In and out of Las Vegas – What happened during NAB

The NAB Show is inarguably the biggest week of the year for broadcasters, streaming services and leaders in technology. With The International Market for Content Development and Distribution (MIPTV) occurring during the same week, the leaders of innovation will shape the future of the industry.

With a total reported attendance of 91460, the NAB Show had 5% fewer tech heads making the pilgrimage to Las Vegas than the previous year. Elsewhere, the smaller MIPTV held in Cannes, France also saw a 5% drop in attendance to 9,500 registered attendees. The popularity of these events may be beginning to slow down, however, the gravity of news is at an all-time high.

While MIPTV focused more on content partnerships and service announcements for new deals, NAB captured the most thrilling news from camera technology to editing software to streaming service announcements. Conferences like the NAB Show shape the future of the streaming industry and give a glimpse into what trends will occur throughout the rest of the year. While these fresh announcements bring new possibilities in terms of content delivery, performance monitoring and player capability, this also means streaming services hoping to remain competitive must keep their ear close to the ground in order to stay ahead of the rest.

Here are the most important announcements in and out of Las Vegas during NAB:

Intelligent Device Optimization (IDO) is here

Leading comms company Telstra partnered with CDN Broadpeak to launch the Intelligent Device Optimization (IDO) solution. This technology will allow players to dynamically switch broadcast configurations in real-time in order to keep the most efficient device partnership in use for mobile sporting apps amongst others. This technology will require technological context in order to give streaming services full visibility of what works best as well as why. This means benefiting from an analytics solution like YOUBORA Suite in order to deeply understand what goes on under the surface of your platform.

5G will be vital for Esports

4G’s latency and connection issues restrict the uptake of mobile, on-the-go gaming for high fidelity AAA games. However, 5G will eliminate the current pain points of cloud gaming, creating an opportunity to reimagine the end-to-end service journey for players and viewers. A panel at NAB explored how 5G will affect Esports enabling new interaction models, consumption formats, and content types. This panel discussed the opportunities for broadcasters, content producers, and service providers to get involved in the rapidly growing industry.

While many claim that we are still a few years away from public access to 5G, the sooner streaming services that work closely with live content start investing in this technology, the better off they will be when 5G becomes commonplace. The appeal of low-latency to consumers goes beyond buffering and join times. Keeping your viewers as close to the action as possible is critical.

New VODs rely on analytics

Disney+ announced and comes at an extremely competitive price

As the SVOD war rages on, Disney has finally announced a release date for their streaming service, Disney+. Coming at a price of $6.99 a month, this has already resulted in Hulu dropping their price down to $5.99 a month. With Netflix offering their basic package at the price of $8.99 a month after recently raising their prices, this puts a lot of pressure on other big players to reconsider their pricing strategy.

Disney+ will come with a library of exclusive content after the acquisition of 21st Century Fox earlier this year. This means Disney now own Hulu, ESPN+, as well as their new service which they have said will be bundled together. With the recent announcement of Apple TV coming later this year as well, the problems which non-linear TV looked to dissolve have ended up resurfacing.

Subscribing to HBO, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and Disney+ is going to cost a household upwards of $50 a month and that is just for the most basic packages. The great unbundling was intended as a force of good, but now, this complicated and guiled mix of services could result in a resurgence in Pay TV.

The battle for regions is on

Research & Editorial Team on April 16th 2019