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Tag: VOD

  • DISH deploys TiVO metadata to enable seamless entertainment discovery

    MUMBAI: After taking some good strides worldwide, TiVO Corporation is adding another feather to its cap. After partnering Panama Cable Onda, Turner, Japan’s KDDI and renewing its licence with Foxtel, it’s now working with DISH.

    TiVo, a leader in entertainment technology and audience insights, announced that leading pay-TV provider, DISH Network Corp., has completed its migration to TiVo Metadata. DISH is utilising TiVo’s rich metadata, such as program information and image-based content, across its product platforms, including linear TV, video on demand (VOD) and DVR.

    TiVo completed the metadata migration process in just under five months, bringing rich and robust metadata to DISH’s product platforms. The deployment was also rolled out in a way to minimize impact across DISH’s entertainment ecosystem.

    “Today’s consumers want a visually-rich entertainment experience that makes it easy for them to quickly identify and access the content they want in real-time,” said Niraj Desai, vice president of product management, DISH. “Through our long-standing collaboration with TiVo, we were able to integrate their enhanced metadata offerings and provide a cohesive and seamless entertainment experience across our product platforms.”
                                        
    TiVo completed the metadata migration process in just under five months, bringing rich and robust metadata to DISH’s product platforms. The deployment was also rolled out in a way to minimize impact across DISH’s entertainment ecosystem.

    “Working against a compressed timeline, TiVo delivered a comprehensive metadata solution that enabled DISH to continue to deliver rich entertainment experiences that its customers expect. We deeply value our relationship with DISH and look forward to continuing to innovate with them,” said Roz Ho, senior vice president and general manager, Consumer and Metadata, TiVo. “With our industry-leading metadata catalog and innovative discovery solutions, TiVo is helping companies like DISH power the ultimate entertainment experience.”

    TiVo’s metadata is a leading metadata resource for international TV shows, movies and sporting events, delivering the best quality, localized international metadata that is consistent across 70 countries.

    TiVo has already introduced its new fully-integrated Personalized Content Discovery platform. The new platform provides video operators with the most comprehensive suite of content discovery features that combine the power of TiVo’s renowned conversational voice search with personalized search and recommendations. The platform also features powerful analytics capabilities that enable operators to conduct A/B testing; thus, giving operators the ability to optimize their operations in real-time.

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  • TiVo brings comprehensive personalised content discovery platform with voice search

    MUMBAI: TiVo Corporation, a leader in entertainment technology and audience insights, has introduced its new fully-integrated Personalized Content Discovery platform. The new platform provides video operators with the most comprehensive suite of content discovery features that combine the power of TiVo’s renowned conversational voice search with personalized search and recommendations. The platform also features powerful analytics capabilities that enable operators to conduct A/B testing; thus, giving operators the ability to optimize their operations in real-time.

    With fully-integrated conversational services, TiVo’s Personalized Content Discovery platform leverages voice search making it easy for a user to ask, “What’s on TV tonight?” and get highly-relevant personalized search results. Instead of bringing up the whole TV guide with 300+ channels, the response will highlight the top 10 television programs that the user is most likely to be interested in, based on their viewing behavior and interests. This integration is exceptionally crucial as more and more customers turn to voice search, with 30.5% of Amazon Echo, Dot or Google Home owners stating that they use voice assistants to help them find something to watch, according to TiVo’s most recent Video Trends Report.

    TiVo’s Personalized Content Discovery platform also supports contextual voice queries, which allow users to easily narrow down results within a specific context, thus eliminating the need to string together extremely long queries with unnatural phrasing to achieve the same results. For example, if a user was to ask, “Find me movies with Tom Hanks,” after the initial search results are displayed, the user can simply say “only the comedies” to filter the results to find comedies starring Tom Hanks. In addition, the conversational search capability spans across all content catalogs available to the consumer, such as linear TV, video-on-demand (VOD) or over-the-top programming. As a result, the platform recognizes what the user is subscribed to and can be set to only return what is available to that specific user within their packages.

    “For voice search and discovery to be truly effective, the user must be able to refine and explore through conversation,” said Colin Dixon, founder and chief analyst, nScreenMedia. “Solutions such as TiVo’s will be invaluable in helping operators deliver conversational discovery tools that allow their customers to more fully exploit the content that is available to them.”

    TiVo’s Personalized Content Discovery platform has a fully integrated backend business console that provides management and real-time tuning of search results, allowing service providers to easily improve the user experience and generate more engagement from viewer searches. Operators can use rules to drive internal business objectives, such as boosting more VOD titles in voice searches to promote broader category awareness. Operators also benefit from a decreased cost in ownership, since they can quickly make real-time changes without requiring extra support from engineering teams.

    “Thanks to our fully-integrated approach, service providers can provide their customers with the flexibility of conversational search, going beyond traditional keywords and delivering a truly personalized experience that also drives their own business objectives internally,” said Pratik Patel, director of product management, Advanced Search and Recommendations, TiVo. “In the past, it was an incredibly timely and labor-intensive process to update search results. Now, changes can be created almost instantaneously, generating stronger, more relevant results for viewers while improving overall customer loyalty and engagement.”

    TiVo’s conversational services go beyond basic voice commands to make natural dialogue a reality. With TiVo’s Personalized Content Discovery platform, consumers can use their voice to search for digital entertainment across data spaces, including linear, VOD and over the top. By taking the content, user and situation into account, TiVo’s Personalized Content Discovery platform provides fast, highly accurate results and relevant guidance.

  • VIDNET 2017: MINING THE BURGEONING OTT/VOD SECTOR

    MUMBAI: Leaders of India’s OTT, live streaming and video on demand ecosystem will be congregating at the Hotel Westin in Mumbai’s Goregaon suburb to participate in the second edition of indiantelevision.com’s industry confab VIDNET 2017- Content on the Go.

    Heads of Hotstar, DittoTV, Voot, SonyLiv, YuppTV and Viu, BARC’s planned digital measurement offering and the entertainment and media partnership heads of YouTube India and Facebook India will be highlighting the progress that their platforms have made and the way forward for video on demand and streaming services which are in their relative infancy but have seen tremendous traction over the past year or so..

    “2016-17 has been a year of an explosion in video consumption for the plethora of VOD and streaming service providers who have popped up in India,” says Indiantelevision.com group founder, CEO & editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari. “This is thanks to dropping bandwidth prices, the Reliance Jio effect of free data. Humungous investments are being poured into original content by Netflix, and Amazon, even as others are either investing in movies, sports, or kids content. This at a time when they are grappling with the business model: go pay or free or a mix of both. Our estimate is that around Rs 1,500-1,700 crore has already been invested by the various players. Thus, VIDNET 2017 is happening at an apt time. It will help foster discussions, relationships, deals between the various players and possibly allow for new ideas to flow in. A stellar lineup of speakers makes VIDNET, the industry’s leading VOD thought gathering.”

    VIDNET 2017 is slated to feature panel discussions on whether OTT/VOD/digital video is a sound investment proposition, its attractiveness to advertisers, the need for deeper distribution for the platforms, and who should be commissioned to produce the content, Bollywood biggies or smaller independents.

    Among the speakers who will be sharing their views at VIDNET include:

    Arre co-founder & CEO Ajay Chacko,

    Hotstar CEO Ajit Mohan,

    Still and Still Media collective founder

    Amritpal Singh Bindra,

    Indiantelevision.com group founder, CEO & editor in chief Anil Wanvari,

    Pocket Aces founder Anirudh Pandita,

    Z5 Business EVP & head of digital India Archana Anand,

    Republic TV founder Arnab Goswami,

    VideoTap founder & CEO Dilip Venkatraman,

    Viacom18 digital ventures Voot COO Gaurav Gandhi,

    VideoconD2h COO Himanshu Patil,

    Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd director Jai Maroo,

    BARC India digital business head Jamie Kenney,

    Aisa TV Forum and Market Reed Exhibitions executive producer & editorial director Lunita S V Mendoza,

    Asia TV Forum & Market – Reed Exhibitions business development manager Meen Yi Phua,

    Media Partners Asia vice president Mihir Shah,

    Viacom18 Digital Ventures content head Monika Shergill,

    Cheetah Mobile India director of brand solutions Neel Sapre,

    Principal Provocateur Advisory Paritosh Joshi,

    Monozygotic co-founder & chief creative officer Raghu Ram,

    WATConsult founder & CEO Rajiv Dingra,

    Prime Focus technologies founder & CEO Ramki Sankaranarayanan,

    Balaji Telefilms group CEO Sameer Nair,

    Akamai Technologies country sales manager, media Sandeep Reddy,

    Youtube entertainment partnership head Satya Raghavan,

    Facebook India media partnership head Saurabh Doshi,

    Swastik Productions, One Life studios founder & creative director Siddharth Kumar Tewary,

    Viu India marketing head Shantanu Gangane,

    Producer Siddharth Jain,

    Den Networks Ltd CEO S N Sharma,

    Amagi Media labs co – founder Srinivasan KA,

    Sourabh Pant,

    Perform group director content sales India Subhayu Roy,

    RBNL CEO TaruN Katial,

    Yupp TV founder & CEO Uday Reddy,

    SonyLIV EVP & digital head Uday Sodhi,

    Viu country head India Vishal Kumar Maheshwari,

    Emerald Media executive director & investment head Vivek Raicha

    Castle Media Pvt Ltd executive director Vynsley Fernandes.

    An initiative by Indiantelevision.com, Vident 2017 is powered by Viu. The summit partners for the event are Hotstar and Voot. Prime Focus Technologies, Sony Liv and Perform group is associate partners. Akamai is OTT partner. Animationxpress.com, Tellychakkar.com and Radioandmusic.com are online partners. The event is executed by ITV 2.0 productions.

    VIDNET 2017 will also be honoring key pioneers and movers and shakers of the industry with a plaque for their contribution to rapidly emerging digital video ecosystem.

  • High-speed data services & on-demand bandwidth expectation prompt new telecom policy

    NEW DELHI: A new telecom policy, which will be application driven as compared to connectivity-driven National Telecom Policy 2012, will be ready soon. This was indicated by communications minister Manoj Sinha while speaking at a seminar here on ICT: Engendering New Governance Structure.

    The new policy has to be focussed on the end-users and should look at the newer opportunities for expanding the availability of telecom services. He said the advent of high speed data services and enhanced expectations of the users to get real time on-demand bandwidth to run near real time live applications (such as OTT & VoD) had prompted the ministry to prepare new policies.

    The Minister said there had been a six-fold increase in Data traffic in India rom 561 million GB in the first quarter to 2988 million GB in the third quarter of 2016-17, which was a whopping 400 per cent jump.

    He said that for the first time, the Ministry had decided to involve a large pool of experts from outside the department to get more inputs from the citizens and stakeholders for the new policy.

    He said the communications Sector had assumed the position of an essential infrastructure for socio-economic development in an increasingly knowledge-intensive world. He said as of April 2017, the country had close to 1.2 billion telephone connections, including 1.17 billion wireless telephone connections and similarly witnessed the rapid growth of the broadband connections now stands at 276.52 million.

    Sinha said that while service providers are rapidly deploying the 4 G technology, his focus is on the need to expand the connectivity to all parts including the north-eastern and Left Wing Extremism affected areas; and to keep an eye on future generation that is 5 G technology and ensure that India plays a key role in standards development and get a healthy share of the innovations and patents in the 5G technology pool.

    He said the FDI equity inflow in telecom sector from April 2016 to March 2017 was US$ 5564 million, which is more than four times the average inflow of about 1.3 billion dollars every year since 2013-14.

    The Minister said the information superhighways are a must for growth in the 21st century. He said the Indian Telegraph Right of Way Rules 2016 had been notified to ease the cable laying approval process and helps in Ease of Doing Business for Telecom Service Providers.

    The Department of Telecom has announced the ‘Central Equipment Identity Register’ to pave the way for setting up of International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) based device registration and authentication that will settle the cases of Mobile Phone Theft to a great extent.

    The department is also actively considering the TRAI recommendations on addressing Telecom Consumer Grievances and urged the officers to propose a state-of-the-art technology driven solution that records, monitors and provides end-to-end monitoring of every grievance.

    Telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan said the world was looking at India as the next growth engine to grow from 7.6 percent to above 10 percent and this required huge effort by both the government and the private sector. She urged the Department of Telecom to become an Engine of Transformation and to act as infrastructure builder rather than a regulator.

  • OTT driving Taiwan multichannel video: CASBAA study

    MUMBAI: A new study by regional pay-TV industry group CASBAA shows that overall access to multi-channel video services of all kinds in Taiwan is being bolstered by a mobile video market now accounting for 92 per cent of all individuals.

    According to the CASBAA study (to be discussed on 22 June during the “Taiwan in View 2017” conference in Taipei), with 15 locally established OTT platforms (as opposed to cross-border pirate services delivered from illegal off-shore servers) the largest group of OTT followers in Taiwan are young women aged 18-34, some 42 per cent of the total. Together with 18-34 year-old males, almost 70 per cent of OTT subscribers are “binge” viewers.

    The fast-rising level of mobile broadband penetration is benefitting cable TV and IPTV operators as they develop their own multiscreen services. No longer limited to traditional TV viewing, Taiwan’s mobile broadband subscribers are downloading apps and logging-in to pay-TV programming of all kinds.

    With access to fully digitized networks (95 per cent of Taiwan’s 5.2m cable TV subs) Taiwan’s pay-TV platforms now offer value added services such as VoD, interactive music and games, along with newly sophisticated EPGs, PVRs and the promise of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality services.

    In line with the Netflix model, local pay-TV platforms are also bundling their own content with that of non-domestic program providers, developing exclusive content and packaging that appeals to younger consumers. Meanwhile, according to CASBAA, complex government constraints on cable TV investment under Taiwan’s ownership rules continue to hold back the industry. (These preclude any minimal state ownership (no matter how indirect) in pay-TV – but not telcos. The result is that “convergent” investment is difficult.)

    “The complicated rules on investment, along with a hugely damaging level of content piracy, are not only holding back the growth of the local pay-TV market but also the overall economic development of Taiwan as a whole,” said CASBAA chief policy officer John Medeiros.

    “Living with massive revenue leakage from piracy while blocking sufficient investment in the digital economy, Taiwan is falling behind its natural potential as a regional communications hub,” said CASBAA CEO Christopher Slaughter.

  • Regional viewers ‘catch-up’ Sun TV’s new VoD

    MUMBAI: Sun TV Network, which marked its silver jubilee this year, has received a phenomenal response to its digital content platform “Sun NXT”.

    The new platform enables customers to watch their popular TV programmes in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. Sun NXT claims to have crossed more than 1.1 million downloads in four days. It is compatible with every screen format, viz: smartphone, tablet, desktop and TV. Also, it is available globally via Android and Apple AppStore. Sun NXT also claims to be among the top trending apps.

    With a film library of over 4000 titles, over 40 channels streaming live, movies, kids shows, news, comedy clips, video on demand (VOD), originals, music and catch-up TV, Sun NXT is shaping up to be the global destination of choice for content in south Indian languages.

  • OTT: Videos’ augmented quality, content search & personalised recommendations vital, says Corpus COO

    MUMBAI: Millennials are changing the dynamics of video consumption by preferring their handheld devices to conventional TV viewing. With improving infrastructure and internet penetration in India, the technology of delivering seamless video over-the-top is also evolving.

    Corpus Media Labs, a video technology enabler, specializes in providing end-to-end wireline and wireless OTT platform across multi-screens.

    According to a report, 72% of the time spent by a smartphone user is on watching video, and it is estimated that India will cross 500 million smart phone users by 2017. This generation wants their content to be like instant noodles – Spicy, Instant and On-demand. They expect an apt search result and quick discovery of their favorite content with more personalized recommendations. Besides new content, millennials also look for a seamless video quality and intuitive user experience on their OTT platform.

    Corpus Media COO Dave Maan believes that OTT shouldn’t just be an alternative to broadcast and cable — it needs to be an improvement. In addition to matching broadcast and cable video quality, it needs to offer viewers what broadcast and cable can’t, things like interactivity, personalised advertising, engaging user interfaces, and access anytime, anywhere.

    “Augmented perceptual quality of the videos, search & discovery of the content, personalised recommendations are the most crucial elements for user experience,” he says.

    Corpus Media Labs has developed a robust B2B OTT platform, called Video Corpus, which can deliver Live TV, Video on Demand (VOD), Music on Demand (MOD), 4K content, Catch-up TV across multiple screens. Corpus Smart Analytics collects over fifty data points on user’s behavior and their consumption patterns and bring meaningful statistics for driving marketing and promotion strategy of the contents on the OTT platform. After their success in wireline and wireless platforms, Corpus has now entered “Streaming on Wheels” which is focused on providing Content on Demand (CoD) on public transports like buses and railways.

    Corpus exhibited at Broadcast Asia 2017, held in Singapore, where they launched B2B Content on Demand (CoD) Platform. The exhibition proved to be a great success, with many global content providers showing interest in Content on Demand (CoD) . Corpus also showcased their much talked triple play platform operating in Andhra Pradesh state as AP FibreNet-a state government initiative.

  • ZEEL shifts Zindagi to VoD

    MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. (ZEEL) has announced its decision to move its premium Hindi entertainment channel Zindagi from the television broadcast platform to its video-on-demand platform OZEE from 1 July 2017.

    This move has been announced with the objective to expand digital engagement with the audience who thrive on time-shifted viewing. With this, Zee is focussed on owning the full extent of the consumer’s premium and personal video experience.

    Zindagi will be exclusive on OZEE and showcase the best content in different genres from across the world with narratives which highlight the universality of emotions. The shows that will be available exclusively on OZEE and will include the popular shows Snowdrop, Descendants of the Sun, A Love Story and Total Dreamer. The original productions of Zindagi will also be available on OZEE.

    ZEE’s premium and FTA GEC channels business cluster head Aparna Bhosle said, “Zindagi is a thought leader in premium entertainment and the shift to digital is yet another example of innovation from ZEE. Today, content for our audiences is not just on television but also includes gaming, short form video clips and user generated content, amongst other forms. There are rapid technological advances that are changing viewing habits and content for our audiences can no longer be managed by a remote control. There is an existing consumer demand for viewing premium world content on the digital platforms and we want to reach out to these viewers. We want to stay connected and be relevant to them by providing them with more personalised and specific experiences as they are a discerning audience that prefers choice and control. Making it available exclusively on OZEE will enable us to deliver more distinctive and quality content to audiences on the move.”

    Zindagi, which had launched with the promise of bringing the best stories from across the world to Indian television screens, charmed viewers right from inception.

  • Netflix & iQIYI sign licensing agreement

    MUMBAI: iQIYI and Netflix have signed a content licensing agreement for a subset of Netflix original series like Stranger Things and Black Mirror.

    “Though expectations of our deal are modest in scope, we are delighted that consumers will be able to enjoy these highly-popular series on iQIYI, the leading online video platform in China. Our cooperation will be subject to the relevant regulations on online streaming of imported drama and film content in China,” Netflix stated.

    Founded in Beijing in April 2010, iQIYI is the top online video platform in China to stream both, licensed and original movies, television series, variety shows, cartoons and other content. Netflix is a leading global Internet television network with over 100 million members in over 190 countries enjoying more than 125 million hours of TV shows and movies per day, including original series, documentaries and feature films.

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  • Time for OTT review? Delhi & K’taka top Net readiness, K’taka & Delhi lead in digital start-ups

    NEW DELHI: Will the OTT and VoD companies recast their strategies now that Delhi has emerged as the top-ranked state in terms of overall Internet readiness, overtaking last year’s winner Maharashtra?

    Delhi takes the first slot not only amongst small states and Union Territories but also when all states are taken together. The capital city-state is followed by Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

    Delhi gets this rank primarily because of its fabulous e-infrastructure and e-participation according to a pioneering report titled ‘Index of Internet Readiness of Indian States, published by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Nielsen.

    Releasing the report, Electronics & Information Technology Ministry (MeiTy) Aruna Sundararajan said: “We are hopeful that India will leapfrog from the present 155th position to world’s top 5th in connectivity, within the next 5 to 6 years. India today is one of the most rapidly digitising economies in the world with the telecom industry leading the change. Things have improved multifold with state governments of Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana among others taking proactive steps to improve connectivity and internet reach.”

    “The combination of various indigenous digital platforms along with innovative and disruptive startups holds the greatest scope for digital transformation in India. Post demonetisation, the country today has 3 million POS as compared to 1,50,000 POS earlier which is clearly a transformation and going forward too the infrastructure for digital payments will grow 3X within a span of one year.” she added.

    Among the smaller states, Delhi is at the top followed by Chandigarh and Puducherry. Chandigarh is ranked second in both e-infrastructure and e-participation. Puducherry ranks after Chandigarh when measured on the e-infrastructure index.

    Significantly, even within smaller states, the northeastern states ranked low in terms of overall Internet readiness. Therefore, much more needs to be done in the form of investment and infrastructure development in the region. Among the northeastern states, Nagaland tops the list, closely followed by Manipur and Tripura. Nagaland leads in IT environment and performs moderately well in other categories to get to the top.

    Internet readiness index is a composite benchmark of four components, i.e., e-Infrastructure index, e-Participation index, IT-Environment and government e-services index. All four components have equal weightage in this model. Separately, a fifth Index (named the Core Internet Index) has been created this year, consisting of select variables already used in constructing the above indices. The purpose of the index is to give a sharper perspective for digital industries looking to expand their business in Indian States.

    The overall top rankers amongst states as per their scores in the various indices are as follows:

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    One of the key highlights of this year’s report is measuring the digital start-up eco-system of states. The report finds that Karnataka, Delhi and Maharashtra are the top three states with the highest number of digital start-ups. The study says that of the total 242 start-up incubators in the country, 61 start-up incubators are in Tamil Nadu. About 83% of these incubators are in 10 states, i.e., Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala, Telangana, Gujarat, West Bengal, Delhi and Rajasthan. In the North East, except for Manipur where a single start-up incubator is present, none of the other states have one.  

    The report highlights the performance of the states regarding different measures of Internet readiness index. Given the rapid advancement in e-services and e-commerce, it is essential to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the states. While this would help the business and governments to leverage the strength, policy measures can also be taken where improvements are required.