Recent reports of the demise of the compact disc feature elegies tinged with funereal nostalgia for what was once a bold, new and literally shiny technology. Those might as well have been elegies for all physical media including the CD’s video packaged-media analogues: DVD and Blu-ray. Neither of which is quite ready for a final […]
Archive | Streaming video
Do we know from where cord cutters are watching TV?
What if the common belief that the losses in traditional pay TV subscribers are due to mainstream video streaming services is wrong? Or, that belief is an oversimplification of a complex problem? Not only is there an increase in video-streaming subscriptions for SVoD services like Netflix and “live streaming” services such as DirecTV Now, there […]
Video Streaming Emboldens Piracy
The good news for owners of TV content is that it is so coveted viewers will do whatever is necessary to secure it. The bad news is that viewers will do whatever is necessary to secure it—even if that includes stealing it. The even worse news is that the illicit ways to secure it are […]
vMVPD Services: Haven’t We Been Here Before?
With Google, AT&T, Sony and an army of other companies gunning to take over the traditional pay TV business using the internet to deliver linear pay TV services, now might be a good time to ask a couple of basic questions. How are pay services from virtual MVPD providers (Sling TV, YouTube TV, Playstation Vue, […]
Will the Cord Cutters Come Back?
The pay TV industry in the U.S. has been reeling under a brutal period of subscriber loss. Meanwhile, like sharks smelling chum, rival over-the-top video services continue to pop up. Disney is the latest example of the trend. The entertainment behemoth told investors in August that it will pull its movies from Netflix to start […]
UHD Blu-ray’s Narrow Opportunity Window
My wife loved Wonder Woman. No, to paraphrase Woody Allen, love is too weak a word for how she feels about the initial adventures of the Amazon princess—she luuurved it, she loaved it, she luffed it (two Fs, yes). She l’ed Wonder Woman so much, we’ve seen it three times in the theater. (I am […]
Vizio Smart TV Shift: Are Google and Amazon in an App War?
This month, Vizio, the North American vendor of value-priced television lines sold heavily in warehouse clubs and discount store chains, amended its exclusive use of smart TVs based on the Chromecast platform as it expanded its selection of app partners beyond the Google ecosystem. The move not only lets Vizio customers access a more traditional […]
Chinese video streaming market: How big can it get?
While the streaming video industry is focused on Netflix’s Q2 data—which was punctuated by the addition of 5.2 million subscribers—it might be a good idea to keep a closer eye on streaming service providers in China. Today, leading Chinese internet-based streaming services are believed to have more than 500 million active users, according to China […]
Wireless Video: Demand vs. Capacity
The forecast for internet video use from Cisco’s annual Visual Network Index continues to astonish. It estimates that, by 2021, 82% of all internet traffic will be video—up from an estimated 73% in 2016. That’s all internet traffic, both wired and wireless. Predictions for wireless video traffic are no less impressive: 78% in 2021 over […]
Hungry Mobile Video: Will Next-Generation TV Feed the Beast?
Bandwidth-hungry video is viewed as an insatiable beast by those who are delivering it over crowded networks. Better compression and mobile network advances have relieved some congestion but the flames of UHD and virtual reality are licking at the heels of cellular networks. TV broadcasters think they can help relieve some of that congestion with […]