The industry is seeking ways to exist and thrive in an as yet unformed landscape, where each opportunity has its own complexities says Simen K Frostad, chairman, Bridge Technologies
Excitement mounts counting down the days before everyone presents new technologies and products in Amsterdam. Every year we have attended IBC it has been a great focal point for development and customer meetings, and this year is no exception. The whole industry is embracing the new opportunities offered by IP- based media delivery in every form, from OTT to high-bitrate contribution, and we believe this will continue to be one of the most significant industrial changes in the broadcast and telecom space. This major trend will generate a lot of growth opportunities for companies that add value to the delivery chain, and generate the ideas for a lot of new uses for packet switched delivery and transport systems in the future. And while all that is true, we must not forget that satellite, cable and terrestrial are very
Enter post-modern broadcasting Opinion
wracking affair when compared to today’s easy Euro interchange. There’s always an upside to most situations, when you reflect on them.
Simen Frostad: ‘Growth opportunities’
much alive and kicking still, and each has its own areas of innovation and development: in terrestrial for example, there’s a good deal of excitement about the DVB-T2 projects rolling out in many regions.
It can sometimes feel like it’s
the relentless march of technological development that creates these new
opportunities, while the cloudy financial outlook throws doubt
on them. The doom and gloom over the past years, especially in respect of the euro, does of course cause uncertainty, but you don’t have to be too old to remember how European business was before the single currency was set up. Running a pan-European business then with the exchange rates fluctuating between every single country was a very much more nerve-
One of the big questions on the minds of many people at IBC is multiscreen delivery. We are in what could be thought of as a post-modern phase of broadcasting, and the industry is still at the stage of seeking a definition for how to exist and thrive in this unformed landscape.
The truth is that at the moment there are many possible ways, and no one template has been proven to be more effective than the rest. Several operators have implemented models that are a shining example to others, but
which aren’t necessarily appropriate for operators in different circumstances. Apart from the questions of infrastructure, service quality and revenue model that have to be resolved by any would-be operator, there is the pressing issue of constructing an end- user environment that will allow the viewer to negotiate the complexity of this multiscreen environment. That’s going to be a major task, and a real obstacle to growth if operators don’t get it right.
Five minutes trying to work out how to use an unfamiliar TV/STB/DVD setup serves as a sharp reminder that usability is a problem the industry has left unresolved in the last wave of technology – so will it do any better in the coming wave? We have to hope so. And who knows? Maybe Apple will again be the company that shows how to do it. 1A30