Over The Top- Technology to watch

As internet proliferate more in our lives, we look for media experiences based on personalization, immediate gratification, and significant variety. Consumers are quickly becoming accustomed to expectations of everything, everywhere. Driven by high performance mobile platforms and the increasing reach of Internet with adequate bandwidth to deliver audio and video content service providers are adopting multiple platform deliveries to satisfy this need of the consumers. 

Customers under 30, as well as some customers in emerging markets, are heavily driven by social activity and the ability to interact with their friends around content. Over the Top (OTT) content delivery is rapidly becoming popular using new devices, including mobile devices, tablets and TVs.

Cable television is well-entrenched and dominant in many markets but faces increasing competition from other service providers who are offering more flexibility to view video not just on TV but across all connected devices as a bundled package. Over-the-top (OTT) video platform solutions enable cable companies and MSOs to combine and expand their television and broadband offerings and extend their services beyond the traditional set-top box to the world of connected devices: PCs, game consoles, portable media players, tablets, and mobile phones. By leveraging the Internet, video also can be delivered anywhere that there is access to a broadband network — at home, at work, at any location, even on vacation. Indian cable TV going digital will enable the cable operators and MSOs provide OTT services to their subscribers and keep their churn rate low. As seen in developed countries the pay TV market on OTT is on a growth path. A new report released by eMarketer  seems to clearly show that the audience for digital TV and movies is growing at a pace even more rapid than expected. Foe India to experience such a phenomenon may take some time, Content Providers, Broadcasters and MSOs alike need to take notice of this evidence of the rising OTT wave.  Over-the-top - (OTT, Over-the-top Video, Over-the-Internet Video) - Over-the-top is a general term for service that you utilize over a network that is not offered by that network operator. It's often referred to as "over-the-top" because these services ride on top of the service you already get and don't require any business or technology affiliations with your network operator.  In the fields of Broadcasting and Content Delivery, Over-The-Top Content (OTT) means broadband delivery of video and audio without the multiple system operator (MSO) being involved in the control or distribution of the content itself. The provider may be aware of the contents of the IP packets, but is not responsible for, nor able to control, the viewing abilities, copyrights, and/or other redistribution of the content, which is the nature of the internet. There is no company that is responsible for the creation of the internet. This is in contrast to delivery through purchase or rental of video or audio on a Video-on-Demand service of an ISP. OTT in particular refers to content that arrives from a third party, such as Netflix, Hulu orMyTV, and arrives to the end user device, leaving the internet provider responsible only for transporting IP packets. It is strictly based on IP or Internet Protocol. The video quality is very high and digitalized in various forms.

  

Many companies like Kit digital provide OTT platform solutions that cover Subscription Pay TV, Content aggregation platform, Movie VOD store platform etc. Kit Digital also provide cloud-based OTT solutions that make the infrastructure much simpler enriching audience’s experience by converging the connected devices and screens of today for always-on media services.

Consumption of broadband-delivered video is climbing sharply as consumers choose video on-demand (VOD) versus scheduled programming. Research from The Diffusion Group (TDG) predicts that by 2020 the consumption of broadband video content stored and distributed over an open IP architecture  will surpass the consumption of traditional broadcast TV programming.

As broadband TV transitions from a niche play market to the standard way that viewers watch and interact with their media, the cable network operators that rise to the top will transition from being a basic communications vehicle to a core part of the media value chain. 

Source: http://cablequest.org/articles/broadcast-technology/item/2114-over-the-top-technology-to-watch.htmlrce: http://cablequest.org/articles/broadcast-technology/item/2114-over-the-top-technology-to-watch.html

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