CONNECTIONS™ Europe.

Confirmed Speakers:
Richard Bullwinkle, Chief Evangelist, Rovi Corporation
Ronald Brockmann, Managing Director, ActiveVideo Europe
Bill Correll, VP, Marketing & Business Development, Eyecon Technologies
Brian Donnelly, VP, Sales & Marketing, Icron Technologies
Matthew Huntington, VP, Product Marketing, OpenTV
Art Lancaster, CTO, Affinegy
Christer Larsson, CEO and Co-founder, Makewave (formerly Gatespace Telematics AB); VP EMEA, OSGi Alliance
Wouter Leibbrandt, Manager, Advanced Systems Lab, NXP Semiconductors
Andy Nobbs, Chief Commercial Officer, Civolution
Kurt Scherf, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Parks Associates
Neerav Shah, VP Business Development, Verimatrix
Stuart Sikes, President, Parks Associates
Peter Smyth, CEO, RedMere
Bill Stanley, Executive Director, Operations Solutions, Telcordia
Frederic Van Durme, Head of Product Management, Thomson
Andrew Wajs, CTO, Irdeto Group, Irdeto/Cloakware

Summit Sessions
Connected Europe: Trends and Numbers
Defining the New Video Experience
Evolution of the “Digital Furnace”: Residential Gateways and Set-top Boxes
Business Models for On-Demand Lifestyles
Enabling Technologies: Connecting It All
Wrapping It Up – Predictions for the Next Five Years

CONNECTIONS™ Global Sponsors are HD-PLC Alliance, DSC, NXP, Radialpoint, Rovi, ActiveVideo Networks, Affinegy, Icron, Irdeto, ProVision Communications, Telcordia, and Zilog. CONNECTIONS™ Europe Advisory Sponsors are Eyecon Technologies and CONNECTIONS™ Premier Sponsor RedMere.

Register at www.connectionseurope.com.

Verimatrix and Envivio Extend Adaptive Rate Streaming Beyond the iPhone

Verimatrix, setting the standard in content security technologies that enhance the value of pay-TV networks, and Envivio, Inc. announced a collaborative solution that enables pay-TV operators to use Apple's HTTP adaptive bitrate streaming technology for the iPhone to deliver IPTV and over the top (OTT) content that scales effectively across mobile devices, PCs and other client types. The solution pairs Envivio's 4Caster C4 three screens encoder/transcoder with the Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS) to create a unified headend that delivers protected standard (SD) and high definition (HD) content over unmanaged networks to any Internet-connected consumer playback device.

Introduced as a component of Apple OS 3.0 for the iPhone, adaptive bitrate streaming delivers smooth audio and video streams using Internet-standard HTTP protocols. The technology supports automatic adaptation to available network types and automatically switches to the optimal bitrate for a smooth quality playback experience. Envivio 4Caster C4 enables its deployment by ingesting analog or digital sources and then encoding and encrypting the content for delivery at multiple bitrates to multiple devices. In this solution, the 4Caster C4 is integrated with Verimatrix VCAS, which provides for key management, user authentication and unified right managements. The combination enables pay-TV operators to create unique service offerings for multi-screen delivery. Furthermore, live and video-on-demand (VOD) content can be delivered using the same protocols with easy incorporation of targeted advertising segments.

For the full press release, click here.

Verimatrix Focuses on Revenue Security for Pay-TV Operators

Verimatrix enhances the value and security of pay-TV networks with advanced software-based technologies designed to address the challenges facing the pay-TV industry of today, and anticipate the challenges of tomorrow. The Verimatrix 3-Dimensional Content Security approach provides a framework to enhance operator competitiveness and the consumer experience in the new world of pay-TV.

VCAS 3 -Verimatrix will be unveiling the profile of its next-generation Video Content Authority System (VCAS™ ) platform that broaden the domain of traditional conditional access. The core value proposition for VCAS 3 shifts beyond content protection alone towards the broader perspective of revenue security. The initial release of VCAS 3 supports emerging video delivery formats and new consumption models through a single content authority architecture.

Verimatrix sets the standard for content and revenue security solutions for pay-TV networks, with a global customer base of premier service providers. The Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS™ ) offers a suite of independently audited, next-generation solutions and is consistently ranked as the global leading IPTV content protection solution.

For the full press release, click here.

Verimatrix, Learn More!

Verimatrix is rounding out its suite of content security solutions by addressing the 3 screen paradigm with its latest announcement, VCAS for Mobile TV. VCAS for Mobile TV is the only solution designed to take full advantage of the hybrid nature of commercial mobile video platforms, where a mobile TV broadcast network can be combined with an IP data connection via a mobile data network or local WiFi access.

A hybrid mobile network not only supports cost-effective content security, but also creates a compelling platform for interactivity and video to e-commerce linkage. Content owners and pay-TV operators can how generate further revenue or customer interest. For example, when watching a mobile broadcast a consumer can be directed to a website for further product information, to participate in a contest, or to make a purchase.

What makes this solution really interesting for operators is how it can truly enable new business models, rather than inhibiting them (like we’ve seen in the music industry). The software-based solution allows for transparent rights management across a range of off-the-shelf devices with different native DRM support. For example, a mobile phone with Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) DRM would be authenticated to play specific content by in parallel with VCAS-enabled clients. We are committed to creating transparent multi-screen experience for operators and subscribers.

As a content security provider, our biggest challenge will always be staying one step ahead of the pirates, who are continually developing new ways to steal content.

Verimatrix is leveraging its success in IPTV to penetrate other pay-TV networks. Based on our core VCAS technologies, Verimatrix now offers solutions for IPTV, IPTV Wholesale/Retail, Hybrid, Cable and Mobile. Plus we have solutions that address the set-top, PC, and mobile devices – which include mobile phones, game consoles and other mobile internet devices.

Our long-term, 3-dimensional strategy is based on enabling service providers to deliver competitive services that cross the boundaries of network type and device format, and address the full spectrum of content security threats.

Verimatrix has been independently audited as the global number one leader in IPTV content security four times in a row! (by MRG). VCAS for IPTV is the most widely-deployed content security solution with the highest number of supporting subscribers on a global basis. We now have more than 150 customers in 32 countries, which include numerous tier one telcos. Plus we have won several industry awards including IPTV World Series award, InfoVision Award and China Outstanding IPTV Solution Award.

Verimatrix has been successful by focusing in a few key areas – 1) Continually pushing the innovative standard on how content security can enhance the value of pay-TV networks 2) Developing an unmatched partner ecosystem that provides operators with the widest system choice and interoperability 3) Ensuring successful adoption of our solutions with world-class customer care support.

Neerav Shah, VP, Business Development for Verimatrix will participated on Motorola's Special Session: Media Mobility and Content Protection held on Wednesday, June 25th.