Barry Diller will make the case for his new Aereo service in a presentation to the Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday.
His testimony is expected to make the case for time-shiftable television signals via the Internet as a “natural progression of video delivery,” reports Broadcasting & Cable, adding that the future of online video is “more content, more choice, more control, and more online access to broadcast TV signals via his new service, Aereo.”
“While innovation and competition can and should flourish in the online environment,” Diller says, “it is important to protect and preserve the consumer’s right to access free over-the-air broadcast television.”
“Even with the rise of cable channels and networks,” he adds, “the most popular television programming remains that which is distributed by the major broadcast networks.”
Diller also makes the point that content creators sued to block the VCR, which ultimately proved to be a lucrative market for them.
According to media giant Viacom, the second most popular means of viewing television programs is now via a tablet, with Apple’s iPad leading the trend.
Viacom recently surveyed 2,500 consumers about how they watch full-length TV shows, finding 15 percent of total viewing takes place on tablets.
“The change has largely been at the expense of computer viewers, as Viacom’s study says that the most popular genres on tablets, comedy and music, most closely align to those who’d normally watch on their PC or smartphone,” The Verge reports. “Traditional television has maintained dominance in reality TV, along with drama, sci-fi, and sports.”
The study also addresses multitasking, indicating that “many respondents use tablets to multitask or as a complementary experience” to the TV experience.
Additionally, a recent Nielsen study determined that 26 percent of U.S. tablet owners use their devices “several times a day” while watching television.
The Verge asks, “…with tools like Hulu and Airplay making watching TV on a tablet easier than ever, how long will the traditional TV set be able to hold on?”
At Upfronts 2012 last week, Hulu announced to potential advertisers that it plans to produce four new original Web-based programs.
“Original television content made for the Web is a new market, with several technology powerhouses at the helm including Hulu, Yahoo and YouTube,” reports Digital Trends. “All three companies hope to capture the elusive mainstream audience, but we’re inclined to place our bets on Hulu after the announcement of its new line-up of Web-based shows.”
Hulu’s initial jump into original programming included the critically acclaimed “League of Extraordinary Dancers” and “The Confession” starring Kiefer Sutherland. New programs will feature the likes of Danny Leiner, Seth Meyers and Adrian Grenier.
Hulu says it will be investing $500 million in licensing content and producing original programs.
“Between original Netflix renewing shows like ‘Lillyhammer,’ YouTube’s original content channels, and now Hulu, competition among Web-based services to offer original programming is just beginning to heat up,” suggests the article.
Avid Technology announced at NAB that it will be providing the “most comprehensive system in the history of NBC Olympics” for the network’s upcoming coverage of the summer games.
“Marking NBC’s Olympics division’s and Avid’s sixth consecutive Summer or Winter Games working together, the effort centers on Avid Interplay Media Asset Management (MAM) system,” writes Carolyn Giardina for The Hollywood Reporter.
“Installed as part of a system that includes technology from third party vendors Sony and Harmonic, the Interplay MAM will be used to create two simultaneous feeds for use in London and at NBC Olympics in New York, according to Avid,” explains the article.
London’s International Broadcast Center will be outfitted with Avid Symphony and Media Composer editing systems that will be connected to ISIS shared storage and Interplay.
The Future of Broadcast Television Initiative (FoBTV) launched at the NAB Show last week with 13 international broadcast and engineering groups.
The goal is to create a global standard for digital broadcast TV, one that will enable future services such as ultra high-definition television, 3D, and mobile and Internet services.
“The challenges of a global specification may seem daunting, but the benefits of achieving such a goal are enormous,” said Phil Laven, chairman of the Digital Video Broadcasting Project in Switzerland.
The world standard is intended to replace current incompatible digital standards including ATSC in North America, DVB-T and DVB-T2 in Europe, and others.
“Over the years multiple standards around the world have cost the industry and consumer billions in any currency,” said Lavin. “Consumers now expect that their portable devices will be able to receive TV signals anywhere in the world. Thus, a single global standard is becoming essential.”
FoBTV does not plan to write the standard on its own, but hopes to work with standards-setting organizations around the world, including the Advanced Television Systems Committee in the U.S.
Social media innovation for TV was making inroads at NAB last week, but the interest in integration is even greater, according to Sam Decker, CEO of Mass Relevance.
“There are so many technology providers here, and the interest in social TV is disproportionate to the innovation,” he said during the show. “It’s such a small part of all the real estate and discussions that are happening.”
Decker notes that the tech crowd is “beginning to react to demands from producers who want more social functionality in the production process,” reports Lost Remote.
The comments suggest that social media may be where the Internet was in the late 1990s regarding TV, writes Cory Bergman in the post, adding that now “we can feel the beginning of a shift to infuse social in just about every TV production product.”
The article cites some interesting innovation in this space, including the new Engage platform from TV graphics firm Chyron, a social media prompter for TV talent from Never.no, automatic content recognition (ACR) solutions from Audible Magic and Civolution, and more.
In response to the release of Project Glass, a Forrester analyst recommends that “smart developers should start experimenting with applications for wearables on the ‘big five’ platforms (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook) today,” TechCrunch reports.
Sarah Rotman Epps says within three years, wearables will “matter to every product strategist,” but before they go mainstream, they’ll have to be backed by one of the “big five.”
“Indeed, Forrester’s analysts think wearables will follow a similar path to that of the smartphone market: In the first phase, Apple will create an early app and accessory ecosystem for wearable computing. Google’s open platform, however, will give developers more freedom and broader wearable experimentation. Microsoft, thanks to its recent shift toward open Web standards, will then be able to offer something akin to an ‘anti-platform’ platform for a future operating system for wearables that could be even more flexible than Apple’s and Google’s offerings,” the article states.
In a related Engadget post, the Oakley eyewear company has been working on ways to project information onto sunglasses since 1997.
The company hopes to “start by augmenting the world of sports before ultimately blending into more consumery pursuits with shades that could run solo or pair up with a smartphone,” according to the post. It hopes to trump the likes of Project Glass by focusing on style.
While the function of the glasses is important, so is the design, notes Oakley CEO Colin Baden, who understands that when it comes to putting something on the face, consumers can get very particular about the look and feel.
A Sony-led consortium that includes the Blackstone Group, Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Co., Raine Group and David Geffen, has received EU approval for its $2.2 billion purchase of EMI’s music publishing business.
The deal includes a provision to sell some assets to address the concern about unfair competition. Those assets include Virgin UK, Virgin Europe, Virgin U.S. and Famous Music UK — plus catalogs of artists such as Gary Barlow, Ozzy Osbourne, Ben Harper, Placebo, The Kooks, Lenny Kravitz and Robbie Williams.
“Sony and Mubadala have offered to divest valuable and attractive catalogs containing bestselling titles as well as works of successful and promising authors,” said Joaquin Almunia, European commissioner for competition issues. “I am therefore satisfied that the competitive dynamics in the online music publishing business will be maintained so as to ensure consumer choice and cultural diversity.”
With this deal, Sony becomes the largest music publisher worldwide with rights to some 3 million songs.
Amazon Web Services is introducing the AWS Marketplace where customers can rent business software from IBM, Microsoft, SAP and others.
Software — to include databases, software developer tools and business applications — can be rented by use, which can extend from hours to months. In addition, there are a number of open source packages such as Drupal and WordPress.
Unlike Apple’s App Store or the Android Market, AWS will not likely include thousands of products as their focus is business applications.
“Strategically, Amazon is potentially raising the barrier to competition,” reports The New York Times. “Recently companies including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and IBM, among others, have pledged money and talent to developing an open source alternative to Amazon Web Services. These companies, which joined Rackspace, a cloud computing provider, hope to offer computing clouds similar to Amazon’s service, plus their own software.”
“If the AWS Marketplace is successful, Amazon will boast a greater range of software choices,” concludes the article. “The presence of IBM in Amazon’s service indicates that some companies are already hedging their bets.”
Om Malik, writing for GigaOM, suggests that physical media is dead: “It is being replaced with ‘apps’ thanks to broadband connectivity and anywhere computing that has come to us via smartphones, tablets and other connected devices.”
“From music playlists to catalogs to retail stores to television — it wouldn’t surprise me if everything is an app in short order,” he adds. “And that future is scary and yet full of opportunities.”
Malik cites the migration from CDs to streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify and download options including iTunes and Amazon. He notes the growing popularity of e-books and options such as Netflix and Hulu for movies and television.
“The unifying fabric behind all these new behaviors is broadband. For the longest time, physical media was the container that moved content. Records became compact discs. Movie film became VHS tapes and then DVD. Books didn’t really change. And neither did newspapers and magazines. They are all mere containers,” he explains.
“In the post-broadband world, Internet is the truck, and app stores are the newsstand and book store. Result: the slow and steady decay of physical media as a container for content,” says Malik, adding that the subsequent impact will be immense, despite the fact that we are still thinking in terms of the old containers.
He suggests the upheaval has already begun and illustrates his point with examples including the impact on the U.S. Postal Service, commercial printers and traditional advertising models.
Google has revealed the results of their work to re-architect their internal network infrastructure around OpenFlow.
Google’s network, which is described as equivalent to “the second largest ISP in the world,” consists of a user-facing network and a second network that interconnects its worldwide data centers.
OpenFlow is a key part of the Software Defined Networking (SDN) approach that separates network equipment from the overall management. The result is the capability to manage the network fabric as a whole and dramatically increase its efficiency.
Moreover, Google which began working on an OpenFlow network in 2010 has actually been designing and building its own network gear as it was not yet available.
The result is a network that operates at almost 100 percent utilization, rather than the 30-40 percent of other networks.
Google is revealing their OpenFlow work with hopes that equipment vendors will begin manufacturing gear that supports it. Google is a member of the Open Networking Foundation, which promotes OpenFlow. Other members include Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, Verizon and Deutsche Telekom, and Nicira.
Software Defined Networking as represented by OpenFlow is a fundamental change in thinking of complex digital networks that promises to remake the entire network industry, impact how companies and governments manage their networks, and enable new kinds of network applications.
T3 Motion at NAB this week announced the launch of two new trailer systems designed specifically for film production.
The T3MT and T41 systems eliminate the need for tracks during shooting. The camera attaches to the vehicle rather than the camera operator.
The battery-powered vehicles go forward and reverse and include a cameraman seat, Steadicam and Glidecam mounting posts, and 7-inch HD monitor.
“Few products on the market facilitate tracking camerawork from 0-15 miles per hour — tracking shots at low speeds can be arduous and difficult to manage. Our T3 Motion broadcasting products provide a tracking platform that allow for a uniquely clean and efficient production process, facilitating tracking shots without operator fatigue,” stated T3 Motion CTO Ki Nam in a press release.
The T3MT and T41 Trailer packages start at $10,000.
At the NAB Show in Las Vegas this week, Adobe demonstrated its new version of Creative Suite 6 (CS6).
Pricing has not been announced, and the company was vague about the release date, other than to say it would be ready during the first half of 2012.
The suite includes Premiere Pro video editor, After Effects motion graphics effect generator, Photoshop image editor, Audition sound editor and mixer, and additional tools for disc authoring, media encoding, script development, production scheduling, color grading and more.
“The biggest updates to existing apps come to Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop,” reports PCMag. “CS6 Premiere Pro gets a redesigned and simplified user interface, with large view for the source and preview video at top left and right. The interface is still highly customizable, and you can even switch back to its previous layout and add and remove buttons to taste.”
“Clips can now be skimmed through with the cursor, a la Apple’s iMovie, and you can mark rough in and out edits right in the clip thumbnails,” explains the article. “Markers also get more power, with color coding; comments and durations can now be assigned to them, as well. A new trim mode shows both the outgoing and incoming frames, and there’s lots more keyboard shortcut support (10 assignable) for trims and trim modes. Effects can now be applied to multiple clips using layers and masks, not unlike in Photoshop.”
At NAB, Dolby 3D, a glasses-free display standard, was being shown on a smartphone, tablet, and a prototype 4K 56-inch display.
Interestingly, viewers can adjust the 3D depth to suit their preferences. While side viewing is possible, the 3D effect is most pronounced when viewing near the center.
“Best known for its audio technologies, the company just launched its own 3D standard in cooperation with Philips, called Dolby 3D,” reports Engadget. “The platform-agnostic solution is far from ready to make its way into your living room, but it’s conceptually sound, and the prototype 4K 3D TV and mobile versions being demonstrated at Dolby’s NAB booth make us hopeful for the future.”
“As with all displays — especially those that support 3D — you’ll really need to see to believe, but we had an opportunity to do just that, and walked away very impressed,” comments Engadget.
The post includes a 3-minute video report from the show floor.
Google announced its new Brand Activate initiative for advertising at the Ad Age Digital Conference on Wednesday.
As part of the initiative, two new services rolled out for advertisers this week: Active View and Active GRP.
Active View will measure how long an ad remains on a user’s screen and how much of it is viewed. “If at least 50 percent of it is viewable for at least one second it’s counted as an viewed impression,” explains Engadget. “Active View is something that Google hopes will become a standard for all online advertising.”
In a related report, Yahoo! News describes Active GRP as “the online equivalent of the Gross Rating Point, a metric used by the television industry to estimate how many people saw a given ad. Active GRP is a digital version that will calculate the reach and frequency of a campaign, but — unlike standard GRPs — lets advertisers react in real time. (Hence the ‘active.’)”
The post includes a 2-minute video from Google outlining the initiative.