{"id":170,"date":"2004-07-27T16:07:23","date_gmt":"2004-07-27T16:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/2004\/07\/27\/article3-16\/"},"modified":"2023-08-13T18:27:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T18:27:19","slug":"article3-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/2004\/07\/27\/article3-16\/","title":{"rendered":"SoapCity \u2013 at Digital Hollywood and, now, at IP Video @ Supercomm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/p>\n

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Quick Jump Menu to this Issue’s Articles April 28th, 2004 Overview It’s Live, No, it’s FTTP – On-Demand NAB – From a Telco Perspective<\/a><\/strong> SoapCity – Online, at Digital Hollywood and, now, at IP Video @ Supercomm<\/strong><\/em> <\/p>\n

SoapCity \u2013 at Digital Hollywood and, now, at IP Video @ Supercomm<\/strong><\/em><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

by Ken Pyle (ken.pyle@viodi.com), Viodi, LLC<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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April 28th, 2004 Issue<\/strong><\/p>\n

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One of the most interesting developments in the on-demand world is what Sony<\/strong> is doing with soap operas and the Internet<\/strong>. SoapCity <\/strong>is Sony\u2019s low-profile effort to understand how they can monetize television content by adapting it to an on-demand world. In SoapCity\u2019s case, the delivery method<\/strong> is the Internet<\/strong>. Mary Coller<\/strong>, Sr. Vice President of SoapCity<\/strong> described this offering as a, \u201cweb brand evolved\u201d.<\/p>\n

As indicated by its name, SoapCity is about soap operas, such as the Young and the Restless <\/em>and Days of our Lives<\/em>. All the things that many people tape and watch later at home [yes, I do have personal experience with this sort of thing]. Coller described the service as sort of a network PVR<\/strong> that is programmed for the user<\/strong>, so it is very easy to use. She described it as \u201csoaps in seconds\u201d as the time between ordering and playing on the PC is very fast. Pricing is typically $1.99<\/strong> per episode, but there are also some package prices, such as any ten current episodes for $15.00<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The numbers prove her right, as suggested twice in her talk that they are seeing 40,000 downloads <\/strong>per month and 2.5 million unique users <\/strong>per month. Episodes are only aired once and are available for 28 days. SoapCity uses Windows Media 9,<\/strong> so if the link is 450 Kb\/s it takes approximately 30 minutes to download the 125 Mbytes (it begins playing relatively quickly, however, as it is a progressive download). <\/p>\n

This project has been two years in the making<\/strong> for SoapCity, so it is not a trivial undertaking. Encoding the content and asset management are a challenge. Until recently, there was no reason to justify digitizing, storing, clearing rights, etc. of regular television programming. The technology challenge is one of logistics, as being able to store content into libraries and then being able to easily manage the assets is something that was a new discipline. <\/p>\n

Some of the challenges and concerns<\/strong> they face include:<\/p>\n