While everyone talks about the opportunities TV Everywhere presents, the problem in getting it wrong is that consumers aren’t inclined to be forgiving. They may ditch their MVPDs even if the only bad experience they have is with TVE because they have the same expectations for it as linear TV, Parks Associates ‘ Brett Sappington said during an IPTV webinar hosted by the research firm last week.

What does the crystal ball say about the future of TV? VOD and live TV will be completely integrated in an on-demand world, Microsoft gm, global solutions John Hargrave said during the presentation. "The notion of live TV will disappear," he said. "Content determines how quickly TV evolves," he said. On-demand will rule, as CenturyLink‘s vp of video strategy and development Steve Sklarenvisioned "on-demand moving from the side load to the center of customer experience" and the path for future services will be driven by TV apps. In addition, he predicted "OTT content will become a core part of service providers’ offerings."

But there will be pitfalls before we get to that. He repeated the familiar stance that the technology is there to broaden TVE’s reach, it’s the rights that are the biggest hurdle. Chris Munford, dir of system engineering with multiplatform tech firm Azuki Systems, said ops need to ask themselves how they’ll get rights in and out of home and whether they have the technology to enforce new rights. Other questions include how to support closed captioning. Munford added that though many major content providers today are open to letting content flow in and out of the home, "they aren’t ready to relinquish control." The good news is "we are starting to see better rights for certain operators" across platforms. Real-time service control is another difficult problem for ops. Specifically, when changes on things like content rights, authentication and network features occur, "how do you update systems across various platforms altogether?" said David Cox, VIDDEC Consulting.

Another challenge is around device support and proliferation. Ops need to deliver content in its best form across platforms and the obstacle is to have one operation to cover lots of different devices, speakers said. Consistency across platforms is key to IP video customer experience, said Sklar. Solutions to the these challenges? Personalized content delivery for today’s viewing habits, agile managed service with real-time provisioning for Web-speed service deployment and universal client model that unifies user experience across all screens, the panel said.

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