This week’s round up of OTT Video news, deals, launches and products from the Faultline team, the items here whilst not in the Faultline report are still important OTT video news.
A report commissioned by OTT specialist Zattoo says that 46% of Germans could imagine dropping TV for OTT. This is way up on last year’s similar survey and was conducted by market research institute TNS Infratest across over 1,000 participants. Some 30% of viewers currently use streaming services on their smart TV and 76% view them on PCs.
Sony says it’s virtual reality headset will cost $399 in the US, when it comes out, way less than rivals – the Facebook‘s rival Oculus Rift and HTC‘s Vive. PlayStation VR may be less advanced than its two rivals, but at this price it could easily outsell them. The only problem is that it may not be out until the last quarter of 2016, and could miss the market. At least 50 games will be delivered with the headset at launch.
Arris says that it has won a contract to support Altice with its E6000 Converged Edge Router for broadband services to homes in France (Numericable), the Dominican Republic and the US (Suddenlink and potentially Cablevision). This will give the operator a clear path to DOCSIS 3.1 and Gbps speeds.
Comcast has launched consumer trials of a 1 Gbps service using DOCSIS 3.1 in parts of its Atlanta operation. It is inviting Xfinity customers to sign up for a trial. Pricing is either $70 a month on a 3-year contract or $140 with no contract. Comcast has plans to launch DOCSIS 3.1 services in Atlanta and Nashville in early 2016 and Chicago, Detroit and Miami in the second half of the year.
US broadband equipment supplier Adtran said this week that it has several 10Gbps broadband customer trials underway at international tier 1 operators. They are evaluating Fiber-to-the-Premises services based on XGS-PON. Adtran included quotes from Jackson Energy Authority which has such a trial.
The UK’s Inview Technology says that it has completed software integration of its middleware stack with a first batch of set-top boxes destined to help Nigeria with its digital switchover. There are a total of 20 million set tops expected to be needed in Nigeria for the switchover.
FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is expected to circulate a draft order this week or next, to approve Charter’s $55 billion deal to buy Time Warner Cable, according to insiders speaking to the Wall Street Journal. The four other Commissioners would then vote on it, but it is likely to go through on a 3:2 vote, adding restrictions for what can be included in Charter content contracts, so they are not harming OT video distribution, similar to the clauses Liberty Global signed up to in Europe. Charter still needs the blessing of the Justice Department as well.
Verizon Digital Media Services has acquired broadcast monitoring and content archiving company Volicon, on undisclosed terms. Volicon is expected to improve Verizon’s ability to repackage broadcast feeds into OTT feeds automatically. Volicon’s also monitors the quality of both broadcast and OTT feeds for ABC, Disney, BBC, CBS and others.
Netherlands security specialist Irdeto said this week that it has been selected by infotainment player GoMedia, to design content protection for content played on Eurostar trains. GoMedia will use Irdeto Rights to secure access over PCs and Macs and leverage Irdeto ActiveCloak technology and Irdeto Secure Key Exchange for the Eurostar mobile app. This is the first deployment of Irdeto technology in the transportation market.
French mobile media specialist Cellfish has acquired OTT video technology group TeVolution, also in France. TeVolution distributes 150 TV channels through multiple partnerships throughout France.
Norwegian TV graphics specialist Sixty says it will work with Altibox to implement its graphics into the latest Altibox set-tops. The two have worked together for 10 years. Altibox came out of energy firm Lyse as a Nordic pioneer in IPTV and delivers services to 500,000 set-tops, Android and iOS devices and laptops. Huawei will supply Altibox with a new cloud-based TV infrastructure to support the set-tops.