VideoNuze Posts

Brightcove announced this morning that it is acquiring Unicorn Media for approximately $49 million, a savvy move to expand into cloud-based video ad insertion, which is particularly beneficial for mobile devices.

Unicorn has differentiated itself by enabling content providers to dynamically insert ads in the cloud, rather than in the video player. By "stitching" ads in the cloud, Unicorn obviates some of the major issues in video ad insertion today, including delays and buffering caused by the video player switching between content and ad playback. These diminish the user experience, in turn causing abandonment which hurts overall consumption and monetization.

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Judging by the pre-show buzz, the main focus at this year's CES (which kicks off next Tuesday) will be on Ultra High-Definition TV, or "4K" TV. If this seems familiar, it's because UHDTVs were the main focus of last year's CES as well. Clearly TV manufacturers have settled on UHDTV as the next "big thing" to motivate consumers to upgrade. However, in 2013, UHDTV's high prices, impractically large screen sizes and lack of 4K content led to extremely limited adoption in the U.S. So the question is: will UHDTVs find better success in the U.S. in 2014?

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Happy New Year and welcome to 2014!

Perhaps the biggest sleeper hit of 2013 was Google's Chromecast. Launched cautiously and with little fanfare, momentum built in Q4 with a slew of new apps integrating the 'casting' feature. Since its launch, it has been the top-selling electronics item on Amazon. Not surprisingly, Google has big plans for Chromecast in 2014, including the debut of its software development kit (SDK) along with an aggressive  international expansion, both certain to broaden consumer adoption.

Chromecast's big difference vs. all other connected TV devices is that it is almost 100% dependent on mobile devices in order to deliver its full value proposition to consumers (of course Chromecast would still work if you only had a computer using the Chrome browser, but it would far less appealing). In other words, Chromecast isn't just another connected TV device for viewing Netflix, Hulu and other OTT content on the TV, rather, it's more of a platform for bringing mobile's capabilities into the living room.

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I'm going to take some time off over the next week to relax and re-charge my batteries, so this will be the last post of 2013, assuming no big story breaks.

It has been another whirlwind year in online video as all the major trends continued to gain momentum. Nonetheless, there are still plenty of unknowns, as consumer behaviors and key technologies rapidly evolve. At VideoNuze we do our best to understand the fast-moving video landscape and connect the dots for our readers. The goal is to break through the hype help readers really get a better handle on what's going on.

This is also a key goal of our events, the June Online Video Advertising Summit and the December VideoSchmooze, as well as the weekly VideoNuze/nScreenMedia podcasts. Our recently launched sister site VideoNuze iQ, analyzes and curates industry research/data, to provide additional insights.

However you access VideoNuze content, I hope it adds value to your understanding of the video industry. I know you have lots of choices for how to stay informed, so I'd like to thank you for spending time with VideoNuze. These are fascinating times we're all living through and I hope VideoNuze is an essential guide.

I'd also like to say a big thank you to all of VideoNuze's sponsors in 2013. None of this would be possible without their ongoing support, which I very much appreciate.

I wish you and your families a happy, healthy holiday season and all the best in 2014!

In the session "Is TV Everywhere Finally Breaking Through?" at the recent VideoSchmooze, industry executives discussed an important long-term objective for the pay-TV industry: turning TV Everywhere into TV, Everywhere. The insertion of that little comma would convert a key industry initiative into a practical, compelling and ubiquitous consumer experience.

For device-happy consumers, what's not to love about the idea of being able to watch all kinds of TV programming (sports, news entertainment, etc.) in any format (live, linear or on-demand), inside or outside their homes whenever they want?

But getting to that eventual goal involves resolving a lot of sticky business and technical challenges. In the wide-ranging panel discussion, our participants Michael Bishara (Synacor), John Harran (Turner), Marty Roberts (thePlatform), John Woods (Mediacom) and Colin Dixon (nScreenMedia and moderator) did a great job of sorting through all of the issues and articulating the opportunities.

For anyone interested in TV Everywhere, it's a highly informative 47 minutes. The video is below.

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I'm pleased to present the 208th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

This will be the final podcast of 2013 and today we share our top 10 online video stories of the year. With so much happening this year, Colin and I actually had a pretty challenging time narrowing the list to just 10, so we included a few honorable mentions as well. We welcome thoughts from our listeners whether you agree or disagree, or if we missed something really critical.

In our first podcast of 2014 we'll look ahead and share our top trends for the year.

In the meantime, we'd like to thank all of our listeners for tuning in each week. We wish you a very happy holidays!

Listen in to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (32 minutes, 22 seconds - sorry, for running long, lots of content this week.)

Click here for previous podcasts

Click here to add the podcast feed to your RSS reader.

The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!

Last Thursday I wrote about how the various connected TV devices are jostling for content deals, creating headaches for content providers and confusion for buyers. Following up that post, yesterday I highlighted holiday deals on Smart TVs which themselves are competing for attention with connected TV devices.

Now, to put a capstone on the discussion, I'm pleased to share a handy infographic that the good folks at Shelby.tv have created, comparing and contrasting 4 of the hottest and most affordable connected TV devices, Apple TV ($99), Chromecast ($35), Roku 3 ($100) and Roku LT ($50). The infographic summarizes key features of each, what content is available (with a nice Venn diagram showing overlaps), capabilities to watch from mobile devices and the web, key drawbacks to each, and which might be most appropriate as a gift this season.

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As online video adoption and longer-form viewing have grown, consumers have become increasingly interested in moving the experience to their TVs. This trend has certainly helped to drive interest in connected TV devices (e.g. Apple TV, Roku, Chromecast, etc.). But even as these devices have proliferated, TV manufacturers have promoted Smart TVs, which connect to the Internet and generally offer a handful of pre-integrated apps, most prominently Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, Pandora and others.

Since connected TV devices are relatively cheap (Chromecast set a new low in 2013 at $35) and are easy to install, no longer must consumers be required to buy a whole new TV simply because they want to stream Netflix, for example. No doubt, this dynamic - combined with the saturation of HDTVs and the adoption of mobile devices for viewing video - all contribute to global TV sales being down in 2013 for the second year in a row, the first time this has ever happened.

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