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Viodi View Menu<\/strong><\/p>\n Current Issue<\/a> <\/p>\n 49 Square Miles of Wireless & More<\/a><\/p>\n Popcorn – New Content<\/a><\/p>\n Create Your Own, Get Lost or Both<\/a><\/p>\n Previous Issue<\/a> <\/p>\n Viodi View Subscribe<\/a> <\/p>\n Viodi Forums<\/strong> Club Viodi<\/a> Local Content<\/a> <\/p>\n Multimedia Search <\/a> <\/p>\n Viodi Workshops<\/strong> Local Content<\/a> Telco Video 101<\/a> IPTV Training<\/a> <\/p>\n Industry<\/strong> Industry Calendar<\/a> Viodi Links<\/a> Weissberger’s Wireless World & More<\/a> <\/p>\n About Viodi<\/a> Contact<\/a> Biographies<\/a> <\/p>\n Interested in Sponsoring the Viodi View? Send an email to: sponsor@viodi.com<\/strong><\/p>\n Please forward<\/strong> this free publication to anyone you know who is involved in some way with independent telephone companies. <\/p>\n Mission of the Viodi View:<\/strong><\/p>\n In this on-line publication, we share our analysis, opinions and direction on the interactive television news and views that we believe will be of interest and use to our friends associated directly or indirectly with independent telephone companies. For more information as to the various ways Viodi works with independent telephone companies, please go to http:\/\/www.viodi.com\/alliance\/<\/a><\/p>\n Disclaimer:<\/strong><\/p>\n The Viodi View [Viodi, LLC] and its associates used their best efforts in collecting and preparing the information published herein. However, the Viodi View [Viodi, LLC] does not assume, and hereby disclaims, any and all liability for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions resulted from negligence, accident, or other causes.<\/p>\n All displayed trademarks, logos and service marks are the property of their respective owners. \u00a9 2006 Viodi, LLC<\/a>. All Rights Reserved. Viodi View Newsletter – April 19th, 2006<\/strong> <\/p>\n Create Your Own, Get Lost or Both – Random Musings from the National Cable Show<\/strong><\/p>\n By Ken Pyle, ken.pyle@viodi.com, Managing Editor, Viodi View<\/p>\n The collective attitude of the cable operators who spoke at the National Cable show was definitely one of confidence<\/strong>, but not arrogance. It was summed up well by one speaker who suggested that cable has been able to compete on features and service<\/strong>, while telcos<\/strong> have had to compete on price. It was said by several of the speakers that cable is in the best position it has ever<\/strong> been despite the uncertainty caused by \u0093over the top\u0094 efforts of independent producers, as well as some of the major content owners, like Disney. <\/p>\n While Disney<\/strong> was announcing distribution direct to consumers of Lost<\/strong><\/em> and a few of their other popular programs, they were also announcing a plan to create an affiliate-customizable, taggable spot to raise consumer awareness of high definition. They cited a study that found that only half of all HDTV households subscribe to HDTV programming. These spots could potentially be bad for telcos<\/strong> unable to support HDTV. The reason Disney is probably making these spots is to differentiate their high-quality <\/strong>programming from lesser-quality programming from \u0093over the top\u0094 competitors. <\/p>\n Another theme was the importance of creating communities of interest <\/strong>around content, as a way to create customer loyalty. Many of these operators and cable networks would be envious of what independent telcos are able to do with their communities when it comes to the creation of real content. <\/p>\n One of the ways cable companies may create more engaged customers is with games. Gaming<\/strong> was so big at the Natonal Show that there was a special show space. There were a number of companies providing games on the television. <\/p>\n NTN Buzztime<\/strong>, Inc, the folks who brought television trivia games to bars, showed their cable version of their service. They have achieved some level of success, as 20% of Blue Ridge Communications\u0092 digital cable customers<\/strong> played along with the service, averaging seven hours during February and March. The impressive thing is that promotion of the service was minimal, so customers either discovered it themselves (e.g. on the EPG) or were told about it by friends. <\/p>\n ReacTV<\/strong> promises audience members a chance to win money and promises to pay cable operators for carriage. ReacTV is essentially a 24 hour advertising channel, where the ads become the content. They also present regular trivia questions. One of the things making this channel unique is that the interactivity is enabled by a web site that is synchronized to the television channel<\/strong>. This allows the channel to be transmitted on a one-way cable system without the need for set-top boxes. <\/p>\n They have created a WiFi-enabled remote control<\/strong> that doubles as a bar code reader. The bar code reader is a sign of the home shopping potential of this upstart channel. What they are selling to the advertiser is very accurate reporting, as well as detailed demographic information as to who is watching their advertisements. <\/p>\n Demographic targeting<\/strong> of advertising was shown in a demonstration that between Terayon and Invidi.<\/strong> Invidi has a piece of software that looks at viewing patterns to determine which commercial to provide to a particular customer. The Invidi software would tune the set-top box to a commercial that most closely matched the viewer\u0092s demographics. The compelling thing about this concept is that there is no customer intervention, while, at the same time, the customer does not give up any privacy<\/strong>. <\/p>\n Terayon also showed ad insertion that allows for splicing in different advertisements into an MPEG-4 stream, such that different geographic regions can receive different advertisements. They demonstrated a variation of this, where the same basic ad would be shown throughout a region, but different graphics would be sent with the ad (e.g. a common pizza advertisement, but a different call-in phone number would be shown on depending upon customer location). These demonstrations are significant, because they show that IPTV does not have a monopoly <\/strong>on advanced video features. <\/p>\n PanAmSat, Nagravision and SkyWay Connect<\/strong> made an interesting announcement regarding a MPEG-4 satellite transport system. Their release suggests it will support IPTV approaches through DSL or DOCSIS. DOCSIS could be an interesting way for small HFC cable operators to add an IPTV digital tier. <\/p>\n More on the National Show in the next issue\u0085\u0085<\/strong> <\/p>\n Next Article<\/a><\/p>\n Back to Top<\/a><\/p>\n Previous Issue<\/a><\/p>\n Viodi View Subscribe<\/strong> <\/p>\n Salutation<\/p>\n Mr. Ms. M. 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