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Neal Page
It is not surprising that somebody like me starts a blog and leaves it untouched for months together...the reasons are many- mostly that the day-to-day rigor of regular work gets insurmountable.
However, today I was shaken when I got an email about a industry veteran's death- Neal Page, the founder of Osprey Technologies and Inlet Technologies. I met Neal the first time in late 2006 at Telco TV, Dallas and have been covering Inlet Technologies in the encoders-transcoders space since then.
Neal was a recognized industry veteran and loved by his peers and several in the industry: as this obituary in Streamingmedia.com by Tim Siglin reflects. He was extremely passionate about the video industry and very committed to be part of the industry-wide effort in making efficient online video a reality. Be it through his blogs or through his conversations with the press or analyst community, his enthusiasm was at an all time high.
I was unaware about his illness and in fact had a couple of conversations with him early part of this year. I couldn't discern anything amiss. Every conversation- though several months apart- that I have had with Neal was fun and very insightful; an interesting exchange of thoughts and dialogue; and despite the fact that he was decades-old in this industry his respect and humility was touching. But over all, the honesty about his company and the market was striking.
I am sorry about his loss not just as one of strong advocates for the media industry, but also as the absolute gem of a person he was.
While tracking the online media and digital video industry, I get the opportunity to speak with many global executives who live really tough stressful lives across time zones to make the next-generation consumer experience fantastic. They tirelessly balance their production plans, their business operations, myriad trade shows, and still sometimes wake up at 7 am, or wait at the security check-up queue at the airport, or hold on to their phones in transit while talking to an analyst like me, as it is part of their job. I really appreciate that effort .
And despite the formality of this job, we strike relationshipships of mutual regard and respect that goes beyond the marketing and the business intelligence transactions; every conversation then is a brainstorming of ideas; of imbibing some of the sharpest engineering minds in the industry; and sometimes a skeptical reflection upon the success of an idea versus reality.
That makes long 14 hour days, numerous excel sheets and stuff alike worthwhile.
Cheers to you, Neal.
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Ho hum: HD Disc War laid to rest as Toshiba pulls Plug?
The news that Toshiba 'may pull plug on its HD DVD business...' has triggered a series of "Phews," rather than a set of "Oh nos!". Many are relieved that the 'war' has ended. (or is rather, about to end.)
The war had lost its sting long ago, and undoubtedly, business motives required to take over technology street fights. Though marketing factions from both HD DVD and Blu Ray camps religiously kept up with their campaigns, the industry movers and shakers realized that unless one of them put their mission to rest, the debate was getting no where. When Sony's chief, Howard Stringer said that the face-off had become a stalemate, he had been honest to confirm a long time industry wide perception.
The fact that Internet video is booming as an avenue and optical discs are likely to become redundant over the long term wasn't helping the cause of either camp. In a way, I share the sigh of relief from the industry that now finally there is one format for the industry and consumers to follow.
However, the speed at which the cards tumbled is surprising, and Toshiba may well have to contend with several distraught customers to whom it aggressively sold its "competitively-priced" HD DVD players during the holiday season a couple of months ago. Thanksgiving sales propped up North American sales figures to 750,000 HD DVD players.
Not to mention the HD DVD promotional group continued to be reassuring of its initiatives.
However, such industry standards/ format wars inevitably have their losers and just like in the past, (VHS vs Betamax), one format will have to be dissolved for the larger benefits of the industry. But the HD DVD/Blu Ray had assumed much larger proportions. The number of units sold through Xbox, Toshiba PCs and laptops and standalone HD DVD players is competitive and though not running into millions, significant.
I am curious to see if any of the top HD DVD advocates, Toshiba and Microsoft step in to do some damage control. Toshiba's latest announcement now makes their marketing efforts during the holiday season appear like a "clearing sales" mission and unreasonable towards their customers.
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The debate: HD DVD vs Blu Ray
Phew!! What a year on the work front...especially the last four months. The heat simply keeps turning up on digital media and it appears that this industry will continue to have the most dedicated consumer intimacy than any other over a decade at least.
While I have been focussed on the 'behind-the-scenes' with content delivery networks, encoding and transcoding and other such stuff, this post is more toward my friends who ask me questions seeking simple answers, without too much deliberation on technical mumbo-jumbo- such as, "What media player is the coolest?," "What kind of HDTV should I get?," and now the latest, "Should I get a HD DVD player or a Blu Ray player?" Well, anybody who is willing to make an investment is already educated quite a bit on the technicalities, but having followed the various forums and reviews, they are confused on where to put their money.
This is my two bit. Just like the days of the VHS-Betamax yore, it might take at least and that is, at least 3-4 years before the industry bigwigs- the studios, and the consumer electronics companies- who give us our daily dose of entertainment decide the fate of the format and gadgetry war.
For now the numbers are starting to stack up against one another- millions of HD discs (both Blu Ray and HD DVD) have been sold, this year alone the numbers are to be close to 5 million. If you add the standalone players, the PS3s, the XBox HD DVD drives and the Toshiba laptops with HD DVD drive, cumulatively about 8 million high def optical disc playback systems would be sold in the market by the end of this year. Depending on day-to-day war statistics, Blu Ray and HD DVD take turns being the leader in the market in either hardware or software.
I would say, if you are a consumer who just wants to put his/her HDTV to good use, don't be bogged down by this war. Be the king and choose it by the following criteria:
- "I just need to watch some HD"- Choose according to your budget and the prices in the market
- "I know what I like to watch" - search for the titles: the kind of content/movies you would want to see and choose the media accordingly
- If you are a gamer and have a XBox or a Playstation, you would know where your allegiance lies. If you have a Nintendo, it doesn't really matter at present and you could choose one of the standalone players.
- For those who are really finicky about high resolution HD and know their 1080ps, call up your electronic store to see the tests with the high premium HD players.
And for those of you who are worried about the return on investment, you can be assured there will quite a lot of content that will go around for a couple of years at least, before one of the formats is folded up. That will keep your HD player and the HDTV in good use. By the time the verdict is out, there will be at least a dozen vendor options at half or one third the price today, so you can replace what you have.
But if you still are a stickler to play safe, then you could subscribe to one of the video rental services who will start streaming HD video soon.
I can't say whether to buy HD DVD or Blu Ray, but I can say for sure- indulge yourself and get your HD! Happy holidays!
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FCC is Closing In- Jackpot for Technology Vendors??
The Federal Communications Commission has started its wrapping up towards it mandated deadline for digital transition on Feb.17, 2009. (I am still trying to imagine what will the celebrations be like.)
The FCC announced the final channel assignments for over 1,800 television stations across the U.S. Apparently, according to the FCC, 'about half of the 1,800 stations already are broadcasting digital signals on their assigned new frequencies.'
I am still dug deep in to the intricacies of the regulations and its impact on both service providers and technology vendors. But as an overview, what could this mean to the digital technology vendors?
If only half of the 1800 stations are broadcasting digital signals, the growth potential seems fantastic. And no doubt some of the technology vendors are going to reap the benefits. Anyways this is not without speculation and confusion.
Digital transition is fast becoming synonymous with the adoption of MPEG-4/ AVC. AVC will help in better compression, and more space on the spectrum; for more channels, especially high-definition.
However, when we speak with technology vendors, they admit that MPEG-2 vs MPEG-4 is not a dead debate yet. Technology officers and engineers in broadcasting stations are 'figuring out' the benefits and usage of the latter and some are shy of taking the plunge. It has to be seen if the massive price cuts will drive customers to take the risk of adopting a technology they aren't familiar with yet.
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The Rapids Story
If we take a look at the digital video value chain, professional camera markets are just about having a few rumblings in the digital age. In contrast, the video processing market shines. The digital transition story is the story of compression technologies, encoders, transcoders among others. The ability to convert what exists as analog into content for any digital media platform (and trust me, those are increasing everyday) is the biggest growth driver for vendors providing encoding solutions. With more than 20 odd vendors, this is an interesting market.
What differentiates many of the new vendors from the established solution providers such as Tandberg TV, Grass Valley or Harmonic, is either cost; sometimes quality; or the ability to encode into more formats thus providing the option of distributing to various end platforms. A clutch of vendors provide such solutions, includes Rhozet that was recently acquired by Harmonic; Digital Rapids; Anystream and Telestream and others.
Canada based Digital Rapids has a entire portfolio of solutions that encodes and transcodes for live event streaming, Internet TV, enterprise applications, among others. It can support multiple formats- such as VC-1, Windows Media, AVC, MPEG-4, MPEG-2, Flash, QuickTime, Real, AVI, and DivX. It can encode at multiple resolutions and bit rates simultaneously. It is not the only vendor providing such solutions, but this is a strong reflection of market demands. The market is increasingly requiring a single workflow solution for content distribution to different media.
Vendors with such solutions are likely to increase. Not to mention existing vendors who are trying to expand their portfolio to include a robust single integrated solution. While competition is a challenge, every vendor is set to grow at a robust rate feeding on the mammoth opportunity of broadband video.
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"Say Hello to iPhone"
Its a funny world. More than 12 months was spent in analyst speculation about a phone from the Apple stable, then speculation about how many people will queue up outside Apple stores; bets were laid, forecasting done and when the forecasting failed, there was a bit of Apple bashing.
Truly a fantastic street story.
For us, iPhone represents a larger story. The iPhone stands for more than a smart handset experience. Its strong differentiator will eventually be its software and the commercial possibilities that it can throw up. "If Apple meets the forecast offered by Steve Jobs (10 million units by the end of 2008), Apple could become the second largest smart phone manufacturer in the world – a remarkable feat in 18 months," according to an expert.
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Harmonic Aquires Rhozet
Harmonic's Q2 earnings webcast was much looked out for this week, as Harmonic is one of those steady companies that represents the digital media growth story. It did not disappoint. It played out with a strong sequential QoQ as well as YoY growth, a lot of it driven by its robust encoder product line.
Harmonic has been on our watch list for a while now. A strong contender in the cable headend market place, it has smartly extended its product line to satellite as well as telco MSOs, and has expanded its portfolio to include technologies to support switched video delivery and video-on-demand- two strong drivers in the digital video services space. Like its competitors such as Tandberg TV, Harmonic realizes the road towards convergence is quicker eventuality now (than many speculated) where video will eventually have multiple distribution channels for service operators. With a strategic acquisition in Entone Technologies last year, Harmonic offered a versatile VOD software platform to its service operators; with its latest acquisition, Rhozet, Harmonic extends the almost limitless video processing possibilities to its customers- 'video to any device' being the mantra. Despite being fairly new, Rhozet has a impressive customer list that includes ESPN, Microsoft, Yahoo, BBC, Motorola, Comcast, TiVo, among many others. Its transcoding solution spans formats, scalability and flexibility, not to mention a competitive pricing. With a versatile solution like that, Harmonic has definitely grabbed a winner.
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Switch on the iPhone
Alas, I am indeed one of the lesser mortals on this planet with no access to a iPhone and only have several videos on the Net to virtually imbibe the magic.
While I cannot comment on either the technology, or the supposed glitches or anything physically attributable to the iPhone, what I have observed is that the mass hysteria is matched only perhaps by the Harry Potter book release.
Video is what makes the iPhone sexy and undoubtedly, the gadget is going to change the way consumers use cell-phones. This is one gadget I can think of gifting my Mom and Dad and know that they will use it effortlessly for watching videos, photos, etc,- everything besides making and taking phone calls.
Apple's pride in providing intuitive interface, be it on the iPod or the iPhone takes them ahead in the race for becoming a smart consumer electronics company.
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Motorola 'home'ly bet
Last year when I was tracking Motorola, we were all excited about the company, especially my colleagues from the wireless side. The Razr was a stylish lifestyle symbol. Users were exchanging notes about its looks and features, while the rest cast envious glances- alas, excitement in the mobile world has the shortest life in the technology space!
Today, everybody is talking about how Motorola lost the plot, its profits are diving and how it would be a good idea to show the CEO the door.
However, in my own space, I used to be bullish about Motorola in the broadband/home equipment and devices. And my speculations about this division was not wrong. In contrast to the pathetic performance on the wireless handset side, the broadband- home products has grown encouragingly, by being ahead of its competitors for both cable and telco services.
Motorola also made a few (though not so sweeping) acquisitions for the video processing space with Tut Systems and Modulus Video among others, and holds a stronghold over the North American market.
Though slower and not as sexy as the mobile handsets market, digital video is a high growth industry. While leaders for the wireless space change over quarters, months or even weeks, the video services business is comparatively slower with longer sales cycles. Trends are changing however as newer applications feed the industry and vendors are expected to be quick on their feet with products for the latest technology applications. Can Motorola continue to put up a show for such a market?
Increasingly, the street's fears about the company are permeating to the home division. Motorola will have to fight more than just competition from other stalwarts such as Cisco Systems, Thomson Grass Valley and Ericsson. While its distribution segment (DVRs and set-top boxes) is strong, it will have to reinforce its strengths in the rest of the value chain.
I am hoping I won't need to pull back my bets from this company.
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Apple iPhone in India
I read this interesting piece- `Unlocked` iPhone could be in India soon- about how the Apple iPhone may be in India in a week or two after the launch. This was an eventuality that the average India tech consumer was aware of and jubilant. The Indian tech consumer is savvy and clued in to the tech launches around the world- be it in computers, laptops, cell phones or games. And he may not be the guy in the tuxedo, but a 'pan' munching 15*10 sq. feet retail shop owner on a busy street in a vague town. One of the several lakh people interested in being up-to-date with technology. For him access to the products outside legitimate retail chains is easier and faster. Indian engineering skills are celebrated in the electronic product bazaars where college drop-outs can make any 'imported' product usable by Indians. The markets are booming with opportunities as a huge middle class segment with its growing disposable income wants to flatter itself with gadgets.
Why is it then that some digital companies are keeping themselves away from the Indian big story?
We have to credit the ones who have entered this potential market and attuned themselves to the needs of the Indian consumer. Starting from the frontrunner Korean electronic companies who did well to set shop in India and leap with success. Not only have they created cheaper products for the large mass middle class segment, but established their brand in the top-of-the line consumer products as well.
In the wireless segment we are seeing an increased interest from Sony, Nokia and Samsung who are all wired into the Indian reality.
Similarly with the prosumer and professional camera segment. With a mammoth film and television industry, Indian technicians are fast adopting the digital changes. The prosumer market especially for Sony, Panasonic and Canon HD camcorders is growing fast as the average budget conservative producer likes the digital story that helps him with a quick turnover in a project. Features still use the ARRI 35 mm cameras, but cinematographers would not mind adopting the digital versions. The reseller channel in India is a low profile but robust chain of distributors, some legal and many not. It might be useful if companies gave this market a serious thought.
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