Online Video Conversations: Tom Morgan, Net2TV

At OTTCON 2013, I caught up with television industry veteran Tom Morgan, Founder and CEO of Net2TV, to discuss the evolution of traditional television programming and how it's changed with the rise of broadband Internet television. Net2TV is a free, advertising-supported long-form television programming platform for smart TVs and connected devices. Net2TV was established in May 2012 and launched its Portico TV service in December 2012, which delivers niche content channels in food, tech, news and entertainment and looks and feels like a normal "lean-back" TV viewing experience. Content partners included like Discovery's Revision 3, CBS Interactive's CHOW, Popular Science, CNET and other branded content.



Morgan is passionate about Net2TV because it provides him an opportunity to solve the '500 channels and there's nothing on' problem. It's an opportunity to create great TV based on a great business model for program developers and advertisers. Before founding Net2TV in 2012, Morgan spent the last 30 years in the digital media space on business development, focused on advertising models for DVRs, video on demand (VOD), and broadband TV.

According to Morgan, we're in the third phase in the evolution of television, with the two most important dates preceding on, August 28, 1948 and September 7, 1979. In 1948, CBS President Frank Stanton lured big name entertainers like, Lucille Ball, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Jack Benny and Milton Berle away from NBC radio and signed them to TV, which marked the beginning of a whole new medium of programming with "I Love Lucy" and other new shows defined the golden age of television.

On September 1979, a double header softball game was broadcast live for the first time on a little cable TV start-up called ESPN, and launched the first 24/7 Sports channel which brought niche content including live and recorded telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming. A year later in 1980, CNN would launch as the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage and other special-interest channels and niche content would follow.

"I think where most people talk about this being a new generation of television technology and everything else, what I think is the answer is, these were the emergence of the new networks of television," says Morgan. "So, like you had ESPN and MTV emerge in the 70's and early 80's, you're going to see whole new forms of programming here. Is it radically different? I don't think so. I think people in a television setting, which are sitting on a couch looking at a screen on the wall, regardless of the technology, want to be entertained, they want to be informed, be engrossed and engaged. That's our job in the industry."

Morgan says that we've reached the tipping point for original Internet television programming, with the plethora of original content available from  Netflix, Crackle, Machinima, Revision3, The Makers, Bedrocket, YouTube creators and more and more choices everyday. The greatest opportunity, he says, is that television is being reinvented by this whole new class of programming.

"That's the biggest upside, ever, and that's why I'm in this business. That's the fun part," Morgan acknowledges.

This interview was recorded at OTTCON May 19-20, 2013.

This Day in Online Video History | First Video Uploaded to YouTube on April 23, 2005

It was eight years ago today that YouTube's first video, Me at the Zoo, was uploaded by Jawed Karim on April 23, 2005. Karim had co-founded YouTube with Chad Hurley and Steve Chen just a few months earlier as a way to share videos with friends and family far away. The video is only 20 seconds long and was shot by Yakov Lapitsky at the San Diego Zoo, and little did the video creators know that it marked the dawn of the UGC (User-Generated Content) online video age. YouTube wasn't the first video sharing site, but since Google purchased it in November 2006 for $1.65 billion, it has revolutionized video sharing across the Internet and has become the top online video content property, with more than 1 billion unique users visiting the site each month.

Just last week, YouTube won its second legal battle against Viacom in federal court with the dismissal of Viacom's $1 billion copyright lawsuit. The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton in New York stated that Viacom had never proved that YouTube was aware of copyright infringement by its users, and upheld his original ruling from June 2010 which leaves in place the current understanding of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Stanton also ruled that YouTube didn't act with "willful blindness" and had previously responded to Viacom's requests back in 2007 by removing 100,000 copyrighted videos a day after Viacom notified YouTube of the infringement.

Google Senior Vice President & General Counsel Kent Walker said that the ruling marked an important day for the Internet.

"This is a win not just for YouTube, but for the billions of people worldwide who depend on the web to freely exchange ideas and information."

Read more about the case and the verdict in this article on ReelSEO: Viacom Comes Up Short Against Google/YouTube In Court Once More.

Happy birthday to the first video uploaded to YouTube! While you're not too exciting, you started an online video revolution.

Also to those born on April 23rd, I want to wish a special happy birthday to my daughter Marley Rose, my niece Rebecca and my good friend Steve Dung, owner of Visions Plus video production service in San Francisco!

I'll be back soon with more online video analysis and video conversations.

OTTCONversations: Andrew Kippen, Boxee - Reinventing Broadcast Television

I caught up with Andrew Kippen, VP of Marketing at Boxee, earlier this year at OTTCON 2012 to talk about the future of television and how Boxee is reinventing broadcast TV. In January 2012, Boxee Inc. released Boxee Live TV, a new product that added live TV content from the big networks: NBC, ABC, Fox, CBS to the Boxee experience. According to Kippen, this $50 add-on solution to the Boxee Box combined the best of everything available Over-the-Top and live broadcast TV. However, since my conversation with Kippen, Boxee discontinued the original Boxee Box it released in November 2010, to make way for a new streamlined $99 Boxee TV box, which was met with strong criticism from both Boxee users and technology blogs like Streamingmedia.com and Popular Science.



The new Boxee TV includes an an antenna to pick up live HD channels and added a subscription-based cloud DVR with "no limits" and built-in Internet apps like Netflix, VUDU, YouTube, Vimeo and Pandora. Boxee also struck a deal with Walmart to sell the new Boxee TV device direct to consumers in time for the holidays. Kippen says that Boxee's major consumer markets are the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and is available in 35 countries, giving it a much broader footprint than other companies in the space.

In his recent article, Tim Siglin points out, that two main features of the new Boxee TV aren't even available in all markets.

"For the company to avoid disappointing customers again, it would make sense to have the most important features -- the USP, or unique selling proposition -- ready to go at product launch. Yet, the two primary features still aren't available, almost a month after launch: live television pause and cloud- or network-based DVR (nDVR). Those two features, which the company touts as part and parcel of the "Boxee Rebellion" on its packaging, are not ready for widespread use. In fact, the nDVR functionality that Boxee calls unlimited DVR is only available in beta in eight cities in the United States: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C." 

Siglin added that there's also a mismatch in the Boxee-Walmart retail strategy, because Walmart has a limited presence in many of those urban markets and faces a big hurdle to sell to sell the Boxee TV to its rural markets, where the unlimited DVR service is not yet available.

Although, the Boxee TV blog states that:

"As we begin service in these markets we assume there’s going to a few growing pains so we’re marking the service as BETA, but most users should have full functionality (and it will be FREE during this period)." 

While Boxee continues to innovate its product and strike deals with content providers, many of its early adopters have expressed their frustration at being abandoned. The company started with an agnostic business model and a free software-based OTT social media center and devoted user community, but has phased out the software platform, and locked out popular features and development as the Boxee platform matured over the last few years.

Boxee CEO Avner Ronen wrote on the Boxee blog:

"Our small team has poured our hearts and souls into the Boxee Box and it has been great to meet users from all over the globe. Some loved it, some wanted more features, others complained, but everyone was passionate.  We hope you have enjoyed it and will continue to use it in your living rooms, dens, bedrooms or wherever else you set it up."

Kippen says that Boxee's focus has been to extend the feature set, streamline what they do to make it simpler and easier to use, and bring in as much content as they can. He says that the company has always seen Boxee as an ecosystem play.

"We want to be the experience that you have on your TV, on your mobile device, your tablet," Kippen says. "We could be on a set-top box, Blu-Ray player or game console. We really see Boxee as a great way to access all that content that's coming from the Internet, and now from your antenna or cable system. We do a great job of bringing that all into one place. So I think for us, we would really like to see Boxee in a lot of those different devices, and also powering more innovative experiences between different screens." 

According to Kippen, it all comes back to storytelling, which has grown beyond the traditional linear narrative into a transmedia experience.

"How do we take storytelling to the next level to where it's more than just a TV show, more than just a website or an iPad app," asks Kippen. "How do we create a story arc that goes across all these different platforms?"

Kippen is confident that Boxee can be a great way to experiment and build those experiences out.


About Boxee
Boxee Inc. is helping people fall in love with TV all over again. We believe TV should be personal and delivered on your schedule. That’s why we created the world’s first cloud DVR that allows you to record an unlimited amount of TV programs to the Internet, and then watch on your TV, computer, iPad…pretty much anywhere. Boxee also lets you watch shows from broadcast TV channels and shows & movies from online services like Netflix, VUDU and YouTube. Boxee is made with love in NYC.

OTTCONversations: John Gildred, SyncTV - OTT Video is Replacing Traditional Broadcast TV

Earlier this year at OTTCON 2012, I met up with John Gildred, Founder and CTO of Silicon Valley-based SyncTV, to discuss how OTT video is replacing traditional broadcast TV. According to Gildred, media consumption methods are changing, and mobile devices and OTT video is the main driver behind the shift. OTT is on the path to replace conventional TV, but for now, it's becoming a strong supplement to legacy broadcast platforms. Gildred says, video is such a focal point of what's going on and live television is going to be a big component too. An important theme in 2012 is making Over-the-Top technology be suitable for a full multi-channel live television services, and VOD, network DVR, accessibility on any device with all the things you would normally expect.



Another trend, Gildred says, is that broadcasters and content providers will seek and leverage OTT cloud-based video services.

"They may know they need a CDN, they know they need an app, but they don't necessarily know how to tie the billing in and the customer management, and the entitlement and the DRM, and there's so many other pieces they don't always know they need to have."

Those other pieces include; flexible CMS, VOD and live transcoding, rights management, availability windows, billing, branded apps, analytics and integration.

Gildred wrote, on the the SyncTV blog,

"As more people begin looking for alternatives to bundled cable subscriptions, some networks are exploring ways to retain the attention of a changing viewer base. A few prominent networks have also released apps for connected- device and TV app stores." "New standards, like MPEG DASH, and initiatives allow digital TV – think digital cable – to be shown over the Internet, and on connected devices. The idea is based on the different ways in which viewers receive content into their homes. Some watch digital TV. Others stream content, but often to a computer, or computer or connected device (and the required pile of hardware and cables) hooked up to a TV. Hybrid broadcasting would allow viewers to watch all of their streaming and digital broadcast content through one device."

The SyncTV provides an OTT platform for broadcasters and content providers for pay TV and pay-per-view. Gildred has experience working with companies like NBC Universal; France’s largest broadcaster, M6; AVAIL-TVN; LimeTV. SyncTV is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California with representatives in France, Spain, UK, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and China. Earlier this, SyncTV's parent company Intertrust Technologies Corporation, signed a patent deal with HTC, giving it a 20% stake in SyncTV.


About SyncTV
SyncTV and its content distribution platform offers video content and service providers a turnkey solution for extending their offerings to millions of viewers across the Internet. SyncTV partners with television networks, broadcasters, content distributors, and content producers worldwide to distribute media across all forms of entertainment media including Internet-enabled connected TVs, Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, smartphones, tablets, and more. In addition to Dream Link Entertainment, SyncTV works with many of the world’s top entertainment studios including NBC Universal, Jaroo, Kidlet, Wieder.TV, Aim Flicks, Oasis TV, The Concert Channel and Bollywood Nirvana. Based in Sunnyvale, CA, SyncTV is a subsidiary of Intertrust Technologies Corporation (www.intertrust.com. For more information, visit www.synctv.com or follow @SyncTV on Twitter.

OTTCONversations: Sean Knapp, Ooyala - Developing the Next Generation of Connected Media Experiences

I caught up with Sean Knapp, Co-founder and CTO of Ooyala, earlier this year at OTTCON 2012 to talk about some of the latest trends in multi-screen video delivery, monetization and personalized video experiences. Knapp was there to speak on the executive panel discussion, "Over-the-Top TV 2.0 – Developing the Next Generation of Innovative Connected Media Experiences."

According to Knapp, a lot of questions are being asked as the growth in online video explodes across the web and devices, in particular, how do we make online video more monetizable and more of a revenue stream? How do we solve this problem of the old adage of, analog dollars to digital pennies and now, justifiably digital dimes, and how do we make that digital dollars?

Video has to be more of a personalized experience

Five years ago online video consumption was only 1% of video viewing, and today that's grown to 9%. That brings with it, some very serious implications, as Knapp notes, "We're no longer in an experimental phase, we're in a viable revenue stream phase. But we're also in a potential cannibalization phase."

Knapp says, video has to be more of a personalized experience for each consumer and each piece of content on each device. Whether it's a mobile phone, tablet, set-top box or PC – they all provide an opportunity to engage the consumer in very different ways that ultimately will build a much stronger one-to-one relationship with every consumer.

"This has huge potential for the market, but it does require a shift in mindset from broadcast, which is a one to many – to personalization, which is a one-to-one dialogue with each and every consumer."

Online Video is still only a small percent of the market, but it's growing...

If you go by hours of content consumed, YouTube is 2.7% of all video viewed online based on statistics from earlier in the year. According to comScore's most recent comScore Video Metrix, an all-time high of 188 million U.S. Internet users watched 37.7 billion online content videos in August 2012, while video ad views totaled 9.5 billion. The notable findings showed that 87.3% of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video, and video ads accounted for 20.1% of all videos viewed and 1.4% of all minutes spent viewing video online.

While the growth of online video viewing has seen a hockey stick trajectory over the last few years, Knapp notes that it serves as a really good reminder.

He says, "In the online world, we often times get caught up in this whole notion of revolutionary technologies and revolutionizing industries. We could go check Merriam-Webster, but I'm pretty sure "revolutionary technology" requires more than 2.7% of the market share."

That's not to underscore the impact that YouTube has had for the industry, and he acknowledges that it's been an incredible catalyst for the market and has accelerated huge massive growth and consumer adoption.

"But I think it serves as a very good reminder that we have a very long way to go, and that we're in very early innings. What is happening now in online video is that we're moving away form the early adopters, from the user-generated content and simpler business models, and we're actually taking that large body of content that you and I and every consumer has watched for decades, and we're helping that transition to screens. That's the great opportunity here. It takes a different approach and harder product and technology to build to do it, but that's really the promise of online video."

Also, with the growing adoption of OTT services, like Netflix, which boasts 27 million streaming members in the United States, Canada, Latin America, the United Kingdom and Ireland, it's clear that we're quickly moving into the next generation of connected media experiences.

Will all video be available over IP in the next few years?

During his OTTCON panel discussion, Knapp and his fellow panelist were asked their opinion of Anthony Wood's prediction that in four years time, all video will be available over IP.

Knapp says, "It depends on the definition. WIll all content be available over IP in four years? Yes, I think so. Because in four years I think we'll have solved a large number of these monetization problems. Will all content consumption be over IP? Absolutely not. I think we can expect in the next four years that we'll move from approximately 9% in the U.S. to a little bit internationally, to breaking through the 50% barrier in four years. I think it will be a significant turning point, obviously, but again it's very much dependent on availability of content on devices and the appropriate revenue models for that content."

Knapp believes that it will be a long time before all content consumption shifts to IP. But the primary need today is the availability of content, in new packages or bundles and through different monetization models.

What are Ooyala's customers asking for now and in the future?

Knapp says that along this evolutionary path the needs of the market are evolving as well. Three or four years ago, the needs of the market were largely around content management. Today, the needs have evolved to the second phase, he calls reach. Even though, content publishers can extend their reach across all connected devices, there's still a lot of fragmentation in the "10 foot" experience, and these problems are hard to solve. How do you create an engaging experience for consumers while keeping the performance fast and tightly integrated with your monetization model?

Knapp says that it's all about optimizing the experience for the consumer. Different customers have arrived at this set of needs sooner than others, and ultimately, two years from now all anybody is going to care about is the third phase, which is monetization.

"The reach problems will largely have been solved to some varying success. But the primary focus will be on monetization. How do I ultimately monetize my content better? The trick isn't, how do I show more ads or how do I just increase the CPMs of my current ads? That's absolutely part of the picture, but there's a lot more to it than that."

Knapp says it's more about using your analytics wisely to help you decide, how many ads should I show and where? And for each and every consumer, how do I change that? Some consumers respond differently to pre-rolls than overlays. It all depends on where they're at in their consumption cycle, and what state of mind the consumer is in.

"We're recommending content, and trying different pieces of content, and if we're in this exploratory phase, we should actually monetize less aggressively. Whereas, if we're in the recurring consumption phase, we should actually monetize more aggressively. And this is where the big opportunity is, that a few customers are starting to get to, but we will see this as the dominant need in the next two years."

Knapp says Ooyala designed its platform with studios, media companies and brands in mind, which has helped it attract big customers, including ESPN, Miramax, Bloomberg, Yahoo! Japan, Victoria’s Secret, Telegraph Media Group, The North Face, Rolling Stone, Dell, and many more on a global scale.

Where is Ooyala going and where will it be in four years?

As CTO and President of Technology, Knapp oversees Ooyala's technology and product roadmap. He notes that since its inception, Ooyala's focus has always been on how do they help their customers make more money. Not just in the short term, by showing more ads, but in the long term through better user experiences.

Ooyala is well known in the market for their analytics, their approach to data and monetization, and Knapp notes,

"We will continue to make major investments around monetization. It is the fastest growing and largest component of our R&D expenses. We all see this as a key component, not to just grow Ooyala's business but to growing the overall industry."

Just this past June, Ooyala announced that it had raised $35 million in new capital to drive standardization of its platform for online video streaming, monetization and discovery.

Where is content going and how will it change?

Knapp says that if we look at the introduction of online video, we're largely seeing the consumption of similar forms of content, and now we're simply seeing a transitioning of screens. Content producers are creating new forms of the same content, like the print industry had done when it when digital. We're staring to see major consumer brands like Victoria Secret, Dell and REI advertise through branded entertainment or tightly integrated into long-form content.

"We're seeing budgets shift as a result, while at the same time we're seeing premium content you and I consume everyday simply move to these same distribution channels. So it is the introduction of new content, but largely it's the same form."

The only caveat, he says, is that we're seeing mobile devices more clip based. ESPN as an example is repackaging it's popular television program, Sports Center, as clips and they're monetizing it incredibly well on mobile devices and on the PC.

"Similar types of content," says Knapp, "just different distribution strategies now fit to the devices."

Related

• Ooyala CTO Sean Knapp Discusses TV Tech, Monetization | Sierra Ventures Blog
• Ooyala Goes Over the Top at OTTCON | VideoMind
• Ooyala CTO: An IPO is likely…at some point - FierceOnlineVideo
• Ooyala: The Online Video Startup That Isn’t Out to Destroy Hollywood | Xconomy
• OTTCon - FierceOnlineVideo
• Beet.TV: Ooyala Focused on Global Broadcasters
• How To Build A Successful Company From The Ground Up | TechCrunch
• comScore Releases August 2012 U.S. Online Video Rankings - comScore, Inc

About Sean Knapp
Sean Knapp is a co-founder of Ooyala. As CTO and President of Technology, he oversees all engineering and helps define and execute Ooyala's product strategies. Before founding Ooyala, Sean worked at Google, where he developed and launched iGoogle, the company's popular, customizable home page. He also was a tech lead for Google's legendary Web Search team, helping that team increase Google revenues by $1B. Sean has both B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University. He is a member of Ooyala's board of directors. Follow @seanknapp on Twitter

About Ooyala 
Ooyala delivers personalized video experiences across all screens. It is the leader in online video management, publishing, analytics and monetization. Ooyala’s integrated suite of technologies and services give content owners the power to expand audiences through deep insights that drive increased viewer engagement and revenue from video. Companies using Ooyala technology include ESPN, Pac-12 Enterprises, Miramax, Bloomberg, Victoria’s Secret, Telegraph Media Group, Tennis Australia, The North Face, Rolling Stone, Dell, Sephora and Yahoo! Japan. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Ooyala has offices in Los Angeles, New York City, London, Sydney and Guadalajara, Mexico; and the company works with premier reseller and technology partners throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, Japan and the Asia-Pacific region. Follow @ooyala on Twitter

OTTCONversations: Roku CEO and founder, Anthony Wood

The future of television, as Roku Founder and CEO Anthony Wood sees it, is not as futuristic as you'd think, where we'll be able to watch every movie ever made, in any language, day or night. Wood says the future is getting close. I caught up with Wood earlier this year at the Over-the-Top Conference, OTTCON 2012, where he delivered a keynote, "Future of TV: Why OTT is a Game Changer." Well regarded as a pioneer and innovator in the TV and digital media industry, Wood has had an influential hand in shaping the future of television, as inventor of the digital video recorder (DVR) and the popular Roku streaming player. He discussed the different themes in what's going to happen to OTT over the next few years, and noted the skepticism around the OTT industry when the OTTCON started 3 years ago.



Distribution Models are Changing

Wood says the industry is maturing and distribution models are changing. Once a upon a time there were 3 networks, but OTT has changed all that.

"Over the top is really about distribution. It used to be television was distributed over networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, and then there was cable and VCRs, and satellite, now television is moving to the next phase, which is distribution over the Internet," says Wood. "And it's creating a lot of opportunities and risks for some of the incumbents, and a lot of opportunities to create new brands, like Netflix and Roku."

He uses a 1999 commercial by Qwest Communications, Qwest - Every Movie, to illustrate his point.

Description: "A tired man goes into a cheap motel in the middle of nowhere and asks about amenities. When he asks about entertainment, the girl responds "all rooms have every movie ever made in any language anytime, day or night." This Qwest ad aired in 1999 and 2000 and was before website such as YouTube or cable services such as OnDemand were available. It was shot at Roy's Motel and Cafe, a historic Route 66 landmark in Amboy, California, in 1999."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ9qcp6Lcno

As Content Increases, Usage Grows

Roku has sold more than 3 million boxes to date. Wood says sales of Roku boxes tripled in the last year as the demand for Netflix increased, and as traditional models of distribution like Blockbuster died and quickly faded away. He expects his company to sell 19 million Roku devices over the next 3 to 4 years. Wood also predicted the end of Blu-Ray in 4 years at the recent "TV of Tomorrow Show" in San Francisco last month, as the industry and consumer trend is shifting to streaming devices and smart TVs.

"But like all television, the most important thing is the content, the television show. If there's not a lot of great TV, people won't watch it."

Content is available on Roku through it's channel store. Netflix was the first channel available on Roku, and now the list has grown to over 500 channels with new ones going live every day.

"As we've added more content, the usage on our platform has grown as well. So, what used to be about 6 hours a week on average people used Roku has been growing consistently to 12 hours a week, and that's going to keep growing until we get to 35 hours a week, which is the average amount of TV people watch in the United States."

Wood described the emerging content packages available to consumers through OTT platforms. One category of content, OTT Bundles, are available from new brands like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu, who have taken existing and back cataloged content and bundling it into new low cost packages over the Internet. There also new companies he calls, New Brands, like Glenn Beck TV, YouTube and Revision3, that are creating content just for OTT distribution where they don't have to go through a cable company. (Note: Revision3 was recently acquired by Discovery Communications and may create an even newer category of content bundles across all screens.) 

There's a third group of content that's just starting to come onto devices like Roku, and that's the incumbents like ESPN, Disney and HBO. As an example, the entire HBO catalog is available on Roku through authentication, or through a "TV Everywhere" subscription. Disney has recently signed a 10-year agreement with Comcast to bring ESPN to all it's platforms, but, when can we get ESPN without all the extras for $9.99/month? Wood, says, "Probably, never." Companies will try packages, prices will come down, but, everything is based on bundling, and will not be changing anytime soon.

OTT Platforms are Shifting

So, how are most people getting their OTT content?

Wood says that game consoles and PCs lead in streaming hours and that content owners attempt to be platform-agnostic to reach consumers. That's because there are so may game console out there. But the future trend is that game consoles will decline, and inexpensive Smart TVs and streaming players will be on the rise. As more and more of the general population gets into streaming, they're looking for simpler devices.

Wood notes that we'll continue to see rapid consolidation within the space as it continues to get more complicated to maintain all the R&D that goes into the streaming platform software. Everything under the hood is always in development, and will cause a shake out in the platforms. He predicts that there will be only a handful of players within 3 to 4 years.

Who Will be the First Virtual MSO?

Will it be Xfinity? Verizon FIOS? Direct TV? Intel? Wood says that there is some hesitancy in the industry to be the first, but we'll probably see one emerge later this year.

"I think another big question people have is, when will I be able to get that package of content and not have a subscription to my local cable service? Something the industry calls, Virtual MSO, and that's a good question" says Wood. "No one has said they're launching that kind of service, but  my guess is, I think maybe sometime this year that could happen."

The Virtual MSO (Multiple System Operator) model, or online cable company, and is based on the bundling of TV channels and delivering them to consumer over the Internet without any geographic restrictions that confine traditional cable operators. While there's been some skepticism in the media about the emergence of a Virtual MSO, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen, shared Wood's his prediction that a Virtual MSO shall rise later this year.

The Future of Television is a Squiggly Mess

In the final slide of his keynote presentation, Wood uses a simple graphic to describe the present, future and end state of television, which he defines the current state as a squiggled mess. He says the future of television is coming faster than you think.






Wood pointed out that a lot of industries have been revolutionized by the Internet, for example, music, books and e-Commerce. But video took a little bit longer because bandwidth requirements are higher.

"But now we're at that point where video distribution over the Internet is a real possibility, and it's happening mainstream," says Wood. "So, now we're in this squiggly mess part where there's a lot of stuff happening, a lot of different things being tested, but over the next 4 years there's going to be some big milestones. I think Netflix will pass 50 million customers. We'll see fairly soon, the launch of the first virtual MSO, over-the-top cable package. Most TVs will start getting their content delivered over streaming over the Internet instead of a cable or satellite box. All these things are going to happen over the next 4 years and what comes out of this is the new world, where all TV is delivered over the Internet and every TV show ever made is available on demand, and customers have an incredible amount of choice and options with their TV viewing."

Why OTT is a Game Changer

Wood says that most of the industry incumbents are embracing the change and seeing more value in getting their content on more devices and more places inside and outside the home. They've seen what's happened in other industries and they don't that to happen to them.

"The industry as a whole is very engaged and I really don't see any major obstacles. I think this is happening now."

Wood says, “Roku is about being an open platform," and that future development of will be focused on further enhancing the user interface and creating upgradable devices like the new Roku streaming stick unveiled earlier year, which is a small USB flash drive-sized Roku streaming player that simply plugs into a TV equipped with a Mobile High-Definition Link-enabled HDMI port to transform it into a Smart TV. The company has not been caught in the latest Internet IPO craze and continues to expand into new markets, launching earlier this year in the U.K. and Ireland and in Canada and signing a deal with DISH Network to bring more than 50 international programming channels to the platform. The 150-employee company did about $100 million in sales last year, up from $46 million in 2011. But it has yet to turn a profit, due to huge investments in product development and marketing. But Wood says the company will probably be profitable in 2013.

About Anthony Wood

A pioneer and innovator in TV and digital media, Anthony Wood is the Founder and CEO of Roku, a name that means “six” in Japanese to represent his sixth company. In the early days of Roku, Anthony also served as the vice president of Internet TV at Netflix, where he developed what is known today as the Roku streaming player, originally designed as the original video player for Netflix.  Prior to Roku, Anthony invented the digital video recorder (DVR) and founded ReplayTV, where he served as President and CEO before the company's acquisition and subsequent sale to DirecTV. Before ReplayTV, Anthony was Founder and CEO of iband, Inc., an Internet software company sold to Macromedia in 1996. The code base developed by Anthony at iBand became a central part of the original core code of Macromedia now known as Adobe Dreamweaver. After selling iBand, Anthony became the vice president of Internet Authoring at Macromedia. Earlier in his career, Anthony was Founder and CEO of SunRize Industries, a supplier of hardware and software tools for non-linear audio recording and editing. Anthony holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University.

About  Roku  Inc.  

Roku is a leading streaming  platform. Delivering entertainment to millions of customers in the U.S. and in a growing number of countries around the world, Roku streaming players are affordable, are  easy to use, and feature  the  best selection of streaming entertainment. Channels on Roku vary by region and include Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Crackle,  Hulu  Plus,  HBO  GO,  MLB.TV, Pandora,  Facebook, Disney, Angry Birds and many more. Based in Saratoga, Calif., Roku was  founded by Anthony  Wood,  inventor of  the DVR. For more information, visit www.roku.com and follow Roku Player on Twitter and Facebook

Related:

• Anthony Wood: How Roku Prospers In An Apple-Google TV Invasion - Forbes
• How Roku is kicking the cable industry’s butt & where it’s going next [exclusive] | VentureBeat
• Roku is in a sweet spot in shifting TV land - Therese Poletti's Tech Tales - MarketWatch
• Roku pins TV's future on Internet streaming - SFGate
• Roku CEO: Blu-ray will be finished in 4 years — Online Video News
• Six Questions: Roku Founder/CEO Anthony Wood | Home Media Magazine
• How Roku Wants To Beat Apple By Treating Your TV Like A Smartphone - Business Insider
• Roku Explains the Growing Threat to Cable and Satellite - Streaming Media Magazine
• Light Reading Cable - IP & Convergence - A Virtual MSO Shall Rise, Boxee CEO Says - Telecom News Analysis

Stay Tuned... For More Online Video Conversations

Who hasn't noticed how fast the year has gone by so far? The first quarter of 2012 came an went before you could blink an eye, click on a link or even write a new blog post. I won't bore you all with the usual banter about why I haven't been updating things here on Klessblog. I did though want to provide a quick update to let you all know what's coming up on this blog. There have been a number of interesting developments within the online video space over the last few months, and I've been able to catch up with a number of industry executives to hear about how their companies are innovating in the ever-changing online video and mobile space.

Just last month, I attended the 3rd annual Over-the-Top TV Conference, at it's new venue in the Santa Clara convention center in Silicon Valley, and the interest in that event was indicative of the growing innovation within the the OTT space. The conversations at the conference were not just about set top boxes and the last mile of the network that leads to the living room, but discussions have shifted to how companies can adapt to new business models within the multi-screen environment. Everyone I spoke with agreed that while online video has reached a mature state for delivery over the web and mobile devices. But still, the overall industry of content delivery to any device, anywhere, anytime is still in it's infancy and there's a lot of debate as to how long this initial cycle of growth of growth will take.

I interviewed a number of speakers and exhibitors at OTT Con 2012 to get their insight on some of the issues within the OTT space, which I'll be posting here on the blog in the coming weeks. Here's a quick snapshot of some those upcoming online video conversations.

• Anthony Wood, Founder and CEO, Roku
• Sam Blackman, CEO and co-founder, Elemental Technologies
• Sean Knapp, CTO and co-founder, Ooyala
• John Gildred, CTO, SyncTV
• Andrew Kippen, Vice President of Marketing, Boxee
• David Dembitz, CEO Vidillion, Inc.

I also recently met with Stephane Roulland, CEO of DaCast, again at his San Francisco offices to get an update on his self-service, live streaming platform. I first met with Roulland a year ago when his company first launched its "Pay-in-Play" pay-per-view enabled player and live streaming on Facebook.

Look for these interviews along with several others I've previously mentioned coming soon.

As always, I want to thank you all for supporting me here on this blog. Stay tuned for more upcoming Klessblog content and more online video news and information.

Online Video in 2011: A Look Back - Part 4 (Conclusion)

I didn't plan to make this a four part series, but I guess 2011 was just one of those years that needed a little more attention. I think we would agree that it was an amazing year of progress, innovation along with many triumphs and failures. Either way you look at it, everything we did throughout the year moved us further along into the new year, and that brings about the new cycle, and the energy to put out new products, services and business models. When looking back on the 2011, what did we learn? What were the big stories and trends that caught on? It's pretty obvious that online video, mobile video, tablets, connected and smart devices, social media apps, video advertising and marketing were big, and of course, YouTube's domination of the online video market, will be even bigger in 2012.

And what will be the footnotes to remember online video in 2011?
Probably the biggest news of the year was the sad and untimely death of Steve Jobs. In an article on ReelSEO, I noted that Steve Jobs was a pioneer in bringing digital media to the masses with the launch of the Macintosh, which focused on making it easier to do create, curate and distribute our content. He helped grow video on the desktop from a postage stamp size video to a full HD video that can be produced entirely on a mobile device. Apple revolutionized the professional video editing industry and proved that thinking differently about how the computer could be designed – from the aesthetic design of the hardware and user interface, to the easy to use software tools – helped spawn a new generation of independent video producers that could compete with the Hollywood studios and big publishers.

Other notable news in 2011 focused on; more cord cutting, cloud computing, mobile video, numerous funding announcements, mergers and acquisitions and global online video spend was said to hit $3.5B in 2011. Ustream raised another $6M, Roku raised another $8M, Jivox raised $8.5M, Taboola raised $9M, Innovid raised $9.5M, YuMe raised $12M from Samsung, Thought Equity raised $25M, Qwilt raised $25M, Brightroll raised $30M, Tremor Video raised $37M, CNN bought Zite for approx $20M, 24/7 Real Media acquired Panache for undisclosed sum, Microsoft bought VideoSurf for $70M, Cisco bought BNI Video for $99M, Adobe bought Auditude for over $100M, Akamai bought Contenda for $268M, Google bought Admeld $400M and Motorola for $12.5B, Time Warner bought cable operator Insight for $3B and AT&T failed in its bid to acquire T-Mobile, Vudu came to the iPad, Hulu expanded to Japan and Netflix expanded into Latin America, Amazon experienced major network outages, AOL restructured again, Zediva shut down it's DVD streaming business, Adap.tv relaunched its buy-side service, Fox pulled its shows from the web, Ooyala won ESPN as a customer; got social with Facebook integration and raised an undisclosed funding round from Motorola Mobility, Vimeo got into the OVP business with Vimeo Pro, Brightcove filed for a $50 million IPO, MobiTV and Synacor each filed for a $75M IPO, KIT digital released its new social TV platform, Google+ Hangouts arrived in YouTube.

ReelSEO launched its weekly online video series The Reel Web, Justin.tv spun off Socialcam to simplify mobile video sharing, Apple pulled Final Cut Pro Studio out of the dead pool in response to Final Cut X's poor reception, Netflix and Starz went their separate ways, social TV and multi-screen experiences started to emerge, Hulu, Netflix and Yahoo! all got into the original web content business, foul-mouthed CEO Carol Bartz was ousted from Yahoo!, Zixi announced its cloud-based streaming service, Netflix's tried to break off its DVD business as Qwikster but backtracked after serious market uproar, WeVideo introduced its cloud-based video editing platform, SpotXchange announced full real-time bidding capability, Apple released the iPhone 4S, Verizon and Microsoft inked a deal to bring OTT content to the Xbox, Rimage acquired Qumu, Microsoft completed its $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype, Sesame Street's YouTube channel got hacked to show porn,  online video ads reached 50% of the U.S. population, Netflix's stock dropped 40% in one day after losing 800,000 subscribers and was downgraded by S&P.

Skytide introduced analytics for Federated CDNs, Amazon Kindle debuted to rave reviews, Livestream upgraded its platform to live events platform, YouTube took a swipe at cable by launching over 100 channels with celebrity partners, SeeSaw shut down, LG ad YuMe partnered on connected TV ad platform, Encoding.com teamed up with Roku on channel creation, Zencoder and Highwinds partnered on HTTP video streaming, Kaltura partnered with Gogo for online video in flight, Mixpo introduced Frameworks for interactive online video ads, Zediva was forced to shut down its DVD streaming service, the Boxee box got a live TV tuner, Adobe abandoned Flash on mobile and TV (see below), CDN pricing dropped 20%, tablets rose above desktops for 30% longer online video viewing, Netflix made up for past mistakes by resurrecting Arrested Development, MPEG DASH emerged as a possible online video standard, YouTube did major channel-centric redesign of the site, Dailymotion expanded its cloud video delivery service, Twitvid launched its new social video network, and finally for the first time the Super Bowl would be streamed live over the Internet.

While that wasn't all the big news of 2011, it's what caught my my attention and set the stage for 2012. So now, let's get back to what happened here at Klessblog...

In August, where I attended the 2011 Liveclicker Video Commerce Summit in San Francisco. I recorded a number of interviews with speakers at the two-day event for Liveclicker's VideoRetailer.org blog. Andy Stack, YouTube Product Manager, outlined the 5 things he has learned about successful online video campaigns in his experience at YouTube. Kenna Hurd, Video Content & Product Manager of PETCO, talked about the top initiatives of PETCO’s video strategy, specific examples of where the company is seeing success with video. Melissa Salas, Marketing Director of Buy.com and Co-host of BuyTV, shared some of the lessons she has learned about video commerce since she started hosting BuyTV in 2006. My good friend Mark Robertson, Founder and CEO of ReelSEO.com, gave his take on why retailers should explore beyond the product video. Justin Foster, Co-founder and VP of Market Development at Liveclicker, shared his thoughts on the emerging video commerce trends and predictions.

After that event, I followed up with a few posts of my own on this blog and on ReelSEO.com expanding on what Jen Fahey wrote on VideoRetailer.org.

Mark Robertson says online video is the swiss army knife of online marketing,  and social video can help eCommerce retailers move from conversions to conversations with their customers. In his keynote at the Video Commerce Summit Mark provided a high level overview of how social media has changed search, the state of V-Commerce and what tactics and tools eCommerce marketers can harness to move beyond product videos. Mark says that SEO has evolved over the last 10 years, and now social media engagement enhances SEO rankings, a lot. Universal video search is becoming less effective for e-commerce transactional queries, and that marketers’ must embrace social video throughout the customer life cycle and produce video that lends itself to social.

Online video is massive in its reach and scale with 6.9 billion videos watched in the U.S. in July and August of 2011, and has quickly grown into a major component of what people do online or how they consume information and entertainment. Andy Stack, Product Manager at YouTube says, online video is a valuable tool to drive brands, and is transforming the way consumers engage and conduct commerce. The use of online video in e-commerce is an opportunity you can’t afford to miss or not fully understand. His main message to the brands and retailers at the Liveclicker Video Summit, is to create content, not commercials. Stack says that it's important for retailers to develop a content strategy and not necessarily an advertising strategy, and sponsor content that matters to your community and spend money to promote content that's tested and works. As the world’s largest focus group, online video lets you know if the creative or videos that you are running on TV and elsewhere are making an impact when people choose to consume your brand and spread the word. Retailers can use video like a sand box to experiment and use the variety of tools available from YouTube to find the right mix, then rinse and repeat.

In October, I caught up with Marc Scarpa, veteran director and executive producer of live interactive media events, who had just launched the first of it's kind social TV network with Comcast Xfinity On Demand, called VidBlogger Nation, that brings popular local YouTube talent into the living room of millions. VidBlogger Nation is shot on location by local video bloggers in 10 key markets in the U.S. The episodes are short 3-5 minute narrative shorts by unique voices from across the country who share colorful stories of people, places and things in their city from a first-person perspective. Scarpa was in San Francisco where he met with several of his local VidBloggers, including Zennie Abraham (Zennie62), who joined Scarpa in the interview. See Zennie's article here: Comcast VidBlogger Nation New Video TV Network | City Brights: Zennie Abraham | an SFGate.com blog. Scarpa says that the overall goal of VidBlogger Nation is to have a new forum for very talented people, like Zennie and his fellow VidBloggers, who have a voice and help them extend beyond the web into a new market, and a traditional broadcast environment like Comcast provides access to 60 million homes.

That same week, I attended the TVNext Con 2011 conference in San Jose that brought together hundreds of media, technology and entertainment companies to explore the future of TV, video and multi-platform entertainment services and platforms. Experts agree that nearly every facet of the TV experience and TV business models will be impacted over the next 5 years. One of the main drivers is that more consumers are using IP devices to supplement linear TV viewing, and that by 2015 the average U.S. resident will have 7 connected devices. We're starting to see the decline of the stand-alone set top box with the rise of game consoles as the number one hub for digital entertainment and OTT content, and connected TVs and innovations just announced last week at CES like the Roku Streaming stick that makes a regular TV a smart TV. And don't forget Apple's highly anticipated iTV that is predicted to be the big game changer, due out later this year. We'll also continue to see big deals in the content industry as studios and networks create sustainable business models that don't cannibalize their existing services. I interviewed a handful of people at that event as well, including Joan FitzGerald, VP at comScore, Inc and Tim Street, VP of Mobile Video at mDialog, (to be featured soon on this blog), and Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision3 and Matt Smith, VP of Internet Television at Envivio, (see below).

I followed up with an interview with Suranga Chandratillake, CEO and Founder of blinkx, who I met earlier in the at OTTcon. Chandratillake founded blinkx in 2004 and has helped pioneer video search on the Internet. He describes blinkx as "the world's largest and most advanced video search engine" and unlike other search engines that focus on text web, titles and metadata, blinkx uses a unique combination of patented conceptual search, speech recognition and visual analysis to find and qualify online video. Chandratillake noted that the the online video and OTT space has come of age after so many years of video on the Internet. What's different, he says, is the momentum at which the idea is gaining. More and more of us are watching Internet video on our television sets or contemplating the purchase of a connected device to watch OTT video.


In November, I went to Streaming Media West in November to discuss Webcasting Tips and Tricks From the Enterprise, wearing my day job hat as a webcast producer for Kaiser Permanente, as I did years earlier when I first spoke at Streaming Media West. I shared some of the best practices that I had previously blogged about here, that address the technical and logistical challenges for webcasting, and how to put the right team and the right technology in place for a successful virtual event. The panel focused on best practices from enterprise corporations have adopted and implemented for live video across their organization.


With all the growth, it's also been stagnant, in regards to the ongoing video format wars, spurred on by Apple's exclusion of Flash on its popular iDevices and negative press it received from Steve Jobs' Thoughts on Flash. While HTML5 and H.264 encoded video have been gaining momentum as an emerging standard for online and mobile video, publishers have had to deal with the lack of a standardization, which has caused a great deal complexity and fragmentation. So we were all surprised with Adobe's  announcement that it would abandon future development of Flash Player for mobile devices following the next release 11.1, and will be more aggressively contribute to HTML5 innovation with key players, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM. Adobe will continue to support its current Flash development. Adobe had developed Flash Player to run on Google's Android and other non-Apple mobile platforms, but its official statement from its blog post said,"HTML5 is the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms."

The news broke during Streaming Media West, and while Adobe was at the conference in full force, it was tight lipped about why it decided to withdraw Flash from the mobile market. I caught up with Jan Ozer, Video Producer, Writer, Publisher of StreamingLearningCenter.com and author of Video Compression for Flash, Apple Devices and HTML5, to get his perspective on the implications of the announcement for the online video industry, mobile developers and consumers.

Ozer told me Adobe made this move for several reasons. 1) They were fighting against the current, at least with Apple, and then with Microsoft's recent announcement about their tablet oriented operating system, and couldn't fight this. 2) Adobe wasn't getting then support it needed from Google and other vendors to make Flash work effectively on mobile platforms. 3)  As computers get more powerful people are building applications that require more power and faster CPUs to run smoothly, and Flash-enabled tablets and phones simply don't have the power to run smoothly and deliver a quality experience. Ozer says, this doesn't mean that Flash on the desktop is going away anytime soon, and that it will actually create a tale of two websites, with a web version that is completely immersive Flash experience, and the other more simple and targeted for mobile devices.

It was more than a year ago when I met Merton, the Piano Chat Improv Guy and I finally published his interview in December. The improvisational piano player, became an Internet sensation when he first appeared on Chatroulette playing piano and serenading the strangers he'd meet on the video chat website. His videos have attracted over 25,000,000 views on YouTube and he has performed in London, Montréal. I caught up with him at NewTeeVee Live where he spoke about his experience as a web celebrity and how he planned to further develop and evolve his improvisational social and musical style. Merton says that he's played piano and done improvisational music for a long time, but Chatroulette gave him the mass exposure to freestyle in real-time with random strangers and become a viral video phenomenon. He now has a live, interactive, webcam show that airs weekly on Wednesdays at 10:00 PM ET called The Merton Show.


I caught up with Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision3, at the TV Next Con 2011 where he talked about the changing video landscape and the great unbundling of services. Louderback says that we're in the end game of the of the great unbundling of video services, as next generation television channels shift from traditional models to IPTV video networks. Louderback says that within the next few years most of the video we consume will be delivered over an open IP network, ending the long monopoly of proprietary services delivered through cable, satellite and broadcast streams. But even though our favorite shows will be delivered mostly on-demand, we'll still have bundles of services - but it will just be offered in new ways.

One of the biggest stories of 2011 is, what will the future of television look like as service providers, consumer electronics manufacturers and content aggregators all jockey for the prime position in your living room. According to Todd Weaver, CEO of ivi, OTT has been an emerging market for some time and that market has been stifled by a number of issues, and today, those issues primarily relate to content. I caught up Weaver earlier this year at OTT Con in San Jose to get his perspective on what the PayTV operator and online video experience will look like in the OTT era. Weaver says, one fear that content owners are grappling with is the "cannibalization" of their existing cable TV subscriptions with their Internet subscriptions. As more content moves online, Weaver says, content owners will to figure out the pricing models and OTT providers are going to have to either educate or cooperate with content owners to set and adjust prices to help settle out the disturbance in that area. Weaver's company, ivi, has been embroiled in a lawsuit with broadcasters seeking to stop it from rebroadcasting their content online. Earlier this year in February, a New York federal judge ruled that ivi was infringing on broadcasters copyrights by not paying retransmission fees and ordered ivi to shut down.

To round out my online video conversations for 2011, I caught up with veteran webcasting executive Nick Balletta, CEO of Talkpoint to talk about the latest enterprise video trends. He shared the latest real world data his company had collected over the last two years, that showed a significant growth in both the adoption and expansion of video within enterprise communications. A year earlier, I had spoke with Balletta at Streaming Media East, where he told me that webcasting for enterprise communications may finally be reaching a tipping point. Talkpoint supports some 15,000 annual webcasts and it's data shows that the number viewers is growing along with the number of individual webcasts. So, what's driving the growth? Balletta says, media players are now built into operating systems, broadband is pervasive, computers are faster and people are comfortable watching video on their computers, and overall, watching video online has gotten much easier to do than in the early days. A few anecdotes Balletta shared were, self-service video webcasting is on the rise, Flash viewership is on the rise, and the battle for video standards creates opportunity. Balletta also says that social media and enterprise webcasting don't mix. He says right now all the agencies are making money helping corporations with social media, but in a couple of years it's going be the lawyers cleaning up on the mess created by social media.

In my final online video conversation, I got an education in Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) streaming 101 from Matt Smith, VP of Internet Television Strategy & Solutions at Envivio. As the demand to deliver content to consumers on multiple screens continues to grow at a rapid pace, companies adapt their methods and means to meet the demand consumers want for any content on any device, anytime and anywhere. This is both exciting and worrisome for service providers and content owners – but new trends and tactics like adaptive bit rate (ABR) streaming is changing it all and making it easier to deliver content. ABR streaming is a new and dynamic approach. Smith says that with ABR, you're essentially creating similar number of streams, but in a different part of the network. You get significant scale gains and you should plan to deliver to every possible screen. The workflow not for every organization and where channel count is low, "old" models work, but ABR is emerging as a new standard for content delivery.

This concludes my look back into online video in 2011. With 2012 now in full swing and a lot of news already in the making, I have no doubt that it will be another amazing year for the online video industry. I want to thank you all for your continued support, and my best to everyone in the new year!

Editor's note: This concludes Online Video in 2011: A Look Back. Stay tuned for more Online Video conversations in 2012.

Related:

• Online video's 2011 story a bestseller in the making - FierceOnlineVideo

• MediaPost Publications Biggest Trend Of 2011 In Online Video 12/20/2011
• Online Video Trends in 2011: From YouTube Mobile to Major Redesign - Search Engine Watch
• A Look Back at 2011: Begun the Online Video Turf War Has

• A look back at 2011 - Google Mobile Ads Blog

• YouTube Blog: What were we watching this year? Let’s rewind 2011.

• Top 20 Online Video Ads Of 2011 According To Shares
• Relive 2011 With Amazing Google Video: Zeitgeist 2011 Year In Review
• Highlights Of 2011: The Year In Paid Content, By The Numbers | paidContent
• The 10 stories that defined tech in 2011 — Tech News and Analysis
• Three New Media Lessons Learned In 2011
• 2011 Year in Review | Home Media Magazine
• Google and Facebook are Nielsen's top online US destinations of 2011 | The Verge

Adaptive Bitrate Technology: Meeting the Multi-Screen Challenge Head On – Matt Smith, Envivio

As the demand to deliver content to consumers on multiple screens continues to grow at a rapid pace, companies adapt their methods and means to meet the challenge. It's no longer a notion or idea on the horizon – but a mandate for many product and services in a multi-platform world, where consumers want any content on any device, anytime and anywhere. This is both exciting and worrisome for service providers and content owners – but new trends and tactics like adaptive bit rate (ABR) streaming is changing it all and making it easier to deliver content, says Matt Smith, VP of Internet Television Strategy & Solutions at Envivio.

Smith attributes the accelerated change of multi-screen delivery to the "hockey stick effect" of mobile video viewing trends. He cites Cisco's Visual Networking Index: Forecast that says, "By 2014, all forms of video will constitute 91% of global consumer Internet traffic." (from Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2010–2015  [Visual Networking Index] - Cisco Systems)

Adapting to ABR 

"Adaptive bit rate encoding has been around for a few years," says Smith, "but we're really starting to see some increased uptake as broadcasters and content providers fully embrace the TV Everywhere experience. We're seeing true convergence happening."

ABR streaming was first developed by Move Networks and is now offered in several different flavors by Adobe Systems (HTTP Dynamic streaming), Apple (HTTP Live Streaming) and Microsoft (Smooth Streaming). It works by taking a single source video and encoding it at multiple bit rates. When the video is requested over the network, the content adapts to the network not the network adapting to the content. A user's bandwidth and CPU capacity is detected in real time and the quality of a video stream adjusts according to the changing conditions. 

Each bit rate version is sliced up into tiny fragments and the video player pulls fragments from the different encoded versions and inserts them into the stream as bandwidth dictates. The result is faster video start times with little or no buffering which translates to better viewing experiences. (From Skytide Insight for CDNs - Adaptive Bitrate Streaming)


According to Smith:

"Adaptive bit rate gives some commonality amongst these formats, (from Adobe, Apple and Microsoft), [and] all have common codec payloads in AVC and AAC. So what we're able to do is create a common encoding experience so instead of creating every stream rendition on the encoder, we're creating resolution renditions and delivering those to the network where we catch it (if you will) in what's called a network media processor (NMP)."

Envivio's Halo product is a NMP that can take in 50 different channel renditions and output thousands of streams. A NMP is very beneficial for CDNs and has other functions like DRM, content encryption, ad detection and insertion, television ratings to closed captions. Smith says the NMP stage is the next evolution of ABR and network functionality where the customer/operator is given a lot of scale. Smith added that traditional method of streaming, in which encoder creates multiple renditions, is still very valid for operators with only a few channels. But for those operating multiple channels, this is a new and dynamic approach that they'd want to consider.

Smith advises that for content owners, all screens are a MUST HAVE, and says:

"If your media strategy excludes screens, revisit your strategy. There is no one platform or group of users you should exclude. Channel growth will exacerbate the problem – number of screens will increase."

Smith shared the following points in Adapting to ABR:

• Enables experiences/resolutions -­ mobile to HD
  – Better QoE for viewers/users
  – Adds complexity: additional renditions/screens
• Chunked formatting/delivery
  – Boundaries  and chunk lengths vary by format
• Video & audio payload similar between formats
  – AVC/H.264 -­‐ Video
  – AAC -­‐ Audio

‘Hey Matt - is there one universal codec?'

That was a real question an unnamed Yahoo! Engineer asked Smith in 2003, and almost 10 years later it still brings a smile to his face. Smith has been involved in every aspect of digital video systems design, compression, workflows and delivery for 15+ years, having worked with industry leaders like NBC, Yahoo!, Inlet Technologies and Cisco. He recounts how in the past, different workflows were created for the different streaming environments. There was one for web, one for mobile, one for television and for a variety of reasons there were multiple streaming formats. Hence the best question of career which he says has gotten a lot of laughs over the years. 

Smith says, laugh if you will but where we are today with ABR and the common payload of AVC/H.264 video and AAC audio, it has enabled these chunked ABR type experiences creating the option to do common encoding within a M2TS wrapper to generate multiple renditions on one small platform, and enable a lot of scale. 

Key Takeaways…

Smith says that with ABR, you're essentially creating similar number of streams, but in a different part of the network. You get significant scale gains and you should plan to deliver to every possible screen. The workflow not for every organization and where channel count is low, "old" models work. 

It's about moving from live to live: file to live, live to file. ABR allows for real time packaging (think about… request for right device at the right time) and request based delivery, runtime encoding and delivery. The benefits of a NMP as origin server provides value beyond is packaging and assists with cache.  Smith sees ABR and NMP solutions as key technologies to help service providers and content owners meet the multi-screen challenge on head on and win.

About Envivio
Envivio is a leader in solutions for multi-screen video-over-IP delivery. We design our solutions to remove the boundaries of traditional television and make the world’s video content universally enjoyable by all viewers, on any device, across any network, at any time. Now in its second decade of developing market-leading video convergence solutions, Envivio has amassed dozens of patents, pioneered video-over-IP methods, and led in the deployment of emerging standards and new technologies.  Envivio’s customers include global tier-1 service providers, including eight of the top 10 mobile operators, seven of the top 10 broadband providers and three of the top four cable operators.  Envivio is headquartered in South San Francisco, California and has offices worldwide including France, England, China, Singapore and Japan.