The latests OTT video news, deals, launches and product round up from the Faultline teams.
Sony has revealed its new line of Z series TV display technologies, which it says brings the quality of 4K HDR to a level that surpasses that of its X series line of 4K HDR UHD TVs. The Z series uses Backlight Master Drive technology which expands brightness and contrast, and features a dense LED structure with a lighting algorithm, discrete lighting control, and an optical design with a calibrated beam LED. It is the discrete LED control feature that allows the Backlight Master Drive to dim and boost each LED individually, whereas previously local dimming was controlled by zones with several LEDs. It also includes the 4K HDR Processor X1 Extreme. The 65-inch costs $7,000, and the 75-inch is $10,000.
Canon has launched an up market 4K projector costing $59,000 – the RealiS 4K501ST Pro AV LCOS Projector. It has two HDMI 2.0 inputs with HDCP 2.2 support and native 4K resolution at 4096 x 2400, providing 9.8 million pixels at 60 fps. Canon claims this beats the Digital Cinema Initiative for 4K cinema, and is suited for simulation and training applications which need larger vertical display areas.
Binge viewing is up 12% in the last 10 months, now with 6 in 10 viewers saying they regularly watch three or more episodes of the same show in one sitting, according to new research from GfK MRI. The data includes viewing via OTT streaming, DVR, VoD, or TV omnibuses.
Swedish digital entertainment firm Modern Times Group (MTG) finished Q2 with 983,000 pay TV subscribers in the Nordics, down from 1 million in Q1. Outside of the Nordics it had 175,000 pay TV subs, down from 181,000 in Q1. However, revenues for the first half of the year were $947.5 million, up from $910 million in the same period last year. Profit for the first half of 2016 was $52 million, down from $61 million in the same period in 2015.
US semiconductor firm Rambus pulled in $76.5 million in Q2 this year, up 5% from Q1, which it says is mainly due to higher revenue from security technology development projects, including revenue from its acquisition of mobile payment firm SCS in January for $85.4 million. Net income for Q2 was $3.9 million, compared to net income of $1.9 million in Q1.
Vivendi has now surpassed the 20% legal threshold of voting rights in French games publisher Ubisoft – now holding 20.2% of its voting rights and 22.8% of the Ubisoft share capital. Vivendi continues to state it has no intentions to acquire control of Ubisoft, but is hoping to build a partnership.
Dish TV India has selected the CryptoMedia Security Platform from Rambus, for its pay TV satellite system. The platform includes a hardware root-of-trust embedded in the set top chipset, which provides secure distribution of premium content for cable and satellite operators without the need for a smart card. CryptoMedia Content Protection Core, developed by Rambus subsidiary Cryptography Research, is one of several new security elements to be integrated in Dish TV India’s latest set tops.
The automatic content recognition (ACR) market is forecast to grow to $3.57 billion by 2021, up from $940 million in 2016, according to a new report from Research and Markets. It puts this 30.6% CAGR down to the increasing integration of ACR in smart TVs, smartphones, and wearables, as well as the increasing deployment of ACR technologies by media companies for broadcast monitoring and audience measurement. North America will head up the ACR market.
TalkTalk in the UK lost 9,000 broadband customers in Q1 2016 – likely a direct result of a major hack on the company in October last year which affected some 157,000 customers. The ISP also lost 23,000 TV customers but signed up 48,000 new mobile customers.
Qatar cable company beIN Sports has signed a content distribution deal with US operator CenturyLink, providing Prism TV customers with a selection of live sports matches including international soccer, college sports, and motor sports. This content will be provided in Spanish as well as English.
Channel 4 in the UK has tapped Limelight Networks’ Orchestrate content delivery platform for its on-demand services. Limelight says it is able to scale to meet unexpectedly high viewing demands. “Ten million viewers expect broadcast quality viewing of their favorite programs at any given time on their phone, tablet or laptop,” said Jonathan Smith, Limelight group vice president for EMEA.
Telia, the mobile operator incumbent in Sweden and Finland, has reported profits down 55.8% for Q2 2016 compared to the same period last year, to SEK 1.43 billion. Revenues were down 2% to SEK 21.13 billion in the same time frame. The mobile business Yoigo in Spain and the Sergel companies are reported as assets held for sale. Sweden alone accounted for 43.8% of total revenues.
Rogers Communications in Canada added 65,000 post-paid cellular customers in Q2, an increase of 41,000 from last year – fueling a revenue growth of 2%. Internet revenue grew 15%, media revenue grew 6%, and wireless service revenue grew 5%. It says its 1 Gbps internet is now available to 2 million homes.
Qualcomm’s results beat Wall Street estimates as it recorded Q2 profit of $1.4 billion, a rise from $1.2 billion in Q2 last year. It shipped 201 million mobile chips in the quarter, which is down 11% from its shipments in the second quarter of last year. Revenue came in at $6 billion, up 4% and above analyst estimates.