Five years ago this week…
Israeli video optimization specialist Beamr acquired HEVC and AVC technology provider Vanguard Video in a bid to claw its way to the top of the encoding pile. It looked as though Beamr could be gearing up to fill the hole that was left by a string of top-tier codec acquisitions – most notably AWS’ acquisition of Elemental. Beamr’s deal meant it now held IP for both AVC and HEVC, and was therefore able to apply its content adaptation technology without offering up its own IP as open source, as mandated by GPL Version 2.
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AT&T’s Warner Bros is making an abrupt U-turn. Warner Bros has made a vow of commitment to a full theatrical model in 2022, after sending shockwaves through the cinematic world in December when it announced that all theatrical releases would be funneled directly to HBO Max, before reaching cinemas 30 days later. It comes days after Warner Bros inked an exclusive theatrical window deal to allow Cineworld to screen titles for a 45-day window in the US and a 31-day window in the UK market.
Apple is about to deal a hammer blow to Facebook. The upcoming iOS 14.5 update is introducing App Tracking Transparency, meaning invasive ad-supported apps such as Facebook will not be able to track user activity outside of its own app ecosystems. If a user is scrolling Facebook, then browses a couple of third-party shopping websites, before jumping back into Facebook, the social media platform would normally be able to display targeted ads based on this browsing activity via software plug-ins. Now, Apple wants to keep Facebook on a leash by asking iOS 14.5 users for permission to track activity outside of the apps and websites of Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus, as well as its main platform.
French CDN technology vendor Broadpeak is laying claim to a world first live demo of Open Caching APIs from the Streaming Video Alliance. By standardizing the interface between an ISP’s hosted local cache infrastructure, the party operating it, and content providers, these open APIs improve streaming QoE by reducing local cache traffic in telco operators’ core networks.
Swedish media transport developer Net Insight is also lauding a world first after delivering a 100GE IP Media Transport Boundary project for Red Bee Media (formerly Ericsson Broadcast and Media Services), for uncompressed IP playout. It sounds like Net Insight has misconstrued securing the first customer for its new Media Pro Application with achieving a genuine world-first.
Additional details have emerged on Kaltura’s proposed IPO, with the US video software outfit targeting $353 million in funding, which could hike its valuation to a dizzying $2.2 billion.
NextGen TV is now broadcasting in the US city of Syracuse, New York, via three local TV stations – WSYR-TV (ABC), WTVH (CBS) and WSTM-TV (NBC). Wireless platform vendor BitPath led the planning process of the IP-based hybrid broadcast ATSC 3.0 technology.
MediaKind has won UEFA Champions League soccer silverware at French telco SFR, part of Altice, with the extension of its Video Storage and Processing Platform to deliver live OTT coverage of matches. As well as its proven stability as a live streaming platform at scale, MediaKind is supplying SFR with monitoring services to remotely access the VSPP platform to mitigate potential risk factors in the streaming output.
Deutsche Telekom’s Magenta TV app is available on Apple TV devices. Meanwhile, the operator’s Hungarian division, Magyar Telekom, has launched the cloud-based Telekom TV service developed on an Android TV Operator Tier stack.
Nordic operator Altibox, owned by Norway’s Lyse Group, has extended its deal with video quality assurance vendor Agama Technologies for monitoring products supporting OTT companion devices. Agama’s Set Top Client Device Monitoring product brings real-time info on service quality, viewer behavior and device health.
Vodafone TV viewership in Spain has spiked by 34% in a year, with the average subscriber watching an average of 74 minutes more content than in pre-Covid times – boosted by third-party OTT apps, which offset shrinking DTT channel consumption.
Comcast Xfinity Flex subscribers can now access MLB.TV, as the streaming app seeks a strong start to the 2021 season after last year’s losses at the hands of Covid-19.
US streaming service CuriosityStream, best known for its roster of documentaries, added 5 million subscribers last year to reach 20 million at the end of 2020, more than doubling revenues in the process from $18 million in 2019 to $39.6 million in 2020. However, net losses remain high, at $38.6 million, a slight decline on the $42.5 million loss in 2019.
To iron out the complexities of applying AI to media workflows, AWS Media Intelligence has made new services available to the industry – covering discovery, captioning, compliance, and monetization. AWS MI has made available turnkey systems from AWS Partners built on top of existing services like Rekognition, Transcribe, Comprehend, and Translate, enabling customers to cherry pick custom technologies. Partners include CaptionHub, CLIPr, Dalet, EditShare, EEG Video, Empress, Evertz, GrayMeta, IMT, PromoMii, SDVI, Starchive, Synchronized, and TripleLift.
In retaliation to BT’s aggressive fiber build-outs kicking off in the UK, Sky wants to corner the B2B market with FTTC technology. The Comcast-owned operator has established a new company called Sky Connect to provide small businesses with speeds up to 76Mbps, with 4G back-up, private and public WiFi access, and malware services.
Video over IP vendor Zixi is running a two-week virtual showcase to demonstrate some of the latest developments to its Software-Defined Video Platform. With webinars and customer case study sessions scheduled from April 12 through April 23, Zixi will exhibit SDVP capabilities including live machine learning-based stream health scoring, outage predictions, anomaly detection, ML-based QoE predictions, and loads more.
Video analytics vendor Nice People at Work is celebrating a contract extension for its YouBora software suit at MENA-based media company Intigral. NPAW will deliver consumption patterns across Intigral’s OTT service Jawwy TV to drive decisions on entertainment strategies.
Indian operator SITI Networks, which falls under the giant umbrella of Essel Group, has launched an Android TV set top and accompanying mobile apps. The SITI Playtop Magic is a 4K HDR capable device secured by Nagra’s cardless content security technology and running a Realtek chipset. Claysol Media Labs developed the OTT experience, using Appear TV transcoding and origin servers, while cloud services including CDN are sourced from AWS.
AT&T’s demand side platform Xandr Invest has tapped ad verification specialist Integral Ad Science (IAS) for its contextual targeting and avoidance capabilities. Advertisers using Xandr Invest are now able to access IAS’ list of over 300 contextual segments to target programmatic campaigns on a pre-bid basis.
Fox’s AVoD platform Tubi is reportedly looking to produce original content, with a potential budget of up to $4 million per episode.
US TV manufacturer Vizio has filed for its second IPO, giving the company an upper valuation of $4.2 billion. Its first IPO fell through in 2015 following acquisition interest from China’s LeEco, but regulators stopped the purchase going ahead.
Xilinx has unveiled its new Artix Ultrascale+ FPGA design, pitching it as “8K ready” in “ultra-compact” video broadcasting workloads. Machine vision and emerging protocols in networking and video are also cited as target applications, for the 16 Gbps throughput.
Apple has been ordered to pay $308 million in damages to Personalized Media Communications, after the somewhat infamous Eastern District of Texas found Apple had infringed on US patent 8,191,091, in Apple’s FairPlay DRM. This looks like a classic submarine patent, as it was filed in 1981 but only granted in 2012 – well after Apple had started using the DRM for iTunes.