Viodi View - July 6th, 2005 Issue

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In this on-line publication, we share our analysis, opinions and direction on the interactive television news and views that we believe will be of interest and use to our friends associated directly or indirectly with independent telephone companies. For more information as to the various ways Viodi works with independent telephone companies, please go to http://www.viodi.com/alliance/

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Viodi View Newsletter - July 6th , 2005

Indie Telco Local Content Workshop Advertisement

There is nothing like the rain in Spain, except, maybe the sun in Barcelona. I had the good fortune of participating in C-Cor’s 1st Annual, IP Global Summit in Barcelona last week. This could be considered a coming out party of sorts for this 50 plus year old company that has transformed itself in the last few years with purchases of cutting edge technology companies such as Lantern Communications, Alopa Networks and nCube.

What was impressive was how little this conference was about C-Cor, but was truly about the issues facing operators as they struggle to gain and retain subscribers. As such, there were an array of sponsors, including Harmonic, Intermec, Kasenna, Lucent Technologies, Sun Microsystems and Terayon that were represented in the exhibition area. The list of speakers was equally impressive and included Dave Fellows, CTO of Comcast, Tony Werner, CTO of Liberty Media and Mike Fries, President and CEO of United Globalcom.

...And Content Is Still King

I was particularly honored and a bit overwhelmed to be added to a panel, ….and Content Is Still King. This panel was moderated by SCTE President & CEO, John Clark and included John Varney, CTO of the BBC, Hassan Miah, Managing Director of Media & Entertainment, Intel Capital and Mark Cutten, Principal of Accord Media. If there was one theme of the panel, it was that content is, indeed, still king, but technology is content’s queen. Click here to read the rest of my notes from this hour and a half panel.

Prior to flying to Barcelona, I had been preparing for a panel on the topic of Network Personal Video Recorders. Scott Higgins of C-Cor moderated this panel which also included Mark Gray of Kasenna, Nimrod Ben-Natan of Harmonic, Eduardo Belda of Spanish operator, ONO. The key take-away from these speakers is that the “killer application” of the Network PVR feature is the pause button.

Survey Says – Independent Telcos Want NPVRs, But Concerns Are Many

I have to thank my telco friends for helping me prepare for the Network PVR panel. The insight provided in their responses to the fifteen-plus questions from the survey I had sent in Mid-June proved to be very valuable. I spent quite a bit of time analyzing and summarizing the data and have made it available in the report, Network PVRs from the Perspective of the Independent Telco. This report also includes a summary of the insight provided by the panelists on the Network PVR panel. Send an email to npvr@viodi.com if you are interested in purchasing a copy of this report.

Strangely enough, Google could be the organization that makes the Network PVR a reality. They are actively indexing off-air, broadcast programming. They provide still shots and synopses of off-air programming. If they can get the licensing issues worked out, which is no small task, they could create an IPVR – Internet Personal Video Recorder.

Google Video Works – Kind of – Check It Out Here

Clearly, they have some work to do with their video storage service, as they have recently had to remove content that violated copyrights [especially critical given the MGM vs. Grokster ruling last week]. Still, they are going in the right direction as evidenced by their new MPEG-4 player. Check it out at by clicking here and you can see a video I uploaded to their web site a few months ago (note you may need to download Google's Video player to view).

Goggle recommends that people submitting videos add transcripts (they recommend a transcript service) to make the videos searchable. AOL has done one better by adding technology from OnMedia that automatically creates such a transcript for a video. The big question is whether Google’s approach will scale in such a way that a human intervention won’t be required to scan every piece of user-uploaded content. For instance, I am still waiting for Google to approve a second video that I uploaded over two months ago.

Akimbo – The Vonage of Video over IP?

The Google effort points to the increasing emphasis on “Internet TV”. Akimbo has established itself as the brand most associated with Internet TV and has the opportunity to become the Vonage of Video over IP. I had a chance to visit Akimbo’s San Mateo facility recently and came away impressed. There have been some recent less than stellar reviews of the service, but I think it is too early to discount Akimbo’s approach and their current and future service.

Josh Goldman, their CEO, reports that they have over 2,000 hours of content and are adding over 500 hours of content per month. They have developed a service that will be portable to the encoding technology and set-top. Additionally, the service could provide niche content networks with an inexpensive distribution alternative to satellite. Akimbo is adding some interesting Internet-based video channels (otherwise known as videoblogs), such as Rocketboom, a free, daily video news show that lives only on the Internet.

My Switch Back to Comcast:

A little over two years ago, a nice, slightly frail man named Al sold my wife and I on the benefits of moving to Dish from Comcast, as documented here in the Viodi View. So, how did a contractor working for Comcast convince me to switch back to the Comcast service this past weekend? Click here to read what drove me to change service and why my switch could portend tougher competitive times for service providers of all stripes [must be a club viodi member to view].

Some Upcoming Events:

The date for the Interactive Television Alliance’s Reinventing Television Summit has been moved to August 17th to 19th. It will still be held in Long Beach on the historic Queen Mary. Indicate you are a Viodi View reader and receive a registration discount. Tickets are limited, so contact them soon.

Parks and Associates is holding their Experts Analyze the Digital Living Room Landscape Workshop in San Jose in a little over a week. The Parks and Associates events are always good ones for networking and receiving objective data on the state of the market. This workshop will focus on all aspects distributing content around the home, from the role of the service provider to the impact of digital rights management to set-top and storage implications.

Krazy Ken’s Korner – A Brief Barcelona Travelogue

Spain was my first choice of travel destination when I went took my one and only solo vacation. Given the time constraints of a seven day trip, I instead opted for Costa Rica. Thus, I was extremely excited to have the opportunity to visit Barcelona some ten years later. Click here to see a 40 second MPEG-4 video overview of my visit.

With brown hills as a backdrop, the sea at its porch and snow skiing only a few hours away, Barcelona has the feel of California. Of course, California does not have structures from the middle ages, like the nearly 400 year old Castell de Montjuïc. Looking at some of Antoni Gaudi’s architecture/artwork, however, I was reminded of San Jose’s very own Winchester Mystery house. Still, Barcelona is a modern city as evidenced by their very efficient metro system and modern infrastructure symbolized by the structures created for the 1992 Olympics.

Of course the nightlife of Barcelona is world renown. Dinner starts at 10 PM and people are routinely out until the wee hours of the morning. On the last night of my tour and in klassic krazy Ken fashion, I partook in these festivities by worming myself into an evening of food and dance with a group of cable dignitaries.

Pictured from Left to Right

Lee Clayton, Maggie Bellville, Steve Santamaria, Leslie Ellis, Tammy Smith

The food was authentic and the performance by the Flamenco dancers was emotional and amazing. The best part of the experience, however, was being able to share it with such a great group of people.

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