Who pays for these possibly slanted reports? Is the "NPD Group, a market research company" [and possibly others] funded by those who stand to benefit substantially from such supportive information?
Cliff On 10/13/2012 5:43 AM, Kilroy Hughes wrote:
Today you/we are stuck needing a different adaptive streaming app for each OS, and sometimes several for different flavors of hardware and OS (like Android). You probably need to encode duplicate versions of content; MPEG-2 TS for Apple and MPEG-4 file format for most others (including those that decode WebM), and many variants of codecs, multiplexing, image format, etc. Video is more sensitive to low level differences than your typical Angry Bird app that runs cross platform in CPU. Virtual machines like Flash, Silverlight, and Java can span more platforms, but have tradeoffs, like performance, security, and reliability. If you need content protection cross platform, it all gets much harder. In a few years, everyone will use DASH streaming and HTML5 to reach every device, except probably Apple, which has a huge self-sustaining monopoly and no reason to change from their proprietary HLS format. Just cross your fingers and hold your breath for a year or two! You’ll be able to write one Web page with some script to parse the DASH manifest and request Media Segments, and HTML5 browsers will support the Media Source APIs for the video tag being finalized in W3C to do the decoding on whatever hardware and software they happen to sit on. Every TV, tablet, PC, phone, and toaster will have HTML5, and video will be as portable as Web pages are today. MPEG Common Encryption will allow the same encrypted media to work with whatever DRM is installed on a particular device (by downloading the license for that DRM) using the HTML5 encrypted media APIs. (Again, except for Apple, who will probably come out with a proprietary DRM for streaming like “Fairplay”, which only works with their Apple TV content and devices). The best current alternative is cloud based multiplatform solutions that allow you to check boxes for what devices you want to target, provide a URL to your mezzanine files, design a player app using a “player framework”, and let some large number of virtual CPU cores encode a bunch of versions of the same content in MPEG-2 TS, MPEG-4 ISO Media File Format, various streaming protocols, download various player applications, and address the problem with automation and lots of storage and computing power. CDN edge server media transcoding services don’t solve the multiple app problem, only the multiple media format problem (while sacrificing significant video quality re-encoding delivery streams, not mezz streams). It isn’t quite at the point where you can check some boxes and say “Make it so!”, but it’s getting there. However, each additional output has test, compute, storage, bandwidth, CDN, and edge cache/performance cost, and is a PIA for consumers. Netflix maintained and tested about 400 players last I checked (probably more now), and encoded over a dozen versions of each program (at multiple bitrates). Even if intelligent design fails (e.g. UltraViolet, Hbb TV, DASH Industry Forum, DLNA, etc.), evolution and economics will eventually result in critical mass of very few (two?) formats and protocols to make publishing, delivery, and devices more efficient and interoperable. (The VHS vs. Betamax effect.) The ability of each server and TV to support a dozen different formats and negotiate one that is compatible has given the industry enough rope to hang itself. Apple has demonstrated the benefits of a vertical monopoly, and any open alternative has to compete with that. The culling would have happened much sooner for broadcast, discs, etc. where the interop requirements are more draconian. It will be interesting to see if a billion different apps for each platform will collapse under their own weight and be replaced by HTML5 apps that work everywhere, or if there will be some happy balance between web apps and platform-specific apps. I’d rather not install an app for every TV channel or TV show, but most publishers and distributors want their app installed on your device. *Kilroy Hughes * *From:*opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *dan.grimes@xxxxxxxx *Sent:* Friday, September 28, 2012 1:30 PM *To:* opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx *Subject:* [opendtv] Re: More Are Watching Internet Video on Actual TVs, Research Sho This is good stuff, and good news. I would really like to deliver our programming to OTT devices and internet cable TVs. Even better, we produce live sports and would love to stream it live to "Actual TV"s (without a computer connected). How cool would it be to deliver it without going through a network or broadcaster! But how? I suppose one could get a good programmer to write a dozen applications, one for each device, and put it on the store. Maybe I can work something out with Amazon... Dan Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 08:31:00 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@xxxxxxxxxx <mailto:monty@xxxxxxxxxx>> Subject: [opendtv] More Are Watching Internet Video on Actual TVs, Research Sho More Are Watching Internet Video on Actual TVs, Research Shows By JENNA WORTHAM SEPTEMBER 26, 2012 No more squinting at YouTube videos or Hulu shows on a tiny laptop or desktop screen. More people are now watching Internet video -- everything from cat videos to streaming prime-time shows -- on big-screen televisions than on computers, according to a new report from the NPD Group, a market research company. The report did not give details about mobile devices, only personal computers. But the firm found that the number of people who report that their home television is the primary screen for watching paid and free Internet video has increased to 45 percent, up from 33 percent a year earlier. During the same period, consumers who used a PC as their main way to watch online video dipped to 31 percent from 48 percent. ... http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/more-are-watching-internet-video-on-actual-tvs-research-shows/
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