FiOS Flex View - TV Everywhere Taken to the Next Level

I had talked about some of the recent announcements that point to the evolution of TV Everywehre services beyond authentication and online channel availability. The recent announcements (here and here) point to wider availability of premium content (TV shows and movies) on more connected devices.

Although Verizon hasn't yet announced services that extend pay-TV offerings to devices such as connected game consoles or televisions, its Flex View feature is a start. It's a video store where VoD content (rented and purchased) can be viewed on up to five authorized devices - FiOS set-top boxes, mobile phones (currently supported models include the HTC Imagio, the Samsung Omnia 2, the Blackberry Storm 2, the DROID X, the DROID 2, and Windows Mobile 6.5 handsets), PCs/laptops/netbooks, and Windows® PlayReady® compatible portable media players. It's an interesting concept, where content can be purchased/rented from any of these devices and viewed on any of them as well. From our recent studies (TV 2.0: The Consumer Perspective and All Eyes on Video), we know that there is good demand for multi-platform VoD services, so I would expect Verizon's lead to be followed quickly by other operators.

This pursuit of solutions to bring wider availability of content and viewing experiences in the digital realm is moving quickly to "cloud media" concepts, where consumers will have the capability of virtually hosting all of their media content and content owners and producers have more efficient ways of producing and delivering their content, not only on an enterprise-wide basis, but also straight to consumers. I had an interesting briefing with HP regarding their Media Cloud solutions today. HP is aiming many of its assets at this space, looking at production, post-production, content management, multi-screen delivery, business intelligence, and consumer-facing services such as video access on multiple consumer electronics and RS-DVR features. From both the consumer services perspective and the infrastructure play, this will be an incredibly interesting area to be watching in coming months.

One small TV to go, please...

Today, Verizon announced the development of an app that will allow streaming of FiOS TV to Apple iPads. Verizon's app further expands the growing TV Everywhere trend as well as the number of companies providing video content to the iPad platform. However, before you plan on watching reruns of Top Shot at the office, you may note that Verizon plans for the service to only be available inside the home for FiOS customers.

Blockbuster is now in the Connected TV Game

Blockbuster and Samsung have announced that Blockbuster OnDemand will be available on select connected HDTVs, Blu-ray players, and home theater systems starting this fall. I talked to a Los Angeles Times reporter yesterday about the deal, and was told that Samsung does plan to offer connected Blu-ray players and home theater systems with both the Netflix and the Blockbuster online services. However, today's release from Blockbuster indicates that Blockbuster OnDemand will have "preferred positioning" on the Blu-ray devices.

My quote in the LA Times article compared the novelty of a connected TVs to that of a kid's Christmas present. My concern for the industry is that - lacking really compelling lineups of content (day-and-date availability, high-definition, ad-supported current television episodes, etc.) - consumers may play around with a Widget feature or download a movie in the first couple of weeks of use, but quickly grow tired of the device. It's happened to me. I get a new device, unwrap it, get it to work (sometimes), and play with it for a couple of weeks before its novelty wears off. Will the same thing happen to connected devices?

Now, if you're one of the ten million avid Netflix subscribers out there, then a connected device that streams older titles to the TV may be a nice complement to your Blu-ray and DVD rentals. However, given Netflix, Redbox, and your cable operator's growing collections of timely and high-definition content, how will connected devices provide a real utility and not just fade as short-lived novelties?

Are Current Titles Available? I'd like to better understand the title availability for both Blockbuster and Amazon's online content. How well do the rental and download options match those of the most-current DVD or Blu-ray releases that I can find at Blockbuster or Redbox? If there is a relatively close match, then there's definitely a convenience factor in not waiting for the Netflix envelope or trekking to the rental store or the kiosk. And, I know that the kiosks are everywhere, but c'mon...it's 105 degrees today in Dallas, and I don't care how close the Walgreens or the McDonald's is. It's too hot to go anywhere! So, title availability and convenience may be a factor, but...

Is High-Definition Content Convenient to Access? I'd argue no, based on my experience with the VUDU box. Even with a very high-speed FiOS broadband service, a download of an HDX movie takes several hours. At that rate, it's more convenient to make the drive (even in the Texas heat) to the video store or rental kiosk.

When will We See Highly-Desired TV Episodes Available? Your cable, satellite, and IPTV provider aren't going to sit still and let their bread-and-butter TV revenues get lost to online sources. So, the game today is to leverage a big catalog of free on-demand content to complement their many cable offerings. They're also ramping up their offerings of on-demand primetime shows to provide even more access to this programming. The connected CE folks are at a disadvantage here, because there is no model yet for streamed and ad-supported current television programming to the TV. They can certainly go the download route (although this is not going to be a big market at all ... why download to the TV when 80%+ of U.S. homes have pay TV and have more access to DVR and VoD primetime programming? They can also provide a great deal of older content, which is nothing to sneeze at. Look at Veoh Network's lineup of classic TV programs. Hey, even if it's not high-definition, The A-Team is pretty cool!

I challenged the panelists on the Connected TV Strategies session at the June CONNECTIONS 2009 event with the question of what it will take to get agreements in place to allow connected TVs and other devices to receive streams of current ad-supported television programming. I think we're all in agreement that providing consistent measurement and analytics to programmers will be an important step to convincing content owners to release more of their content in an ad-supported format to the television. Without this data, there are still plenty of questions about the true audience size for any given episode, which has implications for how ad dollars are then allocated. The panelists (representing AnySource, IBM, VIZIO, Yahoo!) all acknowledged that this is a difficult problem to solve, and we're still some time away from seeing consistent measurement applied to online video usage. So, the connected TV folks are still largely relegated to transactional downloads, older streams, and not-so-current TV offerings, all of which give them a disadvantage to the current options of disc sales and rentals, and whatever you can get from your cable provider.

As I'm watching the connected TV market take shape, these three areas - content availability, high-definition support, and metrics and reporting - will be among the most-important factors I'll be watching to determine success or failure. With Blockbuster in the game, we at least have some more data points to be tracking.

"Chuck" on VoD ... and I need Hulu because...

My wife and I were both traveling over the past week - me internationally, her domestically. We both missed Chuck on Monday night, March 30. We've both become pretty addicted to this show.

Upon our return, we started playing the episode from the DVR. However, due to some unknown glitch, the program only recorded for 15 minutes. So, I booted up my laptop and we watched the episode from Hulu.

Only after the program finished online did I discover that Chuck has been added to the Verizon FiOS service as a Broadcast Primetime VoD offering. I wish I would have known that beforehand. The Hulu experience is great, but even with a strong Wi-Fi connection at home, the video had its quirks. Watching it on VoD on the TV would have been a much better experience.

With the Cable Show being held in DC this week, there were so many headlines about the cable industry and what to do about online video. Will people cancel their pay TV subscriptions because of it? Answer: no, at least not right now. What does Jeff Bewkes really intend with a "TV Everywhere" concept?

Meanwhile, VoD keeps getting better and better. I can now cancel another program from my DVR recordings, since I've got access to a month's worth of Chuck on-demand. Granted, it looks as though Verizon was given some pretty strict guidelines about how certain NBC content can be viewed in VoD - they have apparently disabled the trick-play modes for this content, meaning no rewinding, fast-forwarding, or pausing. That seems a bit harsh. Hopefully, they'll refine this to allow for trick-play for most of the content - if not the advertising.

It seems like the more primetime VoD that the pay TV operators can put out there, the better off their long-term ability to retain customers and grow revenues through non-linear advertising will be. Sure, they'll have to go to the Web with their programming, but it's not going to happen overnight. Contracts with the content providers will have to be renegotiated to take into account the different business models applied to Web video. In the short-term, though, I can reserve the laptop for the usual Web stuff and rely to a growing degree on my TV for ... TV!

FiOS TV Remote DVR - Amazing when Technology Works as Advertised!

Verizon's FiOS TV service has a couple of new features, one of which I tried over the weekend with good success. The Remote DVR feature allows users to manage and schedule DVR recordings from any Internet-connected computer. This feature was slick! Subscribers must have the Home Media DVR feature (allowing multi-room DVR functionality and access to music and photos from home computers at any TV with a set-top box). To initiate the feature, I just had to go to FiOS TV Central Website, enter in my username and password and activate the Remote DVR service. In no time, I was viewing a program guide on my laptop and selecting all of the shows I wanted to record over the weekend. Verizon was running an HBO and Cinemax promotion this past weekend, so I selected 5-6 movies to record. The record commands are sent immediately (I authorized a recording mere minutes before the start of the program and the set-top box responded immediately).

Verizon also offers Mobile Remote DVR functionality, allowing Verizon Wireless customers to view TV listings and mange DVR recordings while on-the-go.

After many frustrating attempts to hook up and configure a variety of consumer electronics products, it's nice to get access to a feature, try it, and have it work perfectly the first time. I was impressed with this feature.