The second screen app Zeebox rebrands to Beamly. There seems to be a niche for this kind of thing with the oversocials of this world (girls between 16 and 23).
Category Archives: Second Screen TV
Mobile video to surpass viewing on Connected CE
Tv on the second screen may soon be over: the second screen is gradually becoming the first screen. Popularity is increasing steadily. THis according to ABI research, reported on BroadbandTVNews.
TV service companies (should) realise what this means and it creates a bit of a dilemma in pricing their commercial offers. Price 2nd screen too high and you loose too many; price it too low and you loose money by 1st screen viewers abandoning their prime screen contract. And there is the technical challenge of separating delivery to the two screen types. In the end maybe we will pay simply for each screen we want to view the content on.
TV screen gets clouded
Here is another development of OTT and second screen to lure the user away from traditional service offerings: the new Philips cloud-TV service (NetTV3.0). Delivering many (niche) TV channels to the Philips smartTV user: pay and free alike. The user can also upload content. Second screen as key navigation means to the service: good move.
But is the service also streaming to the second screen? That would really move this beyond TV and into the OTT service operator arena. It seems not at least as per today. But isn’t this what the user wants? And what the user want he gets, one way or another.
Delivering content beyond the 1st screen is somewhat of business focus challenge for a TV company. And the rights situation for content delivery to 1st versus 2nd screen is hardly transparent. Finally it will require a non trivial investment in delivery technology and capability.
SAT>IP: missing the trend in 2nd screen
The SES-Astra Sat>IP specification uses real time streaming protocols to deliver selected services to various Sat->IP clients in the home. The approach has some disadvantages though: every Sat>IP client is in fact a dedicated Sat receiver, including dedicated CA and middleware functions if required for the service. The DLNA approach require a heftier gateway (including possibly transcoding) but offers much bigger client flexibility, including a centralized CA model.
The trend in clients is written on the walls: dedicated 2nd screen clients are on their way out fast. Maybe SES-Astra should reconsider their IP strategy or address the disadvantages of the present Sat>IP concept quickly. The videonet article below addresses the tradeoff between the two approaches as perceived through somewhat colored (Sat>IP) glasses.
Evolving viewing behaviours
A very interesting report has been published by ericsson about the changing viewing choices, behaviours and preferences of consumers.
The full report can be downloaded here. It is quite concise for a report.
Videonet has published some of the interesting findings in an article. It makes a leap by stating that only one to two content aggregators will be able to supply the user. But in a family that may be two (or three) per person; some of it may be free or advertising sponsored content. It does notice the diveriging viewing behaviour: away from a single programme per family to multi-viewing in the same room. Exactly that is what is happening in my home as well. Content discovery is quickly diverging also – this is a crucial development. This report is an interesting measuring point in a field that is quickly evolving. This will move faster and faster as 2nd screen personalized viewing will become the norm (whereas now it is still a clear minority).
There is now a clear trend that linear TV is clearly preferred for “live” events. I.e. VOD is better for the rest. This will have a huge impact in the industry. I.e. Netflix will win hands down from all multi-channel offers.
SVOD is clearly a winner over T-VOD. T-VOD will remain an option only for heavily promoted premium content. Maybe a T-VOD type should be offered that increases the bill as you watch the content to the end; content should simply promote itself. A 2 hour movie; 1 hour for free, and 2 euro for each half hour after that. With TV series first episodes could be for free etc.
Plain old TV watching is the killer app. Low on the list of must have are the typical interactive TV features; but they have been presented far too abstractly. This is not representative of their potential. But in the end: we should not overestimate it. The killer interactive app is VOD / catchupTV; everything else pales in comparison.
