Future In Focus

Build Streaming Solutions for Tomorrow, Today

Ask the folks at any web startup or any technology company that offers a cloud-based service, and they will tell you they play the “What happens if?” game all the time. What happens if one of our major data centers goes dark? What happens if network operators throttle bandwidth? What

Read More »

Who Will Define ‘TV’?

When broadcast television entered consumers’ lives in the mid- to late 1930s, it was very limited. There were only a few channels, with limited range, and even more limited content (sometimes just still pictures). Yet as television grew in both scope and popularity, content followed. Soon the airwaves were filled

Read More »

Not All Content (or Devices) Are Created Equal

If broadcast television taught us one thing about video content, it’s this: one size fits all. Whether you are watching from a television set, with a set-top box, or from a mobile phone that has HBBtv or DVB-H (or, now, ATSC 3.0) capabilities, it doesn’t matter. It’s the same signal.

Read More »

TV 2.0: The Future Isn’t About Delivery, It’s About Experience

When we talk shop in the video industry, whether we are from old-world broadcast or new-world over-the-internet, we often categorize video one of two ways: linear or OTT. For many, linear is video that’s delivered by traditional broadcasters according to a schedule determined by the programmers and accessible by an

Read More »

Taming the Many-Headed Problem of Video Content Discovery

Let’s face it: The OTT landscape is becoming increasingly fragmented. The promise was that consumers could create skinny bundles of content they wanted (from across providers) in order to replace endless channels in a traditional cable operator’s electronic programming guide (EPG). The reality has become a siloed monster, as brands

Read More »

OTT Falls Into the Same Trap as Cable

Choice can be a great thing when you can choose Dodge over Ford, chocolate over vanilla, or pizza over a burrito. But what happens when there is too much choice? Just check out Amazon. If you search for “TV Wall Mount,” there are more than 7,000 results. At that point,

Read More »

Rampant Piracy Is the Elephant in the Live-Streaming Room

There’s no doubt that live streaming is one of the next frontiers in the online video landscape—right behind artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain. OK, I’m being a little sarcastic, but it’s true that everyone is talking about offering live linear events over the internet. Unfortunately, as of late, the industry

Read More »

Can AI Make the Streaming Video Experience Even Better Than TV?

No, Skynet is not preparing to wipe out humanity anytime soon, but artificial intelligence (AI), along with its cousin machine learning (ML), are starting to make waves in industries across the globe. From alerting physicians to potential, harmful pharmaceutical interactions to handling customer service inquiries to powering self-driving cars, AI is re-imagining

Read More »

Virtual Reality Development Is Moving in the Wrong Direction

I recently had the pleasure of sitting on a panel at Light Reading’s 2018 Big Communications Event in Austin, Texas. My fellow panelists, Arianne Hinds, Ph.D. (principal architect, video and standards strategy at CableLabs), and Ozgur Oyman, Ph.D. (from Intel and a board member of the VR Industry Forum group), provided a

Read More »

Hey, European Mobile Operators: What About Streaming Video?

I recently returned from GSMA’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, and was disappointed by the complete lack of vendors and messaging to address streaming video. None of the operator booths had sections set up to talk about streaming, or video delivery, or solving network congestion to ensure a great end-user video

Read More »
Scroll to Top