Comcast Moving to Cloud, Rethinks STBs as Programmers Seek Online Video Data

Comcast’s move toward the X2 UI from X1 is independent of 4K video, Comcast Cable Chief Software Architect Sree Kotay told reporters when asked of a future where Ultra HD is sent to subscribers. Such a time may not be “a long way off,” he said. “X2 doesn’t care” how a subscriber gets video, handling IP and quadrature amplitude modulation, Kotay said. Technological improvements aren’t “just [about] speeds” but “how seamlessly you're integrated,” to Wi-Fi access and other capabilities, Roberts said in the Cable Show panel.

"Once you say you love ultra high def,” a question becomes is “this industry flexible and able to take advantage” of faster broadband speeds, Roberts said. He answered affirmatively. Cable, social media and other executives said at the show Monday they hope the industry further increases the pace of technological improvement (CD June 11 p12). Comcast showed the first public U.S.-based 4K video delivery over the company’s cable network at the show, said Chief Technology Officer Tony Werner in a news release (bit.ly/15UoOv4). With “a limited amount” of content, 4K “could become the next-generation of video entertainment,” and consumer equipment to see it is “becoming more widely available,” he said.

Roberts sees the cloud as “a game changer” and something that “allows you that new kind of interactivity you've never seen before” and what he called smarter, less-expensive set-top boxes. “Make it easy” is a goal amid criticism that equipment can be “clunky” and hard to use to navigate, he said. “If you can get the smarts out of the box, it allows you to rethink the box itself.”

"We're at an inflection point where you can begin to put things in the cloud” at less cost than in set-top boxes, Roberts later told reporters at Comcast’s booth on the show floor. Work is also “under way” to make TV Everywhere authentication easier, and the company’s partnership with Verizon Wireless has some “interesting products” at lab stage, he said. Comcast has a “road map” toward improved set-top boxes, Roberts said, but he and others wouldn’t disclose details. “A lot has changed in that space,” said Roberts. “That distinction” -- that certain subscribers are in a market with set-tops from a particular vendor, while other customers are served by other box manufacturers -- “is virtually gone,” he said.

Cable programmers seek data to measure viewer impressions of their video no matter where shown and to know about viewing trends from a product-quality perspective, said executives of News Corp.’s Fox Networks, Scripps Networks Interactive and Time Warner Inc.’s Turner Broadcasting System on a panel Tuesday. “None of us who are in the television business feel we are on burning platforms,” with viewership at record levels, said TBS Chief Research Officer Jack Wakshlag. “As we experiment with this new world, one of the things we need is data.” Programmers “get metrics on every person on every day” of every minute traditional TV is watched, but “we don’t see that” with broadband viewing, said Wakshlag.

Viewing on “the big screen remains dominant,” said Nielsen Senior Vice President-Product Leadership Brian Fuhrer. “From the perspective of the total pie, it just seems to be continuing to increase.” Nielsen is “supporting the existing, entire ecosystem” of traditional TV viewing metrics “while simultaneously building for the future,” said Fuhrer. A “big challenge” is that fragmented audiences are viewing video on a multiplicity of devices, which requires “dramatically” expanding audience measurement panels to get data, he said. For now, there are Frankenstein-like statistics that “cobble together metrics from different sources if an advertiser wants to make a single buy with us,” said Fox Senior Vice President-Distribution Strategy and Development Sherry Brennan. “There is not one measure.”