VideoNuze Posts

I'm pleased to present the 194th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. First up this week we discuss CBS CEO Leslie Moonves' remarks on CNBC essentially declaring victory in the company's retrans dispute with Time Warner Cable because it had preserved its ability to license its programs to Netflix and Amazon. Listeners will recall that 3 weeks ago on the podcast we talked about how OTT licensing was at the heart of the dispute and the consequences for TV Everywhere.

Next we transition to questioning whether there's any real benefit for TV networks and pay-TV operators to stream linear channels to connected TVs. Colin observes that recent data from the BBC indicating very low levels of linear streaming on connected TVs appears to question the value of the Disney-Apple TV and Time Warner Cable-Xbox 360 deals. We speculate that these are mainly meant for 2nd or 3rd TVs that don't have pay-TV set-top boxes.

Last, we chat briefly about the massive 3-part series that the NY Times ran just before Labor Day on ESPN's dominant role in college football - a long, but fascinating read. As I wrote, it's well worth the time for anyone interested in the influence of big time TV money not only on college sports but also on the broader American higher education system.

Click here to listen to the podcast (17 minutes, 41 seconds)

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In a big win for the company, Jinni has been selected by Microsoft to help power video content discovery solutions on Xbox. Jinni categorizes TV shows and movies using its "Entertainment Genome" project which assigns metadata such as mood, style and plot to each title. In the Xbox implementation, these will be combined with Xbox signals such as viewing history, to build and present content recommendations to users. The deal is for a multi-year period, suggesting Jinni will be a part of Xbox One, launching in November. Microsoft is positioning Xbox One equally as an entertainment device and gaming console.

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Taboola, which now serves 3 billion video and article recommendations per day across a wide network of publisher sites, is unveiling "Taboola Choice" this morning. Taboola Choice allows users to proactively filter out unwanted video and article recommendations, so that these will not be seen on any publisher sites which are subsequently visited. By adding this feedback loop, Taboola's recommendations become more precise over time, resulting in a better user experience and more efficiency for both content providers and publishers.

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(Note: below is information about Future of TV Forum, for which VideoNuze is a media partner. VideoNuze readers receive a 20% registration discount.)

Digital Media Wire’s 11th annual Future of Television Forum (FOTV) returns to New York City on September 18. This one-day event, held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, is packed with cutting-edge content and networking opportunities, including 10 panels, 3 roundtables, a keynote conversation and start-up/investor pitch sessions. The keynote speaker for the event is NBC News' Chief Digital Officer Vivian Schiller. Schiller, formerly president and CEO of National Public Radio, takes the speaker spotlight in the morning session alongside interviewer, Mike Vorhaus, President of Magid Advisors.

Other headliners at this year's FOTV include Anthony Wood (CEO & Founder, Roku), Laura Rowley (VP, Video Production and Product, Meredith National Media Group) and Joan Gillman (EVP & COO, Media Services, Time Warner Cable), along with top executives from Showtime, AMC Networks, Innovid, YuMe, Civolution, Hearst Television, Electus, GetGlue, TiVo, and more.

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TV Everywhere is the pay-TV industry's most important strategic priority to combat OTT viewing and enhance the value of expensive monthly subscriptions. In my view, a pretty good proxy for how TV Everywhere adoption is going is subscriber usage of pay-TV operators' tablet apps. According to a new report from Digitalsmiths, there is both good news and bad news on this: usage is increasing, but it remains at a nominal level.

The Digitalsmiths Q2 2013 Video Discovery Trends Report, based on 1,850 adult respondents, shows that of the 29.5% of respondents who say they own a tablet, just 23.8% have downloaded their pay-TV operator's app. Over half (52.4%) don't even know whether their pay-TV operator offers an app. In a bit of good news though, 42.9% of those who have downloaded their pay-TV operator's app say they use the app at least once per week. Indexing to 100 respondents, this would mean approximately 3 respondents, or 3%, use their pay-TV operator's app at least once per week.

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I'm pleased to present the 193rd edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This week Colin and I discuss our experiences with Chromecast, adding details to our respective previous posts (here and here), as well as our initial podcast from a few weeks ago just after the device was announced.

Overall, we're both very positive about Chromecast. Among other things, we like the easy set-up, the "tab-casting" feature, and of course, the low price of $35. We both believe it is hugely strategic for YouTube and other video providers who are outside the pay-TV universe to gain access to the living room. Colin has had a few issues with Netflix crashing his Nexus 4 when trying to use Chromecast (though when it has worked the quality has been strong) and he has had trouble using Chromecast's capability of turning the TV on and off.

I haven't had any problems using Netflix, though the streaming quality feels slightly lower than when I watch on my iPad or via my connected Blu-ray player. I did have problems with Chromecast when trying to watch golf and suspect it would be difficult to watch faster-action sports.

Still, we're both impressed and believe Google deserves lots of credit. We're both expecting big things from Chromecast this holiday season.

On a closing note, we'd like to thank all of you for listening to our weekly podcasts. It's been an incredibly busy summer for online video and we both believe the best is yet to come. For those of you with a long Labor Day weekend ahead, enjoy, and we'll see you in September!


Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 16 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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

Startup Cognitive Networks has announced that its Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology has been integrated by LG, making it the first big Smart TV manufacturer to deliver "enhanced TV" experiences.

As Michael Collette, CEO of Cognitive explained to me in a recent briefing, the company makes Smart TVs aware of what content is being displayed on screen instead of being "blind" as they currently are. Cognitive's ACR works by packaging pixel map information from the screen and sending it to the cloud where it is compared to an index of known fingerprints. The resulting data is fed in real time via Cognitive's "ENGAGE" API back to the Smart TV so that app providers can provide interactive experiences to viewers.

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I've been happily using my Chromecast both at home and on the road for 3 weeks now. Chromecast is not quite perfect, but it's an exemplary first version and no doubt destined to get even better. I think there are at least 6 things Google really got right with the device, as follows:

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