"Discovery, Personalization and the TV User Experience"

Written by Susan Crouse

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Television of Tomorrow (TV0T) conference in San Francisco. This included a fun hour participating on a panel about "Discovery, Personalization and the TV User Experience.” The conference is a great collection of industry experts, providing interesting insights, knowledge and entertainment. TVoT seems to find all the newest upstarts both on the technology and talent side, particularly in the area of “digital media,” which TVoT and others define mostly as OTT originating from the Internet. They also are closely tracking the television viewing habits of the millennial and gen Z demographic, as they seem to be eschewing television services, satisfied with on-line and OTT options.

On the panel, I was joined by Campbell Foster from Adobe, Kimberly Hicks of Viacom, and Andre Swanston of Tru Optik. Gerard Kunzel was our moderator. We discussed a wide range of UI ideas including recommendation engine integration of social and other big data sources, simplification of the UI, personalization for each household member, the trend toward voice control, and much more. If you missed the event, TVoT will eventually have videos of all the sessions on their website.

ALTICAST TEAMS WITH VIDEOTRON FOR FIRST CANADIAN LAUNCH OF 4K UHD STB

Alticast today announced that its ongoing innovation partnership with Videotron is helping to achieve a milestone for the Canadian pay-TV industry – the first availability of 4K ultra high definition set-top box on a commercial basis throughout a cable system operator’s entire service footprint.

Videotron’s release of the illico 4K Ultra HD PVR has positioned the Quebec operator as a market leader in driving the key ingredients to ultra high definition success: UHD device penetration, the availability of UHD content with the superior color and consumer awareness of the value of the new technology.

Leveraging Alticast’s expertise in middleware and UI enablement, the illico 4K Ultra HD PVR allows delivery of high-value 4K content, while retaining features that are products of the close working relationship between Videotron and Alticast. These include multi-room PVR capabilities, interactive applications and seamless integration with Videotron’s state of the art back-office systems.

“The ability to combine the richness of 4K content with managed network Quality of Service will be a significant differentiator for pay-TV,” said John Carlucci, president and CTO, Alticast US. “By being the first operator in Canada to bring 4K STBs into subscribers’ homes, Videotron is continuing the leadership that sets it apart from competitors and enhances the value of service bundles.”

“The tremendous promise that 4K UHD holds for our customers can only be realized by true commitment on the part of the entire industry,” said Pierre Roy, Vice-President Engineering, Research and Development. “Alticast and our other technology partners have helped us to create the technical foundation that had already generated market enthusiasm and satisfy customer demand for UHD services.”

CCBN 2016: ALTICAST TO PREVIEW ALTIVIEW 3, SHOW ASIA-PAC MARKET SUCCESS STORIES

Alticast will show the latest versions of technology platforms that simplify deployment of next-generation user experiences at the China Content Broadcasting Network (CCBN) Exhibition March 24-26. 

In Hall 3, Booth #3504 Alticast will preview its AltiView 3 user experience architecture, and will demonstrate other solutions that Asia-Pacific pay-TV operators and others are using to deploy advanced user interfaces and cloud PVR services.

The CCBN exhibit will show how:

•       AltiView 3 will transform the customer experience by leveraging metadata for improved search and discovery, based on customers’ previous viewing choices and other factors;
•       Korea Telecom’s KT Skylife platform is using Alticast’s cloud content ingest/delivery system, cloud service system, cloud media storage system and cloud streaming system to enable the first large-scale deployment of PVR services; and
•       A major Vietnamese pay-TV provider has successfully deployed a completely integrated suite of Alticast products for delivery of live and on-demand services to low-cost set-top boxes and mobile devices.

The latest addition to the AltiView™ family of user interface designs, AltiView 3 is expected to increase customer engagement by driving contextual viewing experiences within an intuitive, elegant UI.  With support for Java and HTML5 environments, AltiView UIs are available uniformly across tablets, mobiles and STBs.  AltiView is a market leader in enabling device pairing that allows seamless viewing transitions between screens.

Media and industry analysts interested in meeting with Alticast executives at CCBN 2016 should contact pspr@att.net to schedule a date and time.

The Winning Ticket For Pay-TV Operators

Forget the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.  The results that pay-TV operators are interested in have been tabulated, and they paint a clear picture of why intuitive navigation experiences are becoming increasingly important. 

According to the Leichtman Research Group, 81% of U.S. households now have a DVR, use VOD services from a cable or telco provider or subscribe to Netflix.  Moreover, 30% of households use two of those services and 13% use all three.

What this means is that subscribers are making use of more platforms than ever when it comes to content sources, creating a need for navigation that presents a 360-degree view of all available options.

Rather than searching individual silos for content of interest, subscribers are seeking to narrow the myriad of entertainment choices to their specific interests.  Forward-thinking operators are migrating from traditional guide paradigms to advanced user experiences that prioritize channels from all sources based on established viewing preferences, and supplement video content with related applications that enhance the viewing experience.

As content sources continue to expand, viewers can be expected to “vote with their feet” – shifting their loyalties to those experiences that offer the best views across linear TV, DVR, VOD and even SVOD.  The winners will be those operators who invest in new technologies that continually strive to offer personalized, customizable interfaces that most accurately address viewers’ individual preferences and needs.

CES 2016: We’ll be where the innovation is

In the three-ring circus that is this week’s Consumer Electronics Show, no single exhibit complex can house all of the technology that is on display.  We’ll be at Tech West, a hub for many of the show’s most innovative products, showing how Alticast is paving the way for new television experiences. Visit us at the Venetian to see how “The Future of TV Simplified” is building value for pay-TV operators through delivery of advanced applications, user experiences and IoT functionality on existing and new CE devices.  Start your New Year off right by contacting mbaltz@alticast.com today to schedule your appointment.

Trends in Recommendation and UX at TVoT

I traveled to Television of Tomorrow (TVoT) last week in NY City. This show runs twice a year bouncing between NYC and San Francisco, and although the NYC conference is shorter, it is just as intense. There was the usual mix of targeted advertising, User Experience, and OTT trends resplendent with Periscope stars. I participated in a panel on recommendations and UX trends led by Patrick Donaghue, the longtime Cablevision UI visionary, and included representation from LG, Digital Smiths, Rovi, Freecast and Lingospot.

While recommendation engines have been around for sometime, they are starting to mature with new trends blending big data from social networking to increase the effectiveness of recommendations. Taking all those new data points and creating an innovative UX that addresses a new generation of viewers is the challenge put forth to Alticast UX designers. Our 4K AltiView 3 concept UX was shared to exemplify these new trends.  The biggest challenge is bringing all these great ideas together and getting them out in front of consumers.

Pay-TV Strategies for Engaging Millennials

With Millennials accounting for one in every five dollars of consumer spending, there’s the need for for pay-TV operators to reshape the video experience of Generation Y’s unique viewing habits, including increases in online consumption, multitasking and gaming-related activity.  John Carlucci, President and CTO of Alticast US, recently spoke about how pay-TV can engage this high-value demographic through higher quality UIs, as well as innovations such as simultaneous viewing of multiple streams of content and transitioning between handheld devices and the television with the swipe of a finger.