Xumo is a company that Faultline Online Reporter had little knowledge of prior to our meeting at CES, which tied in nicely with the announcement that the OTT video platform and recommendation software provider struck a major deal with Chinese electronics manufacturer Hisense, to deploy 60 free channels on the upcoming 2017 line of Hisense smart TV sets.
Add this latest deal to Xumo’s existing ones with the likes of LG, Panasonic and Vizio, as well as a partnership deal with Chromecast, Xumo claims that its platform will be deployed in an estimated 14 million to 25 million homes by the end of 2017, rising from 4 million today. That’s an impressive figure for a company with just 29 employees. Xumo told Faultline Online Reporter at CES that the swing of a possible 9 million homes is subject to unpredictable manufacturing plans.
Smart TV shipments surged past the 100 million mark in 2015, and in 2016 made up 60% of total TV shipments – forecast to grow to three quarters of all TV shipments by 2020, according to research from Futuresource. The demand for streaming-capable TV sets is certainly accelerating at a respectable pace, particularly in the US and China, but is a market yet to kick into gear in regions such as Latin America.
Xumo dubs itself as a MVPD (multichannel video programming distributor), competing with the congested app store ecosystem as well as the cable giants. Colin Petrie-Norris, CEO of Xumo, described the technology as laying the “virtual plumbing” for broadcasters to deliver content via internet connected smart TVs – providing a platform for switching from free to air over to IP. Faultline Online Reporter was given a demonstration on a LG smart TV which did just that in the blink of an eye.
Xumo custom builds the virtual input system for each manufacturer, taking two and a half years to build the one for LG, and is built on what it calls “discrete” application program interfaces (APIs) and representational state transfer services (REST) – a set of database servers which provide a common class of APIs.
YouView in the UK is a similar hybrid TV platform, and Petrie-Norris noted that the system was developed around the same time as YouView, but was adamant that Xumo’s system is not a copycat.
YouView, in comparison, began as a set top platform that offered pause/rewind and record functions for UK DTT (digital terrestrial television) channels, with support for catchup services via its hybrid set tops, and recently switched from being based on Adobe Flash to HTML 5. YouView has largely ended up being sold as part of triple-play bundles from BT and TalkTalk, as well being available through set tops from Humax and Huawei. There’s not much in the way of retail store sales, compared to bundled sales.
The development of the ATSC (Advanced Television Standards Committee) 3.0 broadcast technology has been a vital part of IP migration that could potentially decide the fate of TV stations looking to jump on the OTT bandwagon. Xumo privately claimed to Faultline Online Reporter that it has “figured out” ATSC 3.0. ATSC 3.0 enables a number of technologies that TV stations need to attract today and tomorrow’s viewers, such as mobile TV, 4K, 4K with HDR, and 1080p with HDR.
About 20 standards are expected to be part of the final ATSC 3.0 suite of standards some time in early 2017. Proposed and Candidate Standards will include video and audio compression, HDR, wide color gamut and immersive sound, closed captioning, advanced emergency alerting, security, companion devices, personalization, applications and interactivity, watermarking and fingerprinting, and IP delivery.
LG Electronics showcased the first ATSC 3.0-enabled 4K UHD TV at CES, which is set to roll out in Korea in Spring this year. The LG LED TV with ATSC 3.0 tuner provides broadcast services as well as broadband video, and an EPG delivered by the newly developed ROUTE (real-time object delivery over unidirectional transport) protocol.
Faultline Online Reporter last wrote about Xumo in 2014, touching on the Smart TV Alliance of which Xumo was a member at the time. It has since pulled out, explaining that the alliance had evolved in a way that was no longer relevant for Xumo, citing that the alliance was pushing for initiatives of harmony between brands – not something Xumo says is in its interests.
The California-based firm has also built its own recommendation engine, claiming to have over 300 million users every month, providing a non-profile based system taking into account metrics such as time of day, at a cost-per-completion model. Alternatively, customers can choose to plug in a rival recommendations system into Xumo’s platform.
While smart TVs remain the core focus market for Xumo, it recently rolled out iOS and Android apps, as well as providing channels on Roku devices.
“This strategic partnership with one of the fastest-growing smart TV manufacturers in the world is particularly exciting to us as we continue to provide users increasingly easy access to free, quality streaming content. Delivering a truly hassle-free and digital experience where the user can lean back and enjoy any one of our digital channels is baked into our DNA and we are pleased to have partnered with a quickly expanding and innovative brand in Hisense to bring it to market at this year’s CES,” said Colin Petrie-Norris, CEO of Xumo.
Mark Viken, VP of Marketing at Hisense Americas, commented, “consumers enjoy Hisense televisions because they maintain a seamless user experience. Our agreement with Xumo means that our consumers have more access to a more diverse array of content than ever before.”