Innovation Summit Notebook...
Speaking at the opening of Globalcomm’s Innovation Summit, Pulver said he plans to create IP Video content -- “for fun” short term, but also perhaps to make money. He sees the video iPod as “the tipping point” for video viewership, and believes the shared national video experience is near its end, he said. Only the 35-40% of content covering elections, live sporting events and disasters or tragedies will stir a collective live viewing experience, he said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
--
The entire IP video ecosystem requires superior bit rate compression to thrive and evolve, said Steve Magee of Texas Instruments. Following Pulver at the Innovation Summit Tues., he said a slew of new codecs is in early deployment. These include H.264 (also known as MPEG-4 part 10) and Microsoft’s VC1; both are cutting bit rate for delivering a given piece of content by as much as half, he said. The codecs are intended expressly for IPTV, but they're also seeing use over digital broadcast media like HDTV and satellites, Magee said. The entire range of networked video gear will have new, different codecs as IP-based video systems integrate, he said. The Digital Living Network Alliance is writing specifications that will let the range of products interact over the same set of networking protocols, he said.
--
Microsoft’s entire strategy in this arena is to offer software that adds “significant value” by partnering with manufacturers and providers to serve consumers, Ed Graczyk, Microsoft TV dir.-mktg., said. Breaking down the network- based barriers between the “triple play” elements and making them a “single play,” and enlarging the content pie itself, is part of that, he said. A big part of the new content model is freedom, but IPTV isn’t watching streaming video on your PC, or downloading Desperate Housewives on your iPod or best-efforts network video services, Graczyk said, adding that IPTV is competitive service over a managed network, providing full on-demand service, live TV and coverage of major events.
--
Consumers don’t care how the video content arrives, they just want it, Scientific-Atlanta Vp-Emerging Business Paul Connolly said. Infotainment content generated $628 billion revenue in 2004, a figure that’s grown since, he said, and consumers want “a whole experience” from providers. Cable operators are ahead of the game based on their understanding of this fact, he said, especially since no services customers want are “holistic holographic online gambling” or other nonsense futuristic services -- they all exist now.