GigaOM » video-services

Parsing the latest rumor about Apple’s TV plans

Ryan Lawler — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:00:58 +0000

In a story published Thursday, the New York Post has what appears to be new evidence that Apple “plans to launch a streaming TV service by Christmas.” At first glance, it’s a pretty compelling and sensational story… But take a closer look at what the article is actually reporting, and it doesn’t seem like Apple is creating its own bundle of video channels at all.

Here are the pertinent details, as the Post lays them out:

Apple is pitching the idea of offering channels as apps for its devices, including its Apple TV set-top box.
It’s unclear whether it would group the apps together and charge a fee — similar to a cable TV subscription — or offer the channels on an a-la-carte basis.
Apple has tried to get cable operators to work with it to improve the accessibility and look of video services and in the process dump their clunky cable boxes in favor of sleek Apple devices.
Apple hasn’t given up, however, and is said to be pursuing deals with telecom companies such as Verizon and AT&T. It hopes to get traction with a single player in hopes of pulling the rest of them along.

Frankly, I don’t know who the Post‘s sources are, but putting aside the sensationalist lead paragraphs, and based solely on the supporting evidence provided by the story, Apple doesn’t seem to be building out a streaming service. What it sounds like to me is that Apple’s Eddie Cue has been meeting with executives from content owners and distributors — the networks and the cable and IPTV companies — and trying to get them to build apps for the next generation of its Apple TV products.

Even look at some of the supporting quotes from media executives in the New York Post story:

“They want everything for nothing,” said [one] media executive.
“They want to create the interface, and they wanted to work with the cable guys to manage bandwidth across the TV and broadband pipeline,” said [another] source familiar with the talks.

If that’s the case, Apple’s plans for TV services seem to be not all that different from how it has partnered with content owners for the iPad or other mobile devices built on iOS. It wants content providers to create apps for its platform — for free — with it controlling the interface and how users access and navigate the content.

All of this has been reported to different degrees in the past, including stories in Bloomberg and The Globe and Mail in which Apple has been in discussions with operators about partnering to bring their live and on-demand TV services onto its video platform. (I wrote about why Apple would and should partner with carriers in this post.)

The key bit of tension here appears to be that the networks and distributors expect Apple to license their content for a new range of TV devices. They don’t want to build free apps that would just help Apple sell devices without getting paid for them, believing that those apps could potentially cannibalize their broadcast and cable TV audiences. And they’re also probably not very keen on Apple’s “apps as channels” plan, in which they would lose control over how their content is browsed or navigated, and how it would likely be displayed on the TV alongside apps from streaming video services like Netflix.

But all of that is a whole different story from what the Post and others imply when they say Apple is “pushing ahead” with its video ambitions. There’s no real supporting evidence in the article to suggest that Apple is looking to build a bundled streaming service of its own, just that it’s trying to corral content owners and distributors into making their content available as apps for a new group of TV devices.

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Cisco powers video in the cloud with new Videoscape products

Ryan Lawler — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:01:31 +0000

Increasingly, service providers are looking to make video content available across mobile handsets, tablets, connected TVs, gaming consoles and streaming boxes. So Cisco, which provides networking equipment to a large number of network operators, is hoping to provide some of the technology that will help them move beyond just delivering traditional TV offerings and extending their reach with IP video services.

To do so, Cisco first introduced its Videoscape products at last year’s CES. Now the network equipment provider is introducing a series of new products that build on its existing platform. While initial Videoscape products were built to intelligently handle video distribution over the network, the new additions will provide more functionality both for managing assets in the cloud, as well as new client-based technology for a wider range of connected devices.

On the cloud side of things, Cisco is announcing a product called Videoscape Voyager Virtual, which renders a new user interface that can be delivered to legacy set-top boxes. While some operators — most notably Comcast — are producing a massive update to their set-top boxes, there’s still a large installed base of users who won’t get new hardware anytime soon. The Voyager Virtual will let them get more dynamic updates to the programming guide, by delivering that user interface as a channel.

The Cisco Media Processor and Transcode Manager will support delivery to multiple devices with adaptive bit-rate technology automatically. The Cisco Conductor offers up a unified control plane for delivering multiple video services on more devices. And Cisco also provides advanced analytics for both its Content Delivery System customers or for third-party CDNs.

On the client side, Cisco is introducing a new multiscreen gateway that will deliver live, recorded and on-demand video to multiple TV around the home. The gateway has six tuners, meaning it can record up to six video streams all at the same time. Cisco is also introducing a software platform for creating new user interfaces and programming guides. That software stack can also be used to deploy new apps to set-top boxes, including social media applications, streaming video and other features.

This is all really geeky but necessary stuff, and it’s probably attractive for operators to run Cisco software if they’re already Cisco clients as a way to roll out these multiplatform capabilities. In fact, a few already are: Canada’s Rogers Communications, France’s Numéricable and Israel’s YES have all chosen Videoscape components to roll out next-gen video services.

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How Hulu’s ‘Steamboat’ ads recommend new shows to users

Ryan Lawler — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 21:04:22 +0000

Hulu, like all video services, has long been focused on growing its viewership, but also on keeping those viewers watching more and more shows. While it’s mostly been building that audience by featuring popular new programming, it’s also building out a recommendations system to introduce viewers to new content. One way that it’s leveraging those recommendations is with a set of ads specifically aimed at getting users hooked on programs they might not have known about.

Recommendations are one area in which Hulu had lagged other video services — most notably Netflix. While Hulu does have a recommendations section, it’s not front and center like Netflix’s recommendations, which take up the majority of the user’s homepage. Instead, Hulu reserves most of its homepage for most recent episodes, popular clips and featured content. If you scroll down below the fold and have connected your Hulu and Facebook accounts, you can see what your friends have watched. And if you scroll all the way down to the bottom, you’ll be hit with recommended shows — but who goes that far down the page?

But the company recently updated its recommendations system a few weeks ago, and makes recommendations while viewers are watching a TV episode — or actually, once they’re almost finished. At the tail end of some TV episodes, users will be shown a brief video clip of a recommended show, usually with a message that says something like, “Hey [USER], did you know that people who watch [THIS TV SHOW] are five times more likely to watch [THIS OTHER SHOW]?”

Hulu refers to the units internally as Steamboat ads, based on Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie, the first cartoon to feature synchronized sound. The official name for the ads, which it shares with its partners but isn’t quite as sexy, is “Smart TV Promos.”

Hulu’s head of advertising, JP Colaco, told me in a phone interview last week that the Steamboat ads were a big part of the company’s plans for introducing users to new TV shows. “Our DNA comes from Amazon,” Colaco told me, referring to CEO Jason Kilar’s time at the online retailer. As a result, Hulu is following the same type of recommendation model that was so successful at Amazon.

The idea is that if a user likes a certain type of content, he or she will be more inclined to choose another piece of content that a similar group of users would like, and Hulu will hopefully offer up something that they’ll like or can get excited about.

So far, the ads appear to be working — Colaco said Hulu is seeing a massive amount of interaction for the Steamboat ads, with about a 10 percent response rate — or 10x greater than the industry average for online video ads. That’s important, especially as Hulu continues to add more content for viewers to choose from.

With programming from ABC, The CW, Fox, NBC, and Univision, Hulu now has in-season content from five of the top six major broadcasters, with only CBS abstaining. Hulu Plus subscribers have more than 44,760 TV episodes and 2,575 movie titles to choose from, with the free, ad-supported site boasting more than 36,880 TV episodes and 1765 movie titles.

It’s seen both an increase in unique users and video views. Its audience grew to 34.5 million unique viewers in November, according to comScore, which is an increase of 23 percent over the previous year. It’s total views have also grown more than 20 percent, to 2.4 billion video streams in November.

Then again, Hulu’s just getting started with the new recommendations system. And as time goes on, hopefully it will be able to leverage that system to get even more loyal viewers watching even more shows.

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How to win the TV iPad app battle

Ryan Lawler — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:01:12 +0000

The fight for the TV audience is quickly moving online and to a growing number of mobile applications, with Apple’s iPad as the latest battleground. Over the last 18 months, a number of broadcasters and pay-TV operators have launched iPad apps that provide access to streaming video services. Some are live, some are on-demand, but all are being offered to provide additional value to their traditional TV services. What’s the winning combination? Content plus context is key in this battle.

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What’s so bad about being a dumb pipe?

Ryan Lawler — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:01:01 +0000

There’s nothing flashy about broadband services, but that won’t stop many operators from making those services a core focus as time goes on. Due to growing consumer adoption and better profit margins than traditional video services’, high-speed Internet is likely to be the future of the cable industry.

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Who will become the Pandora of online video?

Ryan Lawler — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:01:55 +0000

When it comes to offering recommendations and personalized services to users sifting through mountains of digital content, online video could learn a few lessons from the music world. We’ve yet to see an offering for online movies and TV that mimics, say, Pandora’s highly personalized service. That’s slowly changing, though, and hints of linear personalized videos and recommendations are starting to emerge. Here are a few services leading the way.

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Connected Consumer Q1: The Over-the-Top vs. Pay TV Battle Heats Up

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 07:01:42 +0000

After a year in which over-the-top video services grabbed most of the media’s attention, some of the online video headlines shifted back to traditional pay-TV providers in the first quarter of 2011. Device manufacturers rolled out new offerings, while cable-TV providers moved to expand their in-home footprint beyond the TV itself. But over-the-top continued to encroach, with Roku adding its first linear channels to the Roku store and Netflix acquiring exclusive rights to high-profile original series House of Cards. Finally, traditional web powers like Google, Yahoo and Apple made moves to reassert their presence in the living room after their early stumbles. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Comcast, Cablevision, Viacom and VUDU. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial.

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Strategies for the Future of Digital Content Storage

Scott Smyers — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 22:00:19 +0000

Growth of digital content in homes and businesses continues to grow, fueling a demand for more and more storage. And though inefficiency and usability gaps in this market are showing, so too are the opportunities companies can seize to create convenient, secure and redundant storage infrastructure.

The Future of Pay TV Services

Steve Hawley — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:08:51 +0000

Breakthroughs in digital media technologies have converted media consumers from spectators into participants. This transformation has impacted all aspects of the media value chain, from content creation through delivery to the consumer experience itself. The interactive nature of the broadband Internet has set high consumer expectations for other media outlets, particularly video services, and for all manner of personal communications.

These trends have resulted in significant changes to the pay-TV landscape. Older technologies such as cable TV are facing off against newer entrants such as telcos providing IPTV services, and cable, IPTV and satellite providers are all trying to figure out how to deal with Internet video operators who can go direct to consumer without investing and maintaining their own delivery network. This report examines the impacts of the growth of IPTV on satellite and cable providers, and how all of providers will react to the growing threat (and opportunity) of broadband video.

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