Archive for January, 2008

Transcoding Expands Video Advertising Opportunities

Published by
Brendon Mills
at January 28, 2008 in On Demand Transcoding, Advertising, Mobile Video, Internet Video, Transcoding and Uncategorized. 2 Comments    Email This Post

In many interesting blog posts from NewTeeVee, Contentinople, and Digital Media Wire to name just a few, have discussed the video advertising outlook for 2008. 

Research by Yankee Group suggests that revenue attributed to downloads and in-streaming advertising is forecasted to grow significantly over next five years.  By 2011, in-stream advertising revenue is expected to reach $3.89 billion dollars and revenue for downloads will contribute $850 million.

Two important metrics driving the growth of these revenue streams are the number of users who watch online video and the amount of time spent watching online video – both of which are on the rise.  As the number of users and time spent viewing video increases, advertisers will bid up the CPMs thus driving higher the top line revenue attributed to in-stream advertising.  IDC research also suggests that approximately 1,200 terabytes of data are consumed each day in the U.S. alone by users watching online video.  This number is expected to grow to an astonishing 7,800 terabytes/day by 2011.
Pre-roll and in-stream video ads, whether online or mobile, represent a huge opportunity to monetize content.  The opportunity also creates additional stress on existing transcoding resources, requiring operators to increase their transcoding capacity to keep up with the push to monetize more content in more formats.  We agree with Jay Braage, that online video is the key to the media castle – but new approaches to video transcoding is what will help deliver video to wider audiences and thus giving operators new opportunities to cross-market content and open new advertising and revenue streams.

Opening the Video Vault to the Mobile Consumer

Published by
Brendon Mills
at January 23, 2008 in On Demand Transcoding, Mobile Video and Transcoding. 0 Comments    Email This Post

According to Nielsen’s estimates, there currently are 239 million mobile subscribers in the U.S., 61 million of who have video capable cell phones or mobile devices. However of those, only a small percentage actually subscribe to the data service and take full advantage of their mobile video capabilities. But why?  The volume of video, the number of transcodes required and the limitations of legacy transcode solutions has created a virtual transcode transaction traffic jam, making it impossible for content providers to offer their entire video libraries to mass mobile audiences. 

For mobile video service subscriptions to keep pace with the sale of new video enabled devices, consumers need to have a wide variety of content available to them, from the most popular prime time TV shows to the pop-culture hits from 10 to 20 years ago.  It’s about choice and on-demand transcoding is the key to opening the video vault to the mobile consumer.

Value of the Video Long Tail

Published by
Brendon Mills
at January 21, 2008 in On Demand Transcoding, IPTV, Mobile Video, Internet Video, RipCode V4, Transcoding and Uncategorized. 0 Comments    Email This Post

In a recent Mashable post by Mark Hopkins, he discusses the intrinsic value of the video long tail, in particular the difference between current event and news-based video versus video produced for enjoyment.  At RipCode, the video long tail is a topic that we are very familiar with. 

When you talk about video long tail content, it’s important to understand the unique challenge to content creators, aggregators and network operators striving to expand their video distribution by offering support for a greater number of devices extending their reach to the “3 screens” – Internet, mobile and IPTV.

Each device supporting video playback maintains one or multiple media profiles defining what types of content is supported.  These media profiles are differentiated by many variables including resolution size, codec implementation, aspect ratio, scan method, and network protocol.  So it’s no longer just about making long tail video available for viewing on a PC, but to any video enabled device.  

Pre-transcoding video can be a practical approach when working with smaller video libraries supporting a limited number of supported profiles; however, it becomes problematic for content aggregators who have large libraries and ingest a high volume of content on a daily basis.  As the size of a video library and number of supported profiles grow, so does the data storage requirements.

 As we talk about on our website, by transcoding video on-demand, content creators can realize value from not just the most popular and widely viewed video, but from the video long tail as well.  Until now, it was deemed too resource intensive to pre-transcode and store less widely viewed titles in multiple file formats – like the news-based video that Mark talks about in his blog.  But by changing the nature of transcoding from a “pre-transcode” methodology to one where video is transcoded only when a customer requests it, this opens the door for less popular content, enabling content creators and syndicators to monetize their entire video library.

2008: Pivotal Year for Internet and Mobile Video

Published by
Brendon Mills
at January 16, 2008 in Advertising, Mobile Video, Internet Video and Transcoding. 0 Comments    Email This Post

At the start of any new year we all take out our crystal balls in hopes of looking into the future and predicting the outlook for the year.  And this year is no different.  NewTeeVee came out with their list of online video predictions for 2008 and GigaOm has their list of 5 trends for the year.  And of course there is all of the product news around mobile and IPTV as well as content deals coming out of the CES show in Las Vegas, leaving us to ponder and wonder what’s in store for 2008?

Here at RipCode, we think this will be the year that video takes a large leap toward realizing the vision of video ubiquity, gaining traction in becoming a viable choice for consumers on all “3 screens”.  In particular we think this will be the year of the low resolution revolution.  As handsets and networks improve, we’ll see more and more content creators, syndicators and UGC sites implementing mobile initiatives to move beyond the PC and package their video for the portable, personal mobile market.  This gives them an opportunity to extend the reach of content that they currently have and opens up other revenue streams for monetizing that content.

Also, I personally believe that this is the year that you will hear transcoding and pre/post roll advertising in the same sentence.  Operators are pushing the boundaries to monetize more and more online videos and pre/post roll advertising, although hated, is still the overall leader in revenue generation.  This year you will see many announcements, some from RipCode, on unique applications in transcoding technologies and advertising strategies.

And finally, here are kudos to some new innovations like SlingMedia’s announcement to release SlingPlayer for the popular BlackBerry devices, the anticipated 3G version of the iPhone and the prospect of carriers like Verizon opening their networks to any device give us early hope that 2008 will indeed be a pivotal year for Internet and mobile video.