We seem to have forgotten about ‘Carbon Footprints’ now that the Politicians no longer have it on their manifesto. However has anyone looked at Trade Show Carbon Footprinting? IBC alone never ceases to amaze me – The waste is horrendous, the carpet, wood, metal, plastic as well as a whole plethora of electrical cable, wires and more and trashed each year. Furthermore an unhealthy environment it is now that the Wi-Fi saturation increases. If the demos don’t work – What does it do to the attendees, participants, stand staff et al? Is this a healthy and legal level of radiation – does anyone care? The hyper-concentration of radiated signals must surely be of concern to somebody apart from me?
Category: Uncategorized
Post IBC – A look at the State of Play in the Digital TV Market
If IBC 2010 was lackluster then IBC 2011 was a damp squib. There was no real hype, no buzz and certainly no crowd pullers. In 2007 the Rugby World Cup was on and many, many stands took advantage, using it as their crowd puller. This year it hardly featured and those that had it saw fairly meager gatherings. As we are right in the middle of a totally disrupted market many Companies had their principal offerings hidden in private rooms or on stands that needed invitation to view. The rest was HD viewing and fancy remote controls. This tells me that there is flux and change coming but the industry does not know in which direction it will eventually head. As with 3DTV and 3D UIs it was all proven to be a flop over the year. 3DTV is and in my opinion will never be mainstream viewing for another decade or more. So will the ‘TabletTV’ and this ‘Whole-Home-Solution’ with Gateway be the answer or will the “under $100” STBs still be the Broadcaster & Operators mantra when push comes to shove in an economic downturn? Will the CE manufacturers falter in the Connected TV space? Will the Regulators wake-up and see that TV is in a fragmented mess across Europe and react accordingly?
There were no answers at IBC 2011 and the last two years have shown that we are a ship looking for a port! It turns out that Convergence = Divergence. There are still no answers as to what is the real future of Digital Television Broadcasting, only many more questions?
Consumer Guinea Pigs in a European Digital TV Laboratory!
CE Manufacturers heading towards a zero sum with respect to TV margins have decided that the way forward is to compete with the Broadcasters they used to slavishly serve. They have been revealing the future at IFA and that future is depressingly fragmented. Each CE manufacturer believes that a Connected TV will allow them to become ‘Private Broadcasters’ with TV Portals, IPGs and Applications. The mainstream Broadcasters are trying to keep their Business by offering Hybrid Broadcast Broadband but not all of them. What a disservice this is doing to the Consumer. This is apparently considered healthy competition. What poppycock! It is a fragmented disarray…SD, HD, 3D, OTT, Interactive, Smart TVs but not Smart people nor Smart Regulators who have let the Corporations fleece the Consumer and treat them all like ‘Guinea Pigs’ in a European Digital TV Laboratory.
The Television Business and Return on Investment
Every Tom, Dick & Harry want to be in TV and offer TV Content Portals…Even Starbucks, Norwegian Pizza chains and a plethora TV Manufacturers are in the game. You cannot get a plumber or builder but you can easily find a geek to build you a TV Portal! Where is the ROI on these TV Portal activities? Does Philips, Sony, LG, Panasonic sell any more TVs in a saturated business because of a TV Portal? Apparently TV are NOT being connected to the Internet even though they are Connected TVs, Apps are what they are – fun for a while. Who knows because nobody will reveal their figures. 3DTV failed and is going away quietly, Cisco cutting back by shutting down a STB manaufacturing plant…Echostar brave enough to shut down its IPTV offering! What more is there to come? Will this be a catalyst for the realities of the need for ROI in the TV Business? Will we see more people like the CE manufacturers drop their fragmented and surely wasteful investment in a Connected TV service. The financial crisis is not over so we will certainly have to watch this space.
EVERYONE WANTS TO GIVE AWAY CONTENT FOR FREE – Starbucks Joins the Fray!
On a recent trip to Chicago I dropped into Starbucks for a coffee just an Espresso – In front of me was someone that ordered a Grande Cinammon Dolce Latte with Sugar free Buttery Brown flavoured syrup, non-fatwhipped cream and sprinkles…arghhh, ONLY IN AMERICA!
Anyhow that is not the point of this article. As I was queuing I noticed some leaflets and picked one up. I was drawn to the Starbucks Digital Networks with the offer of FREE Premium Content – In partnership with Yahoo! A Cafeteria that offers expensive flamboyant coffee mixtures, cakes and sandwiches is now offering Digital Entertainment! In Norway its the Pizza chain, and so it goes. What once was the premise of the Broadcasters and Operators is now being fragmented, spread and diluted. Is this the right way to go? Only Time will tell
The Shifting Sands of the Digital TV Industry
Are your exhausted, disgusted, frustrated, befuddled, amused or enthused at the daily ups and downs in the broadband industry? A LINKEDIN Discussion
It’s a MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD World if you follow the broadband industry. Barriers are falling, borders are reshaping, allegiances are changing.
I really love that there is always optimism spouting forth when debates arise and that rarely you get anyone contributing in a rational manner, even negative manner for people are afraid to tell it as it is anymore. Especially on open fora such as this – BTW I am not being rude to anyone…Not at all! Just noted that the LINKEDIN fora are somewhat restrained due to Big Brother fear.
Back to point: In fact the answer to this point really does depend on where your Company stands in times of disruption and turmoil. If your Company is the water that shifts the sands you are the cause and are in power…If you are the sand and being shifted all the time then it is a different response as you are powerless. There are ways to anchor yourself but it means a fight to stand strong against a disruptive wave that might when things calm down see you in the same position weaker or stronger than before. We have seen this in Digital TV Technology … Many projects and initiatives around new-technologies have been launched. I have been in Companies that have been the sand being shifted and we found ourselves shifted somewhere else a short time later and shifted again…The TV industry at present is chasing rainbows (but using technology to do it) in order to get that pot of gold but many times it is not there…sometimes it is and it is pure luck that lands you that pot of gold position today.
In the Digital TV world there is massive disruption because of technology advancements. In fact there is a huge problem in technology leap frogging (shifting sands) as well as over supply of new and better mousetraps by a myriad of new Companies, who when asked to supply in mass quantity suddenly realise the dificulty that is scalability in technological and Corporate terms…a Digital Technology runaway train that simply is, in the main, irrational when it comes to business acumen…a Business that should like all businesses obtain ROI and Profitability.
I will give an example – Black and White TV, Colour TV, High Definition Analogue, Standard Definition Digital, High Definition Digital, 3DTV…Ultra High Definition TV, Super Ultra High Definition TV … Hologram TV…TV Everywhere…For the same mass eyeballs that watch TV between the limited hours of 6-midnight. Terrestrial, Cable, Satellite, IPTV, WebTV, OTT, TV Everywhere…on all devices…even the Fridge gets a mention…
Analogue HD failed, 3DTV is a waste of investment as it turns out, UHDTV what for? To keep TVEngineers in work … We have seen masses of Companies chase a technology – BluCom at Astra – Business model failed, Public Service Broadcaster DTT interactiveTV – Business Model Failed. IPTV – MULTI Billions of dollars investment for a very small % of TV subscribers in comparison to Broadcast TV. Good ROI – Dont think so. Now Connected TV is the Valhalla, so was WebTV which failed not because web was weak in them days but the cost of Customer Support was ignored…Sony last week tried to justify “carriage charges” for its Connected TV platform to Broadcasters who already ship the same Content to a TV antenna for no carriage charge … Business model not thought out or ignored. There are too many other examples to write here. In the main as one technology tries to mature another pops up to distract the CTO and he runs around like a headless chicken too frightened to ignore it in case it is the next big thing and to frightened to invest in case it isnt.
Why are CE manufacturers becoming Broadcasters? Because they have run out of market…The TV is a commodity and we all have a couple or 3. So what do they do next? Tesco becomes a Broadband provider and a Bank … etc. etc.
So as it stands some of us are trying to ride the tide of technologies, anchored in the fundamentals we try to keep our head above water in the hope that some of these waves pass by without damaging the foothold we have…We adapt for sure but we have also been victime of wastage, massive distractions and money has not been wisely spent…Whilst everyone else is trying to be in everyone elses’ business we will see in the not too distant future consolidation and the “nettoyage” that is borne of technology bubbles…or we may just float away taken by the wind, forever changing direction and not ever reach the end goal. Or we wont!
Search is Finally Recognised NOT the Way for TV
This has been something that I have negated, talked and blogged about since it ever became part of the TV landscape. Even Anthony Rose at the Connected TV Summit has told us that his new business T-Bone TV is based around Couch-Potato 2.0 (He actually said Veg2.0 bit considering the e-coli outbreak I thought I would go back to the old chestnut of Couch Potato) … Linear TV is here to stay because tired individuals come home from a hard days work and cannot be bothered with searching for content that they dont know about or have already seen… I agree!
http://www.v-net.tv/NewsDisplay.aspx?id=792&title=search-is-reason-people-stop-using-google-tv
Sorry About This Re-Post from the BEEB BUT IT IS SO ‘BLEEDIN OBVIOUS’ ABOUT CLOUD SECURITY
Sorry about Copyright and sharing other people’s articles – But this makes me soooooo mad it has to be said: Since when did we forget “DENIAL OF SERVICE” attacks are actually aimed at Servers that are attached to the INTERNET – No Sorry – It is NOW “THE CLOUD”! I have been a Network Engineer installing ISP’s since they ever existed and now I am in TV…TV is heading headlong onto the CLOUD – No Sorry – THE INTERNET, worldwide – The Infrastructure remains pretty damn well the same – We have NOT invented a “CLOUD” it is the “INTERNET”… But suddenly we state that it is a place where cyber criminals are waiting…They are probably laughing at the idiocy of the world as it re-invents Client Server Architecture by calling it something white and fluffy so as to make it appealing to business marketeers.
Nigerian Scams, Viagra Spamming, Poor ladies who are suffering terrible illnesses and want to donate all their millions to people like ME – Cyber criminals are ALWAYS waiting for the next scam to inflict on the poor and innocent! I worked at the United Nations and we even had Nigerian Money Scams arrive by Fax from Liberian Banks. The world is a silly place and the greatest discussion I have seen to date on this subject is one on LINKEDIN – Which is the following: Why? We can land man on the moon but we struggle to protect our young and vulnerable and prevent inappropriate use of technology (in and out of the workplace) as a result of cyber-crime.
Just the short set of responses are succinct and relate to the following – Mike Briercliffe says: I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the last decade on matters relating to this and I’m afraid to say that the “90/9/1” theory applies here:
- 90% just stand by and watch
- 9% are sometimes involved in worrying about it
- 1% actively seek solutions and threat mitigation.
It is true that he states we often only react after the horse has bolted. The Next to fall foul will be Connected TV but will we learn from the Sony debacle? Of course not!
It is a generation thing as well. As more and more young engineers leave University and Tech Colleges around the world they are more and more embroiled in the “NOW” technology as we are developing Communication Services. The inherent weaknesses of the Internet and WWW and Cloud are ignored in the rush to provide ON-LINE everything. More fool the individual and more fool SONY who in this little 100 Million outing ruined their credibility, cost them MILLIONS of dollars and probably a huge swathe of customers…The Banks are probably laughing once again on the physical side of Card Renewel but sweating on the Fraud side as money is extracated from bank accounts.
Governments sit mind numbingly inactive – The European Union is a toothless dog and is watching Television run down this slippery slope! The Consumer is vulnerable because whilst the Techies invent the Users are of the same generation and foolish enough to believe that the CLOUD is a nice fluffy place for all their Private and Confidential Information.
Here is the LINKEDIN Post:
Televisions Slippery Slope
Connected TV using HbbTV or other Internet Technologies Exposed to Hacking and Security Issues – REALLY? http://is.gd/9EKQcG #irony #ott
OTT a La Carte is Not going to Win the Day! Its a Business Model Issue!
Where is the A La Carte model of OTT headed – I think we know – In every Music CD like in every TV Bouquet there is stuff that you don’t necessarily want but pay-for but are obliged to because of the business model – If then people only want A La Carte then the business model has to undergo radical change and so does the business in total: I am an Internet veteran and was in the heady world of digital delivery of music even before MP3 was invented…The industry was not looking for an alternative to an expensive CD as many people seem to think – File Sharing and Streaming is the the invention of technology causing audio over the www to start to eat into the Major and Indies’ business models, it was an inevitable and unavoidable move to file transfer over IP which disrupted the model. I was in the boom of start-ups that wanted to be the next businesses to deliver music to the consumer over the internet and ALL but a few companies (e-music.com, musicmaker.com, itunes) survived because the Music Industry finally beat them back (court cases, refusal to release content and more complex neighbouring rights (one singer could not be placed next to another on a compilation e.g. Celine Dion was not allowed to be placed next to Whitney Houston – you work out why) and a few had a model that could help them survive (Apple was BIG and won in the end as it is relatively secure and earns the money for the market – The piracy tsunami came later when bandwidth and devices appeared that could store gazzillions of songs and college/university campuses had server rooms and high speed machines.
Some people mistakenly think that A La Care in the music industry was to beat Piracy…ummmm! However over the internet started with pure swapping and distribution to friends and family – file-sharing – But Content Piracy really started when tape-to-tape happened and you could copy cassettes and CDs and get something for free…The point about TV Bouquets is that they resemble CD Complilations or Albums i.e. every CD like in every TV Bouquet contains stuff that you don’t necessarily want but have to pay-for…it is put there by the producer because they want to sell and make profit the main titles and the fillers…
A La Carte in TV can only be a problem for the TV Content industry as the revenues will drop and the profits shrink as they did in the Music Industry. Possibly nothing will change for the user’s pocket except the delivery mechanism: Mark Cuban puts it better than I; “Expect your internet bills to go way way up as ISPs make it clear that all this video over the internet is going to require billions in upgrades. The irony is that while you may not like paying for cable channels you don’t watch. You will end up paying for cable channels on the internet that you don’t watch as well. In this case you will be paying via higher net bills for the extra bandwidth required to stream cable channels that your neighbors like to watch”
Tvangelist 