September 24th Addendum to the Viodi View

What was shown? – Or ‘How much CAN you get in a 2 lb bag…?’

So we see a strong technology push in the compression environment, video-over-IP and video delivery in its many forms. Server technology has become a commodity and is driving the ‘cost-per-stream’ down fast. Compression coders and decoders (hardware and software based) were in abundance. This is a positive spin off from standardization – many brains are working along similar paths driving quality up and cost down.

This is the first year where the carriage of video within IP environments was positively showcased and had some acceptance. In Europe there is still a large faction who is untrusting of the technology and the concept. However industry initiatives to form standards and best-practices, and to improve reliability, e.g. adding Forward Error Correction, added to some well documented success stories, has produced significant progress.

Along with this ‘hardware’ focus a huge amount of effort was shown in software development aimed at content handling and archiving, metadata control and digital rights management. I also went to the launch of the European arm of G-SAM, the Global Society for Asset Management -http://www.g-sam.org. Not a standards group, this body - heavily supported by industry leaders and customers – seeks to drive industry practices in Digital Asset Management. I have a gut feeling that Independent Telcos will have some needs in this area in the future.

VOD and interactive TV vendors were out in force. I had not seen a GPRS modem used as a return channel before (I probably just missed it) but in Europe everything gets used. The USA seems to see VOD as the Holy Grail, but in Europe games, interactive advertising, voting, gambling and other ‘short-form’ interaction are the rage. Some interesting papers on the successes (and failures) of major ad campaigns and the acceptance of platforms such as Sky Interactive, may be of use in giving new ideas and direction to the Independent Telcos as they roll out more interactive platforms.

Now for my Nostradamus Impression!

Click here to continue article

???Questions/Suggestions!!!