Moving the EPG to the companion device, a natural evolution

One new development that was commonplace at IBC this year is the use of companion devices such as an iPad or smartphone for navigating the EPG. Over the last year there have been lots of demos of these services, but now it’s becoming a commercial reality. ANT Galio Move, the companion device offering from ANT, is available to consumers today under the View21 brand in the UK and recently won an award at the ConnectedWorld.tv awards for its approach to using a second screen.

This isn’t just a “we won an award” blog entry, though.  What I really want to talk about is how this kind of app has changed my use of the EPG.  

Moving the EPG off the main screen on to a second screen does more than just give me a better way of navigating around a grid-based guide. It changes how the guide gets used as a browsing tool and a content discovery mechanism, and affects the whole dynamic of watching TV. Many tablet owners are already used to multi-tasking while watching TV, and having the EPG on a companion device means that browsing the guide simply becomes another part of that multi-tasking.  Most importantly, it means that it’s not interrupting other people’s TV viewing.

Having the guide on a companion device, with its own connection to the Internet and a richer interaction model also opens up new possibilities for what the guide looks like.  Imagine “zooming in” on a programme to find out more about it, as if the detailed information about the programme is just another part of the main guide grid.  Imagine having that tied in to a recommendation engine, or personal recommendations from friends via Twitter that suggest programmes you’d like.  Imagine having it integrated with catch-up TV services, or VoD services, or the iTunes store so that you can buy the movie or TV series to keep.

With the rich metadata that is now available, the combination of advanced TV services and a companion device with an easy-to-use user interface means that are we now in a position to make the best use of that new data to improve our EPG and help us to more easily find what we want to watch.

Integrating catch-up services into the EPG

The recent high-profile launches of YouView and Freesat’s new Freetime service in the UK have shifted focus back on to the role that the EPG plays in finding what to watch. Both platforms feature a “backwards EPG”, where users can scroll “back in time” to find programmes on catch-up services as well as seeing what’s on in the future.

There is much to be praised for this approach: a large part of the population still finds it difficult to use the traditional type of catch-up service, because it’s not how they’re used to choosing what to watch. By integrating catch-up services into the guide, that mental barrier gets reduced and makes catch-up TV part of their normal viewing experience.

However, the question that then starts to emerge is “will the grid-based EPG soon have had its day?”
There’s a lot of inertia behind the use of the grid-based EPG (among users and manufacturers), as the amount of available content increases. But, it’s still not really clear if the traditional EPG is the best way of displaying this much information to the user in a way that’s actually useful to them.  The traditional EPG will still be with us for a long time, because linear TV is also going to be with us for a long time.  However, I doubt that the grid-based EPG will remain the primary means of finding something to watch past the current generation of user interfaces that we’re seeing from companies like Freesat and YouView. 

This brings us full circle back to the integration of catch-up services in to the guide, because familiarity is a powerful tool, but sometimes our current tools just aren’t powerful enough to face the demands of the future.

Smart TVs Help TV Overtake PC For Online Video Viewing

A recent study from the NPD group in the US has revealed that the television has now overtaken the PC as the preferred device for viewing over-the-top (OTT) media. The rapid adoption of smart TVs obviously has a large part to play in this, but we’ve also seen that many smart TVs have ease-of-use problems and so the growth in smart TVs alone may not be enough to account for this trend.

Smart TVs have some obvious benefits over the PC for viewing media content – the large screen and the “lean back” user experience are pretty much essential for watching content that’s longer than a few minutes.  As a regular user of iPlayer, I much prefer to use it on the Wii (for those times when the entire family wants to watch something) or on my iPad (for when I’m the only one who wants to watch something) because they’re more convenient and comfortable to use.  While I could connect my laptop to the TV and use that, the difference in resolutions and the hassle of getting audio set up properly means I simply don’t bother.  I’d rather watch a standard-definition version of the programme easily than deal with the messing around required to watch the HD version on the big screen.

As online media services become more widely deployed through smart TVs and set-top boxes (with both YouView and Freesat doing this in the UK, and various HbbTV-based catch-up TV services available in Germany), viewing OTT content is eventually going to become just another part of the TV experience, in the same way that PVR functionality already is today.

At the same time, there’s still a long way to go – recent figures have revealed that three quarters of YouView boxes sold so far have been used to view on-demand content for more than three minutes per session.  Given that the current purchasers are by definition the early adopters, who are more likely to be familiar with catch-up TV services, this is not a very impressive set of numbers.  Seeing how these numbers grow as YouView and Freesat’s Freetime service become more widely deployed will give a good indication of how this trend will develop in the UK.

BBC scales back Red Button video ahead of connected TV service

The BBC has recently announced that they’re scaling back their use of “red button” video ahead of a wider deployment of their connected TV service.  Given the success of iPlayer, this isn’t entirely surprising.  The use of broadcast services for delivering alternative video streams is both expensive, because you have to pay for the spectrum to broadcast it, and inherently limited because there are only so many alternative streams that you can carry at any time.

The BBC’s excellent coverage of the Olympics showed the value of alternative streams, by allowing everyone to choose which Olympic events they wanted to watch.  While this is feasible as a one-off for high-profile events such as the Olympics (if you’ve got a satellite or cable subscription that can handle all of the extra channels that are needed), it doesn’t work so well in day-to-day situations because of the limited number of streams that you can carry.  Broadcasters end up having to make a choice of what alternative streams to provide - not only to fit them into the available channels, but also to maximise the use of those channels.

The success of catch-up services on smart TVs has shown that customers will accept streamed video, and services such as the “Tagesschau” service in Germany (which provides news on demand) show the advantages of a connected approach, especially as the adoption of connected TVs grows.  The flexibility of connected TV services offer a big advantage over broadcast-based alternative video streams, and over time users will see real benefits from this through the increased availability of alternative content.

Increase in demand for personalised TV services

A recent report, has found that over 70 per cent of UK consumers want to be able to watch what they want, when they want. 39 per cent wish catch-up content was available for longer and 45 per cent would like to be able to watch all the episodes of their favourite shows back to back.

It seems that on demand is in demand, as 74 per cent of viewers claim that they can’t find anything to watch on live TV. Many are feeling overwhelmed by content. The fusion of broadcast and broadband has provided a wealth of new TV services but the result is a content maze that viewers are finding increasingly difficult to navigate.

The survey goes on to say that 39 per cent of those surveyed felt that there were technology and film brands that could do a better job than the existing TV channels. This means that the pressure is on for broadcasters in the coming months, as companies such as Netflix launch in the UK.

As increased connectivity transforms the way we consume and interact with TV, operators and broadcasters need to deliver more choice and a variety of services that enable the viewers to shape how they consume content.

Viewers are ready for the next generation of TV. As we move into 2012 there is a real opportunity here for operators and broadcasters to look ahead and develop personalised services for their viewers so they can get the most out of their TV viewing experience.

Going digital in Paris

Now that Paris has switched off its analogue TV transmitters, many Parisians may be wondering what exactly that should expect, from going wholly digital. In the short term, the answer is probably not much: figures indicate that only a small proportion of homes were relying on analogue transmissions before switch-off, so for many households it will be business as usual. Just like in the UK, viewers may need to re-tune their set-top boxes or TVs, but that’s probably all for now.

Looking forward, though, the analogue switch-off has the potential to drive some real change. Radio spectrum is so valuable that some of it will undoubtedly be sold off for purposes other than television. But more high-definition and interactive services are probably on the cards, as new digital services are able to re-use some of the spectrum currently used for analogue services. Given that French operators have demonstrated HbbTV-based services, there is already some movement in this direction. As France and the UK both move towards support for HTML-based interactive services in their terrestrial TV networks, it’s likely that we will see a range of new content appearing on TVs in the near future.

Based on experiences in Germany and the UK, catch-up TV services will probably be the first to appear. While not necessarily innovative, we have to remember that most people don’t regard interactive services as the “killer app” for their TV – the experience of actually watching TV is still far more important. Services that make it easier for people to do that are likely to be the winners in the short term. The combination of a standard platform and more broadcast bandwidth will help broadcasters deploy a wide range of new services, but service providers will still need to rely on “customer pull” rather than “technology push” to make those services a success.

Digital killed the video star

The Institute of Engineering and Technology announced the results of a new survey today, which indicates that vinyl, film and video tape are in decline, as British households become dedicated to digital.

We don’t think that the death of vinyl, film and video tape is something that should be wept. A new and exciting entertainment era is emerging, with television at the heart. The TV is no longer just a box in the living room that plays out programmes dictated by the broadcaster. Today’s TV experience is an opportunity to interact with an explosion of content created for the digital world. Viewers can shape their own viewing experience – whether through video-on-demand and catch up TV services, red-button features or unseen DVD style extras such as behind the scenes footage.

The traditional passive experience of TV viewing is evolving to an interactive experience, with an increasing number of online applications converging onto our TV sets and the inclusion of services such as the BBC iPlayer and Sky Player. The combination of traditional broadcast viewing mixed with new on-demand web based TV services means the possibilities for consumers are endless. What would you like to see on your TV Set-top box or iDTV?