What's in Store for TV in 2014
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www.csimagazine.com january/february 2014 New horizons: What’s in store What’sinstore horizons: New for TVfor in2014 ? Á la carte TV Cloud UIs Digital lockers and TV White UltraViolet Spaces While their eyes are on your content ours are on your future. Crafted by a global team of It’s a mission that’s led us to To find out how we’re driving televisionaries, Piksel’s solutions deliver award-winning online more reach and return from video, help the world’s content owners, video services and second-screen visit us at TV Connect, London, broadcasters, and media viewing applications for some 18th-20th March, businesses make the transition of the biggest names in TV and Stand 201. Or visit from traditional broadcast to telecommunications. Now, we’re www.piksel.com/TVConnect2014 multi-screen internet TV. set to take things to the next level. and request a demo. piksel.com Untitled-3 1 14/02/2014 14:39:50 Contents 26 Digital lockers UltraViolet is becoming more successful but more work is needed as it sweeps across Europe Editor Goran Nastic 30 Viewpoint: TV Anywhere in Europe TVE apps present many challenges but there is much Commercial manager to be gained by removing unnecessary restrictions Tiro Bestonso 12 Analyst corner Is there a secret to succeeding with YouTube original Design and production Matt Mills (Manager) channels? Guy Bisson at IHS provides some analysis 32 Spectrum access We look at upcoming TV White Space trials and ask Jason Tucker what impact they might have on the spectrum debate Matleena Lilja-Pelling 14 la carte TV Keem Chung With OTT on the rise, will we see a loosening of Regular contributors current channel bundling strategies? 44 CSI Awards All the details on this year’s awards, including two new Adrian Pennington, Philip Hunter, David Adams, Stephen Cousins, categories 18 Cloud UIs Anna Tobin As Ziggo blazes the early trail, cloud UIs are coming, Circulation but are not yet right for every operator 47 Show diary Joel Whitefoot (Manager) Details of all the major events taking place in 2014 22 COVER STORY – 2014 trends Accounts Marilou Tait, Lynta Kamaray Our predictions of what we can expect to happen in 50 CSI conference the industry over the next 12 months An inside look at our May Converging Home Summit Editorial tel +44(0)20 7562 2401 [email protected] Editor’s report: Advertising The year has gone off to an exciting start with Vodafone and Liberty Global slugging it out tel +44(0)20 7562 2427 fax +44(0)20 7374 2701 for what remains of the European fixed-line networks land grab. Vodafone has gone on [email protected] record as saying it has a war chest of $30-$40bn for further M&As and that no deal was too big in terms of future buy-outs. Liberty, for its part, has made no secret of its desire to fur- Subscriptions ther consolidate the European cable market. Across the pond, Comcast and Time Warner tel +44 (0) 20 1635 588 861 [email protected] Cable, the two largest cablenets in the US, have agreed to merge in a $44bn deal. All these ambitions Circulation manager: joel.whitefoot@ reflect a converging telecoms landscape and the significance that broadband networks will assume as perspectivepublishing.com more and more video makes its way onto them. So consolidation and OTT (and by extension cloud and multi-screen) will continue as big industry trends in 2014. In this iissue, we also have viewpoints on the Subscription rates battle for the digital living room and the role of IP in sports contribution. Goran Nastic, editor Per year: Europe £88; UK £68; Rest of World £98. Cheques payable to Perspective Publishing Managing Director Perspective Publishing Limited and 3 London Wall Buildings John Woods addressed to the Circulation London Publishing Director Department EC2M 5PD Mark Evans www.perspectivepublishing.com ISSN 1467-5935 Printed by Buxton Press Complexity? It’s simple. VB288 OBJECTIVE QoE CONTENT EXTRACTOR performs objective video and audio monitoring of MPEG-2, h.264/MPEG-4 and h.265/HEVC streams. The VB288 also offers a unique Remote Video Wall capability for total system visibility. www.bridgetech.tv FROM THE STUDIOS TO THE HOME ULTRA HD SOLUTIONS Delivering the best image quality and performances from the studios to the home HEVC Set-top Box Learn more on www.technicolor.com/uhd Untitled-8 1 22/08/2013 14:57:00 News More Euro cable consolidation ahead news in brief Liberty Global’s apparently insatiable potential acquisition target for the BT adds download-to-keep appetite for expansion has set the UK-based company. Vodafone now BT claims it has become the first scene yet again for another year of owns Kabel Deutschland and it pay-TV provider in the UK to telecoms and cable M&As in Europe. might not be a surprise for Liberty offer movies to buy-to-keep as The pan-European cable operator to swoop over Numericable just as well as rent via its YouView box. finally got its prey after circling over it did over Virgin Media. The M&A Titles are available from 20th Dutch cable operator Ziggo for battles will almost certainly Century Fox Home almost a year in a deal that values continue in 2014, although there Entertainment and Sony Pictures Ziggo at EUR10 billion. Together aren’t too many more large Home Entertainment, along with with UPC, another Liberty-owned opportunities left in the service a selection of new and old films, cablenet, the merged company will CEO Mike Fries has long been provider space in Euorpe. The such as Captain Phillips and the reach seven million people or about arguing that Europe’s cable Nordics would seem to be the last Alien franchise. Prices start from 90 per cent of Dutch homes to better companies need to unit to better bastion and a good bet for any £8.99 for HD and £5.99 for SD challenge incumbent KPN. fight the telcos. There are an further activity. versions. Movies bought from BT The deal also expands Liberty’s estimated 7,000 cable networks in On the vendor front, Pace needs are streamed instantly to the already significant European cable Europe but most are very small and to plug the compression hole of its customer’s YouView set-top box footprint. Liberty has been driving the overall cable revenues pale end-to-end portfolio to compete and they can keep them consolidation of the European cable compared to those of the large state- with the likes of Ericsson, Cisco indefinitely and watch them as market for some time now in order to backed telecoms operators. and Arris, so an encoding specialist many times as they like. The telco profit from rising demand for In Spain, Vodafone is in talks to may well be on the cards for the intends to expand the service to broadband and the economies of acquire Ono while analysts also see UK company this year (it has 30 or include TV box sets over the scale such consolidation creates. French Numericable as another so suppliers to choose from). coming months. Encode/Transcode with Exceptional Video Quality Encoding/Transcoding for IPTV, OTT & Traditional Video Delivery • SD/HD MPEG-2 H.264 • Best in class CODEC • Inherently oriented to adaptive streaming • Simplified, cost-effective license structure • No output stream licensing • EMS • Cluster management Patent Pending • Redundancy • GUI/SNMP • Open API Cost-effective. Simplified. Flexible. +49-17-1998-3676 [email protected] +972-52-3328590 [email protected] www.atxnetworks.com/VersAtive_e News news in brief EU probe looks at payTV movie rights Google sells Moto Mobility The European Union has opened an of sports events and incorporate quoted as saying. Having offloaded the Motorola investigation into licensing satellite as well as internet-based The precedent is not entirely new. home business to Arris last year, agreements between major US film distribution, Reuters said, adding Back in 2001, the European Court Google is now disposing of studios and European pay-TV that the body was not looking to Of Justice in Luxembourg ruled that Motorola Mobility although broadcasters that may aim to remove force studios to sell rights on a pan- selling movie and TV rights country- keeping most of the patents. some of the territorial restrictions European basis but rather look at by-country goes against the spirit of Chinese manufacturer Lenovo that currently exist with film restrictions that prevented pay-TV the single European market. It has agreed to acquire the handset content. firms from selling content to viewers followed a case where an English pub business in a $2.91bn deal that A report in Reuters suggests that in EU member states outside their landlady won against BSkyB and the includes the Motorola brand and the anti-trust probe by the home market. Premier League after they tried Motorola Mobility’s portfolio of European Commission will focus “If you subscribe to a pay-TV stopping her from showing football smartphones. Google will on the big 5 studios - Twenty-First service in Germany and you go to matches on her premises using a maintain ownership of the vast Century Fox, Warner Bros, Sony Italy for holidays, you may not be Greek pay-TV decoder card. Any majority of the Motorola Mobility Pictures, NBCUniversal and able to view the films offered by that moves in this direction however will patent portfolio, the main reason Paramount Pictures - and large pay- service from your laptop during your have massive implications on the why it bought Motorola in the TV broadcasters including BSkyB, holidays.