TVoT

TV of Tomorrow, San Francisco was held last week, creating an opportunity to pick up on terminology trends. I was surprised a number of panels were using the term 'digital' to describe "content delivery to consumer devices' like phones and tablets, however, content to the living room TV is also digital. I am hoping this trend does not take hold, as it doesn't make sense. The older terms OTT (Over the Top TV) originally seemed to cover these devices, but with Smart TVs, TIVO, Roku and other devices, the television is also an OTT target, so that's not a fit either. As the market gets muddier with IP offerings and new devices like HDMI sticks, maybe the target device shouldn't be segregated this way. Of course most devices require specific transcoded video to meet display specifications, but in the end the streams are all digital, whether recorded or live. I welcome a different interpretation of how 'digital' was used at the conference to clear this up.

Another term that seems to be picking up steam is the "backwards L." This is the shape made when the main video content is pulled to the upper left of the screen leaving a portion of the screen for additional meta-data, personalization (tweets), or advertising. As our screen resolution continues to expand,  it's appears to be more acceptable to share the screen real estate with other related content.