Besides the expected level of representation from technology vendors, last month’s Connected TV Summit in London hosted a wide spectrum of players including a healthy quota of pay-TV operators and broadcasters. A key theme to emerge was the growing prominence of consumer electronics companies in tandem with the proliferation of options for Internet-enabled consumption of TV content across multiple devices.

 

At the same time, as consumer electronics (CE) vendors play an increasingly central part in defining the connected TV user experience, the future of traditional modes of consumption – and hence the role of network-based pay-TV service providers – comes into question.

 

However, Ovum observed from the event’s discussions that, far from becoming redundant in the connected world, traditional pay-TV operators stand to benefit from working with CE players rather than competing against them for complete ownership of the customer experience.

 

Sourcing and provisioning set-top-boxes (STBs) is a major cost consideration for pay-TV operators, particularly in markets where they have to subsidize customer premises equipment to win and maintain subscribers. Add to this the rising demand for seamless access to TV and video content in a multi-room environment and across multiple devices, and it becomes clear that operators (and broadcasters) are faced with mounting operational challenges if they are to stick with traditional STB models.

 

Samsung is one vendor that is keen to highlight the benefits of operator partnerships with consumer electronics manufacturers, citing alliances with Comcast and Time Warner Cable that enable live streaming of their content to its Smart TVs and Android-based Galaxy tablets using an HTML-based remote user interface (RUI). An RUI enables operators to deliver a multi-room or multi-device experience via a single STB, while maintaining control over access and the ability to provide a consistent look and feel to the service.

 

The Korean vendor is also plugging DIRECTV’s initiative to stream live or recorded programming via a single multi-room STB to secondary Smart TVs in the home, using an RUI designed around the emerging RVU standards-based client technology.

 

Another route to delivering connected TV over multiple devices is the applications approach espoused by Siemens Communications Media & Technology, which has developed an over-the-top (OTT) TV solution that bypasses STBs altogether by relying purely on web technologies for content delivery and protection. In addition to its core target of broadcasters and media companies, Siemens CMT is proposing the solution to telcos as a highly cost-efficient managed alternative to “traditional” closed-network IPTV.