Conviva Leadership
Blog
April is quickly approaching, and with it comes NAB and our springtime pilgrimage to Las Vegas searching out the hottest offerings for the evolving broadcast industry. We’re all keenly aware that the business of television is undergoing some major changes. Recent news about a groundbreaking Internet deal between Dish and Disney, along with rumors of a similar deal for DirecTV, point to the fact that those changes are accelerating. Multiscreen OTT viewing, a novelty only a few years ago, is now an integral part of the television business model. With content owners extending rights deals to the Internet and launching digital-only services of their own, and service providers upping education efforts around their authenticated TV Everywhere services, delivering a high-quality viewing experience over the Internet is becoming more important than ever.
Rather than trying to predict the new trends that will be hot at NAB this year, we’ll be keeping our eyes on two that have been building and should be hot buttons for all online video providers in the months ahead.
More Bandwidth Hogging Video
It’s a no-brainer to assume that, much like at CES, there will be plenty of 4K announcements at NAB. But what does this mean for content publishers and service providers? Delivering 4K over infrastructure built for video is one thing, but how can the industry make it work over the Internet? With a complex and fragile infrastructure, bottlenecks and breakdowns are a common occurrence when delivering video over the Internet – and that’s just with SD content! Add the demands of UltraHD and this hot topic just became a hot mess.
More Devices to Account For
Of course a plethora of new devices will be on display at NAB. The continued deluge of smartphones and tablets – all enabled for HD viewing – is not only contributing to the strain on the network, it’s also causing nightmares for those tasked with managing content distribution to these varying devices. Add in the growing use of connected TVs for OTT viewing, with higher demands for bandwidth and quality, and an already complex video delivery environment becomes a hotbed for disaster.
So how do content publishers and service providers address the quality challenges presented by these developments? The answer isn’t more bandwidth or point solutions to address problems at a single location…it’s control.
As video delivery has migrated from a closed network environment to the wild west of the open Internet, online video providers have lost control. The only way to gain back this control is through a technology platform that spans the global Internet, providing the intelligence to help manage the complexity and navigate the pitfalls of the fragile and unpredictable infrastructure.
Implementing a control platform architecture that separates the intelligence layer from the physical layer equips online video providers with the data they need to make informed decisions, keep up with the changes in the evolving television business and deliver a TV-quality experience to viewers over any network, to any device.
If you’re interested in learning more about the hot topic of control, please get in touch and we’ll arrange a time at the show to discuss how Conviva’s Intelligent Control Platform can help you control the viewing experience.
We look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas!
