Video Breakthroughs

Swedish pay TV provider Viaplay has become one of Europe’s first to offer a full hybrid service combining digital terrestrial with OTT.

The operator, which is part of the Swedish media company MTG (Modern Times Group), has teamed up with French set top box maker Netgem to develop a dedicated Viaplay box. This delivers a range of free to air terrestrial channels combined with paid premium content delivered over-the-top (OTT). Viaplay says this is the first time a pay-tv operator in the Nordics has combined adaptive bitrate streaming technology and free-to-air digital terrestrial TV in one single channel list with seamless channel change.

There is a growing effort by broadcasters to make regular TV content available online. For example, the BBC has developed the BBC iPlayer and the bbc.co.uk website to support replication of most BBC broadcast material. The service has been outstandingly successful: 79.3 million requests were serviced in October 2009. NBC coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics included live and recently recorded content, complete with commercials.

Whenever there is the possibility of a large or dynamic viewer audience, a reliable CDN is required. CDNs once only used to replicate website content around the world. Now, they have expanded dramatically to handle streaming media. Research and markets estimated the value of CDN services for 2008 at $1.25 billion, up 32 percent from 2007. Top CDNs include Akamai, Mirror Image Internet, Limelight Networks, CDNetworks and Level 3. Streaming media services must deal with content collected from disparate sources and distributed to a growing number of devices.

Last fall, premium video-on-demand (PVOD) appeared to be a short-lived studio experiment that gained little traction among consumers — crashing infamously with the release of Universal Pictures’ action-comedy Tower Heist. Now that window could be re-opening, albeit with a few significant tweaks.

Nomura Securities analyst Michael Nathanson contends PVOD could make a comeback with better marketing and a greater value proposition to the consumer. The analyst said improved marketing, lower prices, better title selection and, more importantly, implementing rev-share agreements with theater operators could produce a renaissance for the nascent window.

Cinedigm Digital Cinema Corp. in May signed a license deal with Prima Cinema, which operates a business platform that can deliver secured theatrical releases with “better than Blu-ray” resolution — including 3D — into home theater systems. Cinedigm CEO Chris McGurk said the Prima license agreement allows the company to alter distribution windows for its library of independent films, documentaries and other premium specialty content.