European standardises on connected TVs

Internet-connected televisions are set to become a standard feature of European living rooms according to German trade association BITKOM.

More than 10 million television sets with integrated internet connection will be sold in the European Union in 2011, rising to 13 million sets in 2012.

Sales in France, Germany and the UK are roughly doubling year-on-year according to a report in Telecom Paper.

You don’t need to look very hard to see where the growth is coming from; each week brings a fresh announcement from a regional teleco operator signing up new customers or building out in its network to support IPTV services.

Dutch telco KPN announced this week that it signed up 56,000 connected TV subscribers in the last three months to reach a total of 416,000 subscribers.

In Ireland Eircom has announced that it will spend €100m on the first phase of a roll-out of fibre technology to 100,000 homes and businesses before rolling out IPTV by mid-2012.

IPTV – ready for take-off?

As a company with its roots in IPTV, we’ve seen a lot of predictions in the past about how IPTV will grow rapidly in the future – and it’s often been “in the next couple of years”. However, Digital TV Research’s recent prediction that homes paying for IPTV will more than quadruple to 155 million by the end of 2016 is rather more likely to come true due to to changes in the market and in the growth of IP connectivity.

As expected, it’s the Asia-Pacific region, home of ubiquitous high-bandwidth Internet, that’s likely to drive this growth. But Asia-Pacific is no longer alone in deploying this kind of bandwidth; more and more operators are deploying gigabit networks to the home, with a large amount of this reserved for media services. This trend plays a large part in the growth of pay services, as the viewing experience improves to the point where more people will pay for it.

While we here in Europe are seeing over-the-top content as the most popular driver for connected TVs, in the USA pay-TV services dominate. A recent report by Sandvine indicated that, at its peak, Netflix accounted for almost 30% of internet traffic in the USA, with real-time entertainment as a whole making up almost 50% of the Internet traffic. Not all of this is paid for, of course, but as more and more companies offer their content online there will be more attempts to monetize this. We’re already seeing Apple offering streaming TV shows to Apple TV devices, and Google offering movie rental services to Android devices.

This isn’t “traditional” IPTV, but that’s not a bad thing. The growth in Connected TVs, broadcast digital TV services, and independent media services such as Netflix has meant a move away from the subscription-based IPTV service offered by telcos. IPTV is now less of a substitute for broadcast TV and more of an additional service alongside traditional TV services, pay-TV or otherwise. A recent DisplaySearch forecast indicated that half a billion connected TV sets would be shipped by 2015, indicating that this trend will only continue. People are having ever more choice in the content they consume, and where they get it from. We may finally have found a business model that enables IPTV to reach its true potential.

Connected TVs set to disrupt ad market

In the discussion about the future of connected TVs it’s the revenue opportunity that most broadcasters and CE device vendors have in their sights. But to date it has been too early to take bets on the size of the market opportunity.

Until last week that is when GigaOm published an upbeat article about the future of the TV ad market. It claimed that connected TVs are set to disrupt the $160 million global TV advertising market, by combining the reach of TV with web-style engagement and analytics.

According to GigaOm advertising for video content on mobile devices is going to grow significantly in the coming year but will be dwarfed by the opportunity that emerges as the connected TV market takes off.

Ad networks have the opportunity in their sights.

3D TV proves that content is still king

Although I’m not a tennis fan, I did spend some time following the Wimbledon Championships this year – mostly to see how well the live 3D broadcasts worked. The conclusion seems to be that it was not as successful as it could have been. Technically the BBC did a great job of broadcasting 3D at Wimbledon but as is often the case, the issue is not the technology so much as the content.

Content is still king, and 3D doesn’t change that. 3D hasn’t been successful in the past because it was often used as a gimmick rather than as a tool to drive compelling stories, and there is still a risk that this will continue to be the case. While we can now convert movies filmed in 2D to provide a 3D experience, that doesn’t mean the results (or the movies) are any good. John Cassy, channel director for Sky 3D pointed this out at the recent Intellect Consumer Electronics 2011 event:

"It's very easy to make bad 3D … At Sky we only make native 3D programmes, and our first stage of production is always to forget about the 3D altogether. Because first and foremost, it's a TV programme - and if the story isn't right or it doesn't make any sense or it's not compelling, it's not good enough and we won't buy it."

Andrew Denham from Panasonic agrees: "Hollywood damaged 3D by rushing so many badly converted films out in the Avatar's wake."

It’s easy to get caught up in the technology and forget what the end user wants. 3D is still “appointment viewing” for most people – you’ll watch a special event in 3D, but not your regular evening’s TV. A glut of poor (or poorly-converted) content, coupled with the continuing expense and inconvenience of 3D glasses, could stop this being special enough for people to justify it. It still remains to be seen if the industry has learned the lessons of previous 3D fads.

Connected TV sales show strong trend worldwide

Sales of connected TVs are set to boom. That’s not just our view but it’s an opinion shared by analysts at DisplaySearch in a new report published this week.

According to the DisplaySearch Quarterly TV Design and Features Report a quarter of all flat panel TVs shipped this year are expected to be internet ready. That number is set to grow to 138 million units by 2015. DisplaySearch predicts that within four years connected TVs will account for almost half of all flat panel TVs shipped.

It’s a trend that is common to both developed markets as consumers upgrade their televisions, and emerging markets, which typically have good broadband services. The common motivation for consumers is a drive to access the best content and services.



Source: DisplaySearch Quarterly TV Design and Features Report

Cloud and the Connected Home World Summit 2011

At the Connected Home World Summit last week there were some interesting discussions on what comes under the heading ‘connected home’. We tend to think of digital media sharing. But there are more features out there that can be added to the chains of connectivity in the home, such as: automated lighting and power control, security and heating control and even some aspects of health care such as panic alarms and other monitoring.

The issue of wireless around the house was discussed in depth, during one of the early morning briefing sessions. An example of where the construction industry needs to meet the connected home industry, as homes are still being built with aluminium backed plaster board, meaning WiFi doesn't stand a chance between one room and another. A prime example of inertia and how many things simply do not move in "Internet time".

Cloud computing was one of the hot topics at the summit this year, especially as Apple has now announced iCloud. There were many discussions around how the cloud relates to the connected home. Is data stored in the cloud, the home network, or both? Should each device try and stream from the cloud or some form of p2p network around the house, as one audience member provocatively suggested? I can see tremendous amounts of data from the home moving to cloud storage and cloud processing in the long term (10 years – maybe 5 years at best), but I just don't see this as realistic over the next few years. Why?

• Users are being asked to place absolute faith in the reliability, security and privacy of cloud storage – but not even Apple is making remotely strong enoughttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifh statements to convince me that this area is adequately addressed to be considered appropriate for 95% of Internet users. Could I have absolute confidence telling my parents' that it is sensible, safe and fast enough to have the only of all their photos in the cloud today? Simply put - no

• Upload bandwidths are still not comparable to download bandwidths. Even though it may only be comparatively short term pain, I don't think the vast majority of users are at the point where uploading 100 GB (say their music and photo collection) is going to be viewed as trivial. On top of this there would be a distinct absence of "instant gratification" that the Internet services are generally promoted as. If home video is included, 100 GB can easily become 1 TB or more

So what are the implications? Data originating in the house will tend to stay in the house – at least as far as the master copy is concerned. Data (video) that originates outside the house (broadcast and other content owners) can move to the cloud much easier. Music collections, a la iCloud, are probably the hybrid for the next few years.

By David Fell, CTO, ANT

BBC News gets connected

The BBC has launched a BBC News app for connected TVs. The new product will combine video and text content from BBC News Online that will enable users to seamlessly access the BBC’s news content, from whichever device they are using. Initially it will be available on Samsung’s Smart TVs with plans to extend it to other ranges.

The launch follows the BBC’s plans to unveil a connected TV strategy, outlined in its workplan released earlier this month. We expect to see a trend of similar services emerge in the near future as other players begin to push the envelope and deliver more and more new connected TV services.

We are in the middle of a content and technology evolution, as the TV industry moves towards integrating content across all connected devices. We’ve had glimpses of connected services before but this is the first to provide seamless content across multiple devices. It’s not about making a leap into the unknown; it’s about making small steps and delivering on them. The BBC has launched a service that brings us one step closer to the truly connected home.

Cord cutting? Not yet…

A recent CEA survey has shown that despite the hype surrounding “cord cutting”, most consumers in the US are not looking to give up their pay-TV services any time soon. While terrestrial TV services are becoming much less popular (only 8% of US households relying on them), the pay-TV companies are still in a dominant position when it comes to delivering people’s entertainment.

It’s the younger consumers who are more likely to move to completely online viewing, but this research shows that pay TV is still strong. Good news if you’re a pay-TV company, but it also reinforces the fact that content is still king. Pay TV providers invest a huge amount of money in content, and while some of this is available online, if you want to watch a major series like the recently launched ‘Game Of Thrones’ then a pay-TV subscription is the only way to do it (legally).

Most people won’t pay just for technology, no matter how much it’s hyped. But they are prepared to pay for the ‘must have’ content, and at the moment the companies best placed to deliver this are the traditional TV providers. TV is also a social experience, with people discussing last night’s shows over a coffee or around the water cooler, and traditional linear TV, helps maintain this experience. We are increasingly seeing this social aspect online as well, the #apprentice is a popular hashtag on Twitter each week.

On-demand is great for catching up on shows you missed (or forgot to record), and for watching extras about your favourite shows, but linear TV makes it easy to watch good programmes without much effort. At the end of the day, this is what most consumers – me included – are really looking for.

4G mobile services could disrupt digital TV

The launch of 4G next year will bring some great opportunities to the mobile and tablet industries. However, it seems as though what is good news for mobiles, could well be bad news for digital TV. 4G will provide faster browsing and download speeds but it seems as though these new high speed signals could interfere with digital TV reception in the UK.

Ofcom, the government-approved regulatory authority for the telecommunication industries in the UK has produced a briefing document on the ‘Coexistence of new services in the 800 MHz band with digital terrestrial television’, which outlines how signals from base stations handling 4G might interfere with local STBs. The problem has arisen as 4G sits next to terrestrial TV signals in the spectrum. It is thought at the moment that around 3 per cent of UK viewers could be affected. And although filters should solve the problem for some, others may need to use different ways to get TV signal. Ofcom has started a research programme to investigate the problem and to find out to what extent viewers will be affected.

Although it’s still unclear as to where the responsibility lies for minimising the impact on TV viewers, this is something that could have a potentially large impact on digital TV services in the UK.

People want to watch TV, not search

According to a recent report from Strategy Analytics, one of the reasons consumers haven’t taken to Google TV is the need to search for content. Content discovery has been a hot topic in the industry for a long time – it’s considered a key part of YouView, for instance, and is generally one of the major factors in trying to monetise “long tail” content. What’s surprising about this report isn’t that people don’t like having to work to find something to watch; it’s the fact that Google didn’t pick up on this.

Part of the reason, undoubtedly comes from its history as a search engine provider, but there’s also a different understanding of how people behave when watching the TV. The Google TV approach (and the traditional PC approach) is a “lean-forward” model of interaction, requiring active participation by the user – one that’s common in the computer industry, but much less so in the TV industry. By comparison, T-Bone, the new company launched by ex-CTO of YouView Anthony Rose, is taking a “lean-back” approach, which is much closer to a traditional TV experience and has been christened “veg 2.0”.

Many people simply want to simply sit back and relax when watching TV, not scroll through reams of content to find what they are looking for. As one of the participants in the Strategy Analytics survey said: “I don’t want to come home and have to search for content. It is too much effort. I want a Smart TV to know me. Smart TV, to me, is not me doing more work but me doing less”.

Making content easy to find is key, and search is not always the answer to that. Can Google overcome this? Maybe – but other providers are already working hard in this area, and some of them have a big lead. Search is one approach, but having a strong editorial voice that people can trust may prove to be the best long-term solution.

About-turn for government plans to make TV local

Jeremy Hunt has announced a major policy shift in his plan for a new generation of local TV services, moving from the idea of a national network “spine” in favour of a series of individual stations. But what does this mean for the TV industry?

The biggest challenge faced as a result of these government plans is not how the service will be deployed, but what they will deploy. Times are changing for the TV industry, with consumers expecting far more from their viewing experience.

If approached in the right way, these local TV services will open new doors for content providers and advertisers alike. But whether it is delivered via a national network spine or individual stations, content providers must look beyond broadcast to deliver a truly localised service. Connected TV’s and set-top boxes, combining access to broadcast and broadband content in a single user experience are the future of TV, allowing viewers, to not only pick and choose what they want to watch, but when they want to watch it.

Changing times for TV – Europe leads the way

New research has found that broadcasters are increasingly taking the reins when it comes to developing over-the-top (OTT) video services in Europe. The study by SNL Kagen shows that the popularity of catch up services, like BBC iPlayer, is at the heart of how content is being distributed and viewed online.

It’s further evidence that the way we absorb TV content has made a fundamental shift. The ability to tune in anytime to our favourite programmes shapes our TV behaviour today. Open standards, like HbbTV, are creating a competitive landscape for broadcasters – and by default, an increasingly rich content library for TV viewers, as technology opens the doors to brand new features and personalised functions.

Broadcasters in the UK, France and Germany have established standards that open new doors for consumers. Spain is also beginning to address this demand with Mediaset España and Telefonica recently announcing a strategic agreement to launch a pilot for HbbTV services in Spain.

So, it seems that open standards are proving their metal in Europe. And, ‘TV Everywhere’ is becoming the name of the game. But as this adoption grows, the content bank for consumers gets richer, and instant access to content becomes the status quo, the pressing question now is how users will access all of this content? A multiscreen TV experience, it seems, is just around the corner.

Video streaming drives data growth – but who pays for it?

Once again, we’re hearing reports that multimedia traffic and video in particular, will drive a massive growth in Internet traffic. ABI Research has calculated that Video and TV streaming could surpass web and internet traffic by 2015, driven by the increasing use of laptops, tablets and other connected devices.

While this isn’t anything new, the increase in the amount of services delivering over-the-top media (and more importantly, the upsurge in the number of devices that give consumers access to those services) indicates that this growth can’t be ignored.

Rising internet traffic will require increased investment from both data carriers and service providers. While the net neutrality debate isn’t yet over, it’s clear that consumers will end up paying for this investment in one way or another. However, who they pay will be an important factor and if service providers can’t monetise their content they will face an uphill struggle in the face of increasing costs for content delivery. We’re already seeing YouTube moving to provide pay content, and other service providers are likely to soon follow, but it’s unclear what will distinguish their services from the likes of Netflix and LoveFilm.

Services operated by broadcasters, such as Sky Player, often have an edge in the quality of content they can offer - not to mention revenue from broadcast programming that can help offset the cost of an online service. For this reason, pure online services will have to do more than simply provide video in order to convince end users to pay. Without offering something unique, these services will face stiff competition from traditional broadcasters and TV service providers offering online content.

Connected TV Summit 2011

Videonet’s second annual Connected TV Summit took place in London this week. Attended by over 360 delegates, with representatives from across the connected TV delivery chain, it proved to be a strong industry event.

While there was very little talk of 3D TV, the leading TV manufacturers arhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife clearly committed to increasing their connected TV offerings. According to Informa’s Senior Analyst, Giles Cottie the main driver for this is simply to keep up with the competition.

As you’d expect, Video-on-Demand remains key, as viewers enjoy the freedom of watching what they want, when they want. Ian Mecklenburgh from Virgin Media stressed that TV still remains the most important aspect of the connected TV, he also told delegates that if on-demand was a channel it would be its third most popular.

We also saw an increasing number of services for companion devices such as the iPhone and iPad as the connected home takes shape. NDS, Philips, Samsung and Sky were all talking about new projects along with Siemens showing a slick new demo using a cloud based service.

Edd Uzzell from Sony had some interesting points about connected devices, notably that demonstrating their full capabilities continues to be a challenge as the majority of retailers aren’t even ‘connected’, making it impossible to showcase the full range of benefits to consumers. As we’ve discussed on this blog before we mustn’t forget the consumer in all of this, retailers and device manufacturers need to help consumers understand how they can make the most of these new services, so they don’t get left behind in these exciting developments.

Connected confusion for TV viewers

Another week, another UK region gears up to make the big digital switch – and this time it’s the turn of viewers in the South East! This project signifies an exciting time for the TV industry, as digital viewing transforms the way we receive and consume our content.
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As the broadcast industry goes digital, device manufacturers are keeping pace with the introduction of exciting new TV services. Consumers increasingly expect more flexibility from these services and personalised viewing remains a priority. Connected TVs have the potential to transform the way we interact with this new content. Worryingly though, there’s a missing link in the chain from industry to consumer.

Whilst there is a host of connected devices in the market and in consumers’ homes, there’s not enough being done to help to educate consumers on how to get the best from them. Connected devices with features that can enhance the TV experience are sat in living rooms across the UK unused. The onus is on the industry as a whole – broadcasters, device manufacturers and retailers – to ensure that when a consumer invests in new technology, they’re able to appreciate all of its features.

ANT CEO, Simon Woodward, discussed consumer confusion when it comes to connected TVs here:

D-Book 7 released

The UK Digital TV Group (DTG) has recently announced the release of D-Book 7, the latest version of the technical specification for UK digital terrestrial TV services. This version is a big step from previous versions, including a whole new volume covering connected TV services. It won’t come as a big surprise to learn that D-Book 7 now supports both HTML and MHEG applications.

HTML support is based on the Open IPTV Forum specifications, using the HbbTV profile as a baseline but adding extra features to meet additional requirements for the UK market and adding more advanced graphics capabilities based on the HTML5 canvas element and CSS3.

What’s needed now is for service providers to start using this specification to develop services; while releasing the specification is an important milestone, the next steps are even more critical. We need real-world services and devices using and implementing the specification in order to identify any gaps and ambiguities and get to the point where the spec is understood well enough that we can deploy services that run on a range of receivers. We’ve already heard that YouView will be using this as part of the basis for their technical specifications, and I’m sure other service providers will also be looking at using some or all of it.

ANT has been heavily involved in the development of D-Book 7, and I’ve no doubt that we’ll see more and more services making use of it in the near future.

US television homes set to decline

The number of homes with a television set is expected to decline in the US, according to to a report from The Nielsen Company. Digital transition, economics and multiple platforms have been cited as the reasons for this decline.

The transition from analogue to digital has meant that consumers need to buy new TV sets in order to view digital content. The report suggests that consumers have been reluctant to invest in new TV technologies due to cut backs after the recession and the increasing amount of content available online.

In the UK we are currently seeing the opposite trend with the digital switchover and the desire for HD driving sales of over 9.5 million TV sets in 2010 alone.

More HbbTV movement in Europe

HbbTV is driving momentum in Europe this year. Teveo interactive and Mediapool content Services have announced the launch of the first HbbTV-based platform for international TV-content . This means that viewers will be able to access foreign language programming on HbbTV compatible TV devices.

Today’s news is just one of many HbbTV announcements at the ANGA show this week and follows the French media authority’s (the CSA) decision to authorise trials of HbbTV services and news that the Czech public broadcaster, CT, will be speeding up its preparations for HbbTV.
Both of these are important steps: the French HD Forum has been heavily involved in HbbTV and so test transmissions will be a major milestone for the deployment of HbbTV in France. The Czech preparations indicate a growing knowledge of HbbTV outside the “core” group of countries involved in HbbTV.

With French, German and British companies involved in developing the HbbTV specification, it’s unsurprising that those countries were the first users of HbbTV. Having had less involvement in the development of the standard, the move by the Czech public broadcaster CT shows how awareness of HbbTV has spread and how other organisations are seeing the benefits of a common standard.

ANT has been involved in HbbTV since the very beginning, and so seeing this growth in HbbTV really vindicates our belief in the importance of open standards, and that HbbTV is the right standard at the right time.

TV viewers have their say – social media and the Royal Wedding

Everybody’s talking about it, so it seemed like we couldn’t really avoid a mention of tomorrow’s Royal Wedding on our blog. With the nation gearing up to tune in to the nuptials of Kate and Will, how we’re all going to get in on the action has been a hot topic for discussion. Social media is set to transform the viewing experience, with a Facebook page and a YouTube channel giving well-wishers the chance to ‘watch and react’, post messages, and even upload their own videos.

When Charles married Diana in 1981, it’s estimated that more than 750 million people tuned in worldwide. So with today’s technology, and the huge amount of investment from broadcasters to give the public as much access as possible to the celebrations, it’s anyone’s guess as to how many people will be watching tomorrow. But what’s really going to set this viewing experience apart is the opportunity for people to get involved from the comfort of their living rooms. It’s a little bit of TV history in the making.

With our TV’s becoming digital entertainment hubs, and an increasing number of services converging from the web to our television screen, tuning in to an event like this is no longer a case of sitting back and absorbing. The rise of the connected television, providing users with access to more traditional ‘web’ applications like YouTube and Flickr and greater engagement with the content they watch, has transformed the TV experience from passive, to interactive. With TV innovation evolving at an exciting pace in an increasingly connected world, we wonder what we’ll be able to do from our TV’s at the next Royal Wedding!

Over-the-Top a hit for all ages

Over-the-top (OTT) delivery is becoming increasingly popular for watching video content across a broadening range of connected devices. A survey carried out by Accenture shows that a growing number of consumers are choosing to watch video content over-the-top, on their TVs, smart-phones as well as PCs.

And it seems that viewers of all ages are increasingly accessing on-demand OTT content. It isn’t just the younger viewers who are driving this trend. The survey showed that 82% of participants aged 35-44 and 64% of participants over the age of 65 are also accessing OTT content.

Broadcasters and operators need to look to find ways to deliver the next generation of TV content, that will enable the viewer to engage and interact with the programmes they watch, not just on the TV but across other devices as well. Consumers are looking for a unified viewing experience across their connected devices.

TV Web surfing

Another interesting statistic from the report was consumers’ desire for Web browsing on the TV, just 14% wish to use this feature – an opinion we’ve supported many times in the past. Web services must be tailored for the TV viewing experience.