From The Online Reporter
- Watch TV While Using a Tablet to View Content’s Metadata,
Search & Share
- Works with Most Existing STBs, iPad & Android Tablets
- New Converged MediaEncore STBs Let Pay-TV Companies Offer
OTT & Local Content
Smart TVs, Blu-ray players and media adapters have led pay-TV
subscribers to increase the amount of Web-based content they
watch on their TV set, tablet and smartphone, even if it’s
only Netflix and YouTube and renting the occasional flick from
Amazon on Demand. The time they spend watching pay-TV
declines, and sooner or later in these financially troubling
times, they question why they pay upwards of $100 per month or
more for pay-TV.
Pay-TV companies know the score when it comes to the potential
for losing subscribers to the allure of OTT content. STB maker
Technicolor has developed a three-part strategy to help reduce
their loss of subscribers by allowing pay-TV companies to
offer Web-based content, services and features that consumers
want and in a controlled environment. Technicolor describes it
as simple, seamless and social.
MediaNavi Content Platform Accesses Pay-TV, OTT & Personal
Media
Demonstrated publicly for the first time at CES, Technicolor’s
cloud-based, multi-screen MediaNavi platform lets pay-TV
companies offer users the ability to discover and access
content on their pay-TV service, online video services like
Netflix and YouTube plus locally stored media.
A major bonus for the pay-TV services is that MediaNavi works
with most existing pay-TV set-top boxes so they do not have a
costly and time consuming field upgrade.
The pay-TV services control MediaNavi and the Web sites and
services that their subscribers can access. It’ll be
interesting to see how far they go in making online content
sites available. Technicolor says it is “business-rules
driven” and creates for the first time an environment where
pay-TV services, OTT Web content and the subscriber’s locally-
stored files are integrated in a seamless offering.
A Technicolor app lets users watch shows in all their 1080p
splendor on the TV set while displaying the metadata on the
tablet or smartphone. Technicolor calls it’s a “television
first” experience. At CES Technicolor was showing the app on
an Android-based Samsung Galaxy Tab, the iPad and a Windows
Phone 7 device. It said there will be an app for devices that
use HP’s WebOS. The MeeGo OS was not mentioned. The devices
were communicating with a cableco DVR, a legacy cableco STB
and a prototype for a DirecTV box.
Simultaneously with watching TV, pay-TV subscribers can use a
tablet to discover other content for viewing, share it with
and recommend it to their social network friends and watch it
with no overlays on the TV to distract from what is being
shown. More advanced STBs that have an Ethernet connection and
support DLNA can display the metadata, both text and images,
while TV and DVR recordings can be played on the tablet.
Legacy STBs that run the cablecos’ EBIF, of which there are
millions installed, can also be used. They may lose some
features such as showing only text and not images on the TV.
It’s like bringing the full pay-TV service to the tablet,
which should help retain subscribers.
MediaNavi Running on a Tablet
OTT videos can be played on the tablet if it’s the result of a
search.
MediaNavi has three components:
- A client (the app) on a tablet is used to look up related
metadata and content, which in turn supports users’ second
screen experience via the touch-enabled user interface on the
tablet.
- If the set-top box has an Ethernet connection, the tablet
uses Wi-Fi to communicate over the home network to the STB,
which tunes, records and plays back operator content.
- Additional OTT services and content metadata are stored and
managed in the cloud.
MediaNavi includes a recommendation engine that “learns” what
kind of shows the subscriber most often watches. It presents a
selection of “you’ll also like” recommendations to the viewer
á la Netflix.
Social media services like Facebook can be integrated with
MediaNavi. Users can also assign stars to rate shows.
Technicolor CEO Frederic Rose said MediaNavi was developed to
bring the power of the pay-TV networks to devices such as
tablets, set-top boxes and mobile devices.
MediaNavi is a cross platform, device agnostic solution that
pay-TV companies can deploy quickly and, amazingly, use many
of their subscribers’ legacy set-top-boxes. It supports a
touchscreen interface on a smartphone or tablet.
Rose said the company understands the power of metadata and
its ability “to power the user experience in a new manner.”
The company said it uses advanced metadata techniques but did
not say if it was a third party’s like Gracenote, its own
development or a combination.
The company said as more home and portable devices become
Internet-connected, cloud-based solutions such as MediaNavi
help consumers enjoy a more robust yet simplified experience.
“If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to
the mountain,” someone said. Change it to “If pay-TV services
won’t stream Internet videos, then Internet videos must be
available on pay-TV services” and it might more accurately
describe the current situation in the pay-TV-Internet video
worlds. Technicolor intends to do exactly that with its
MediaNavi platform.
Technicolor said the reception by pay-TV operators at CES was
very positive.
It’s available for trial in this spring. UK pay-IPTV service
provider Talk Talk will be the first to test it for viewing
metadata on the tablet while watching TV.
Talk Talk director Max Alexander said the company is “looking
at new ways to provide a consistent approach across multiple
devices and to be able to offer our customers a truly premiere
user interface within a touch screen tablet device.”
Rose said Technicolor is “committed to helping TalkTalk
provide an enhanced user experience, reduce churn and increase
their subscriber client base. He said the “TV first” approach
gives users a “backstage” view into content’s metadata while
the show is displayed on the TV.
Talk Talk has about 4.25 million broadband and phone
subscribers. It is one of seven partners in the YouView
Internet-connected TV service that the BBC launched.
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