A small Israeli company called Tvinci, said this week that it is offering a complete end to end Pay TV Over-the-Top video platform, built around its MediaHub and Tvinci MediaStore product lines.
The idea is to facilitate a monetization layer for OTT video using direct payments for Pay Per View, subscriptions and coupon based business models.
Tvinci claims that its platform allows operators to offer a consistent experience across any internet enabled device be it a PC, Mac, internet connected TV, set top, games console, smartphone or iPad.
‘We believe that now, as a result of internet TV’s expansion into the living room and onto an increasing number of devices, the time is right for pay-OTT video content,’ said Yonatan Sela, VP Marketing, Tvinci.
‘Current paid content initiatives are constructive for testing the various business models and the responsiveness of the audience, but they have only provided a preview of the new ways in which people will consume a significant amount of their content. This future for paid content is made possible through the Tvinci platform, and we are currently seeing innovative operators around the world beginning to implement these new services.’
The platform is based on its Tvinci MediaHub back-end and its MediaStore front end. The MediaHub offers management of video content, input for business rules for users on any internet device. Tvinci describes it was a one-stop-shop for controlling the life cycle of a digital asset; from ingest through setting of business rules, pricing and billing, to analysis of the consumption at the end user.
The MediaStore is the consumer interface for the system and includes a recommendation engine. It claims to lower purchase barriers and maintains recommendations and keeps track of viewing habits and payment preferences.
While it’s all very well for Tvinci to claim that it is the first company to provide ALL of this from one place, certainly none of these technologies are that tough to handle, and there are many point products on the market which operators can choose as building blocks, but we don’t know of a system that comes pre-integrated like this. Expect many more of them. We might see the same kind of partnering that multicast IPTV went through in the early part of this decade, with point products investing in integrations with other steps in the eco-system. Certainly we saw about five recommendation engines at IPTV World Forum in London a few months back. Tvinci said this week that it has been selected by Projector TV in the UK for the launch of the new version of its paid for video portal.