Samantha BookmanLive streaming latency: In Super Bowl aftermath, OTT industry scurries to catch up to broadcast
From the early days of watching pandas mosey in and out of frame on bandwidth-starved live cams to delivering the Super Bowl to millions of online viewers, live streaming has come a long way. But providers are still trying to solve a nagging problem: delays in a video's delivery as long as two minutes, which can ruin a sports fan's day.
Ad blocking becomes $22B headache for OTT industry
Why is ad blocking taking off? That's easy: Consumers love it. Without ads bogging down processing speed on their computers, tablets and smartphones, their devices run much faster. But online video providers that derive their revenue from advertising are in a bind. Can a balance be found that keeps ads playing without chasing away audiences?
Local TV stations' day in the OTT sun
With one of the largest station groups in the U.S. consolidating its advertising efforts and a consortium of broadcasters backing a streaming app service for their affiliates, the market for local TV stations appears to be ready to bust wide open. Can they grab a piece of a $40 billion advertising pie?
Questing for the grail of personalized content
Five years from now, a viewer will turn on his or her television and see a host of content being offered that is tailored specifically to that individual. At least, that's what content providers want to happen.
The quality conundrum: Data drives OTT improvement, but lack of standards is a problem
The ability to provide great quality of service and quality of experience could mean the difference between survival and being doomed in the growing over-the-top video tsunami. As providers move their advanced online video products from the hype phase to the product phase, how do they get and maintain quality across the ecosystem?
Finding OTT's tipping point: three factors could push it past pay-TV subscriber totals
The evolution of content distribution and the consistent growth of over-the-top streaming generates industry predictions of the inevitable decline and fall of pay TV. As video ecosystems collide, the industry remains in a state of great change.
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Showtime's Christie: OTT subscribers are 'just too big a segment to overlook'
Tom Christie has been with premium network Showtime for more than two decades, and has seen the cable industry rise and fall and now, possibly, rise again thanks to changing technologies and consumer demands. In the midst of all the industry sturm und drang, however, he says the last five years have been the best of Showtime's existence.
Vimeo partners get Apple, Roku in-app subscription capability courtesy of VHX
Online video provider Vimeo is already seeing benefits from its recent acquisition of VHX, as the white-label solutions vendor announced that Vimeo partners can now offer seamless subscription to their branded apps on Apple iOS, Apple TV and Roku devices.
For Google, other providers, online advertising morphs toward a mobile audience
As the online advertising market continues to change, Google is changing with it. The search engine giant, which relies on display and video ads to generate 90 percent of its annual revenue, said it is changing the size of the ads at the top of its search pages, The Wall Street Journal reports. The move, in part, reflects online users' continuing shift to mobile devices, and providers' efforts to keep up with the change.
INTX delivers both good and bad news for the pay-TV industry
From sparse attendance and widely spaced booths to a vague keynote from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, last week's INTX tradeshow – rebranded from its old moniker, The Cable Show -- seemed to have little going for it.
Olympics streaming goes uptown as NBC Sports Digital launches Playmaker Media
NBC Sports Digital is scaling up its online video streaming effort ahead of the Summer Olympics with the launch of a new end-to-end streaming service, Playmaker Media. While its inaugural client, the International Olympic Committee, isn't surprising, the service is clearly intended to compete directly with established end-to-end streaming providers like MLB Advanced Media.
'Star Wars' may come to Netflix, sort of, thanks to exclusive Disney deal
Netflix is setting its lineup for the summer and well into the fall, with a slate of exclusive content scheduled thanks to its relationship with Disney and its related properties -- a deal that will lock out Starz and Amazon from new Disney movies and potentially make the ongoing content licensing battle red hot.
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IDC Russia said tablet shipments in the country fell by 8.5 per cent year-on-year to 919,000 units in the first quarter of 2016, while in terms of value in U.S. dollars the market shrank by 12.9 per cent.
Berg Insight said Europe's smart home market lagged North America by two to three years in terms of penetration and market maturity at the end of 2015, with an installed base of 5.3 million smart homes compared to 12.7 million in North America.
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