The Asian DTH Market Gears Up for Netflix Competition

The television broadcast industry has undergone several rounds of radical transformation over the past few decades. Free-to-air transmissions gave way to paid cable alternatives which, in turn, had to make room for Direct-To-Home (DTH) satellite services. CRTs vanished, replaced by larger flat panel screens. The venerable standard-definition resolution standard was superseded by a new high-definition standard, which was itself superseded by a still newer ultra-high-definition standard. Traditional analog broadcast technology was everywhere replaced by computer-age digital technology. And then, of course, there was deregulation, the advent of the smart phone and tablet, and the rise of the Internet, which between them changed everything again.

The Over the Top Netflix Phenomenon: 

One of the most remarkable successes of the new age of broadcasting is Over the top (OTT) video on demand (VOD) transmission across the Internet. OTT transmission has spawned a whole new generation of “cable cutters,” who spurn traditional broadcast television with its rigid schedules and fixed choices, in favor of free or low-cost subscription services, with a virtually unlimited range of content available anytime on any connected device, be it a smart phone, a tablet, a notebook, a computer monitor, or a big-screen smart TV. Two of the most popular new OTT providers are Netflix and Hulu. Although these and other OTT companies like Amazon and You Tube have significantly disrupted Western markets, Asian DTH service providers claim to remain unperturbed, because, according to them, OTT can’t beat DTH in the foreseeable future.

Skinny Bundles & Better Transmission Quality: 

The main attractions of OTT services like Netflix and Hulu are personalization and binge watching. While these attributes can’t be brought to standard broadcast services, whether provided over air, cable or DTH, broadcasters are ditching their overwhelming and confusing 400-channel lineups to go with linear bundles. These bundles provide users with less to choose from, which  is a better strategy to promote longer “view” times. Many Asian markets are going with streamlined packages that cover news, preschool children’s programming, premium factual content and lifestyle.

Just as broadcasters are transmitting less and becoming more quality conscious, fleet operators are also looking into ways to enhance the viewer experience, fully capitalizing on HD and, in some cases, 4K device proliferation.

Telairity Helps the DTH Sector Excel: 

Telairity has always lived up to its promise of providing the best SD and HD encoders in the industry. It provides key DTH components like:

• High-compression Encoders so HD transmissions won’t overload broadcast capacity.
• Professional Decoders to decompress, descramble and reformat signals.
• Premium modulators that generate L-Band and IF-Band satellite signals fully compliant with the DVB-S/S2, DSNG standards.

If you want to learn more about Telairity’s capabilities, please contact us.

The Short Life of the 3D TV Trend

A few years ago, it appeared that the next big trend in video technology would be 3D viewing.  The manufacturers and sellers of TVs were enthusiastically marketing new 3D-capable sets, while content providers were lining up to announce plans for 3D programming. However, continuing lackluster sales of 3D sets and recent announcements—like the one in June from ESPN, an early and prominent enthusiast for 3D technology, that it was going to discontinue its pioneering 24/7 3D channel—indicate that reality took a sharp left turn somewhere on its way to the promised future of 3D TV. What happened?

As is usually the case with new technologies, the failure of 3D TV to really take off is not the result of any one factor, but due to a combination of issues. The first issue is that adding 3D capability to a TV makes it more expensive to manufacture, which means it is not free, but a feature that consumers must pay extra to get. This, by itself, wouldn’t be an insurmountable issue, if the extra capability provided an obvious benefit (like HD over older SD technology), but some viewers find the 3D experience annoying,  uncomfortable, or even distressing, while the rest tend to regard it, at most, as suitable only for special occasions. So getting consumers to pay extra for a feature they believe will be rarely if ever used has proven to be a hard sell. This lack of everyday viewers, in turn, has translated to poor ratings for new 3D channels, resulting in announcements from the provider side of the TV equation like the recent one by ESPN discontinuing their service.

The combination of extra cost, limited usefulness, and little (but still declining) programming has conspired to perpetually maintain 3D TV in its status as a technology of the future. To be sure, there is some research being done to surmount the biggest obstacle keeping 3D TV from being an everyday technology, namely, the need to wear special glasses. Whatever the merits or demerits of different types of glasses (active or passive), by their mere existence, 3D glasses frustrate any semblance of normal TV viewing by preventing multi-tasking and hindering normal social interaction. Only if glasses can be entirely eliminated will it be time to reopen the discussion of the future of 3D TV on new and more promising grounds.

Pending that breakthrough, however, other newer technologies hold much more promise as a realistic future for TV. We’ll take some time in our next blogs to examine the particular advantages of 4K and UHD standards, and how Telairity fits into the adoption of those technologies.  Make sure you stop back here for more of the latest information on interesting trends within video technology – you won’t be disappointed!