By now, many of us have heard or read some of the latest “buzz” about being able to watch TV on your IPad or Smartphone. By way of a video industry definition, the term TV Everywhere has been coined to describe this nontraditional TV viewing experience. While there are some that are quick to point out that this has been technically feasible for some time through the use of TV tuners in PCs, Slingbox, etc., the twist with TV Everywhere is that video content only accessible today via traditional means (i.e. the TV set) becomes available on devices such as a tablet, smartphone, computer, gaming station, etc. And by content, I am referring to broadcast and linear video, on demand video, pay per view, online video content, etc. Sounds easy enough, right?
Like many technology or product introductions, there are several definitions of TV Everywhere and in most cases; all loosely fall under the brief description provided above. Streaming NetFlix to an IPad is in effect TV Everywhere, as prior to having the capability to do this, NetFlix content was primarily viewed on the TV. Another example would be watching an episode of Family Guy on Hulu.com via a mobile app on your Smartphone. Again, by generic definition, this would fall under the category of TV Everywhere. For the purposes of this article, I will draw some unique distinctions on what I believe TV Everywhere really means and what some of the current challenges are with a wide scale deployment and adoption of it.
Progress is certainly being made to make video content easily accessible on nontraditional devices. Search the internet for “online video content” and you will be overwhelmed with both the amount of content and technology solutions to make this accessible on devices other than the TV. One key, and arguably simple, distinction with what is available today versus what I believe most of us will come to expect of a TV Everywhere experience is access to the content of your choosing whenever and wherever you want it. It is great to have last week’s episode of Mad Men available on the internet, but a better experience is to have the initial airing directly streamed to your internet enabled tablet while waiting for the delayed flight out of Chicago (this happens often). While this might not seem like much of a distinction, premium content (as defined by each of us differently) is what drives us to subscribe to cable or satellite services to begin with. While there are some that would say you don’t need either, the reality is that current “over the top” internet based content providers are not that rich in high value content, nor do they have the ability to provide the content in real time.
Without question this will change, but the providers (owners) of the content are in the driver’s seat on this one. The technology to make this happen is rapidly being developed, and in many cases is already available. The long pole in this tent is the owners of the content aren’t real eager to make the premium content available everywhere, whenever, and however due to concerns over commoditizing what in today’s distribution model demands a hefty price tag.
There are certainly some legitimate concerns that need to be addressed, and most content owners and video providers are aggressively working on solutions that satisfy all. Some of these concerns center around digital rights management (DRM), copyright and licensing restrictions, and agreement on a robust process for customer entitlement/authentication. While most of these are legal in nature, there are also a handful of technology issues that still need to be sorted out. These include the need to transcode content for different display formats and bit rates, differences across tablet/Smartphone operating systems, screen sizes, method of delivery, etc.
These are significant obstacles to overcome, but I am confident most will be solved in due time. We will keep you posted on overall industry progress and some of the specific things we are doing in this space. I look forward to any of your comments or questions.
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