Television & Multimedia
“I think television brought the world a lot closer together, and will continue to do that. There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I’ve ever seen is called television – but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent.”
-Steve Jobs, one of the pioneers of the personal computer.
Invented in the early 20th century by a Scottish scientist John Baird, television has become one of the most rapidly developing technology medium of the 21st century. It keeps people updated with the latest news happenings across the globle thereby bringing people and their loved ones closer, provide them with insight knowledge into many historical events and workings behind natural life and scientific discoveries without having the need to go to the library. It provides people with the option of continuous awareness of religious and scientific knowledge as well as help masses acquire awareness on health, education as well as vocational training. It provides educational content for housewives on cookery and for toddlers on basic and first learning. Like everything else, there can be a negative side to the content, but now with advanced technology that can be avoided. During the entire 20th century, television was viewed as a one way broadcast to the viewer’s homes through either terrestrial, cable or Satellite technologies with variations in the number of channels. From the year 2000 onwards, the entire dynamics of television viewing went through a metamorphic change as technology enabled it to become a two way interactive medium. The same (IP) protocols that shaped and operated internet, are utilized to run television, with the result that viewers are able to communicate with the TV. They can ‘pause’ their TV programs (enabling them to do something else and come back to their program from the same moment in time), rewind and watch them (enabling them to skip all the adverts) as well as block any channel (parental control facility that enables the viewer to avoid any negative aspects of Television). Phrases such as ‘prime time anytime’ and ‘catch up Tv’, reflecting these convenient features are a common place in the television market place today.
Run on a closed loop IP and Broadband network, the interactive and set top box enabled IPTV presents a high picture quality as opposed to the video that is transported over ‘IP over public Internet’ that is open to all. Combined with Broadband and voice, the interactive IPTV presents a perfect life saver for the telco in the midst of the erosion of their voice minutes by mobile operators, skype, google, etc. Not to be left behind is the OTT (Over The Top) Television that is run on public internet. Deploying the interactivity and viewer profiling capabilities of IP networks, the OTT eliminates the need for a STB at the viewer end and it has multi-platform support that includes TVs, computers, tablets and smart phones. But like the IPTV it has catch-up TV, an electronic program guide (EPG) and a recording function. There are currently two ways subscribers can access the internet streamed OTT services–via an Internet portal displayed on a browser or a proprietary application. Regardless of the route and device used, a better picture quality than other internet streaming applications can be experienced since OTT employs media transcoding and adaptive streaming optimized for different usage scenarios.
OTT is also allowing low investment startups to undermine the telcos’ budding IPTV services. Although low quality video content is available on the internet today, as higher broadband access becomes more widespread, startups will offer professional OTT video services that are paid for by advertising or by the consumer, in direct competition with IPTV operators as DTH and Cable services. To protect the high investment made in IPTV networks, so that they are not relegated to providing the fat broadband pipes only, the telcos are – and should be- countering this possibility by offering their own OTT services in parallel to their high quality IPTV services. The reliability and QoE associated with IPTV will demand the offering of this service in parallel despite the demand for OTT.
Direct To Home (DTH) Satellite Television services still remain the fastest technology route to offer multichannel digital high quality picture as well as QoE. The wireless factor puts reliability at a premium, not matched by the other technologies. In addition, features such as High Definition (HD) picture quality and Personnel Video Recording (PVR) also ensure growth to continue in this mode of broadcast.
The pay television service provider, irrespective of the technology, has to keep coming up with a strategy of innovative and differentiated content, as the winner in the television space will be content, followed by interactivity and reliability. Bandwidth and networks are out to become mere commodities.
OliveLit Businesses have industry experts with international Ivy league academic as well as FTSE-100 corporate experience of planning, implementing, optimizing and operating digital Multichannel Television networks for Wireless, IPTV, OTT and DTH operators across the world. For investment in any of the digital technologies for offering multichannel television, we help plan and implement strategic business plan with one year incubation responsibility as well as help build the new organization in accordance with the business processes specific to digital television operations. In case of an existing television service provider, our experts help strategically plan business models associated with IPTV, OTT and DTH, reengineer, operate and maintain the network infrastructure and upgrades, resulting in increased operational efficiencies and financial gains.
