Consumers get demanding about their content
We live in a “right here, right now” society. We want connectivity at our fingertips, access to the latest news feeds any time of the day, and up-to-the-minute email. But during our busy days we often miss our favorite television shows. We want our favorite shows and movies right here, right now. No commercials, either. Those waste our time.
Quite simply: We are demanding Video on Demand.
Video on Demand (VOD) allows us to select and watch content on demand, during whatever time fits our schedule. The majority of cable- and telco- and even satellite-based television providers offer both VOD streaming, such as Pay-Per-View (PPV) whereby a user buys or selects a movie or television program and it begins to play on the television set immediately, or downloading to a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) rented from the provider for viewing in the future.
This isn’t news of course – but as the saying goes, the numbers don’t lie.
ABI Research issued a recent study claiming that “the number of people who watch online video will top 1 billion in the next five years.” The study gives credit to the increase of broadband globally along with Internet video power houses like YouTube.
There are some great websites emerging on the market that have encouraged our ‘immediate’ lifestyle, too.
Take for example popular sites like Hulu and Joost. They are user friendly and provide the latest and greatest of prime time TV. Did you miss last week’s House because you were in the office until 8? Or, did you miss your beloved season finale of 30 Rock because traffic on the freeway was horrendous? Don’t worry about it! Just hop online when you get home and catch up!
Though the Internet is handy when you’re in front of your computer, you also want to sit back and relax on the sofa and actually enjoy that new flat screen you spent last month’s paycheck on. You had better have VOD at home.
What most don’t know is the behind the scenes work that goes into successfully deploying VOD to the “gimme gimme right now” crowd (That’s me!) at home. The struggle for carriers is to deliver the maximum amount of VOD without eating up bandwidth or impacting picture quality. Nothing is more infuriating, say, than when sound goes out during a pivotal scene.
And with the arms race growing between cable, telecom and satellite service providers to offer more of these personalized services while competing with the Internet, the demand (pun intended) is on for creative solutions aimed specifically for VOD.
Companies such as RGB Networks are continually developing these exact solutions. Take for example the Dynamic Bandwidth Manager (DBM) which combines unprecedented stream processing density (1,200 streams) with real-time operation and low-latency, enabling service providers to deliver 50% more programming on their existing network – without costly network re-architecture or upgrades, and without affecting picture quality or VOD’s ‘trick play’ functions (pause, fast forward, rewind). Yahtzee!
I’d just like to take this time to thank the good folks who continually invent and engineer products that, even though I never see, definitely make my home viewing experience more enjoyable. Because as much as I love to watch a quick episode of Friends on my laptop, nothing beats lounging in front of the big screen and relishing in the latest Pay-Per-View movie.
October 7th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
[...] mentioned in previous posts that I think lounging on the couch and watching your favorite recorded show on an actual television [...]