Norigin Diaries
Our Streaming TV Journal about
Tech, Product & Content in between!
Monday, 15th January
Samsung was the quickest to announce their newest innovations ahead of the event itself. The largest news for Samsung Tizen TVs in 2024 is based around the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies by improving the intuitiveness of their devices. AI picture enhancement takes centre stage with the “AI Motion Enhancer Pro” as it detects the type of sport automatically while being watched. It uses deep learning to track moving objects within the sport with high quality and preciseness. Prices have not yet been announced and the largest of the TVs was under 100 inches.
LG showcased their inspiring futuristic “OLED-T“ where the ‘T’ represents “Transparent” TVs. The transparent display that can be comparable to a fish tank, boastfully, is able to change to an opaque display too. The sleek and transparent screen is a great form-factor for aesthetics, but this comes with a hit a hit to image quality as compared to their other device models. While they state it as a wireless device, a power cable is still required and the price is in the high end range. This launch is well ahead of its time and certainly ahead of its peers, including Samsung, who has demoed similar devices, but has not committed to a full launch.
Hisense presented its highest levels of brightness and promised specs that would outshine all other devices with their new large screens in 2024. Much like Hisense, TCL also presented large and bright screen sizes and resolutions. Roku, on the other hand, mainly dwelled on its AI themed announcement to showcase content identifying technology that would help with visual experiences. Vizio seemed relatively quiet, which could mean we should expect some news from them soon?
Monday, 8th January
Norigin Media wraps up 2023 by listing the trends that shaped the year that was, and which will no doubt determine the year to come:
1. AI and its Growing Impact for Streaming TV: With many digital platforms and social media apps already adopting machine learning and Artificial Intelligence to improve consumer experiences, there has been a lot of progress in 2023. Whether it’s Sports streaming apps or D2C OTT apps from broadcasters, AI is not only helping create some great UI & UX, but also introducing a whole new era of Search & Recommendation which actually works and increases retention. AI has also helped new use cases including interactivity for Audience Engagement on CTVs and Streaming Apps.
2. FAST Channels: We think of FAST channels as Linear TV 2.0, in other words a refresh of conventional Linear TV, where setting up a channel has far less investment that helps to generate greater ROI. As with Linear TV, FAST channels help content discovery and conversion to VoD consumption. FAST also provides an opportunity for niche content creators to create TV channels with scheduled content that allows them to be available on larger platforms and CTVs like Samsung TV Plus and Roku channels – all of whom have growing audiences that consume FAST channels, a great source of Ad-revenue.
3. Fragmented CTVs: The race for the living room is only heating up more than 10 years after the launch of the first Smart TVs in 2012. While Samsung and LG seem to have global dominance with their individual and unique operating systems, they are not yielding to the dominance of the Android OS on CTVs. We have seen Hisense and Philips starting to diverge from the Android OS too, to their unique choices which further fragments the CTV space. While Android remains the largest App store, only the strongest will survive, as we have seen with Samsung Tizen cross over 50 million households in Europe in 2023. Companies like Roku, Amazon and Vizio are spending most of their efforts in the USA, we can only assume they will expand their markets or we anticipate large announcements in 2024. We have had a taste of this already now in 2023, with the highly anticipated launch of the Vega OS from Amazon / Fire TV.
At Norigin Media, we strive to meet current and anticipate future trends set by device manufacturers, while also basing our investments on consumer trends that develop as a result of manufacturers’ decisions. Only tIme will tell which trends win out and we look forward to a hearty 2024.
Friday, 15th December
Do you think using SSAI (server-side ad insertion) removes all the integration logic for advertisements from the client-side or frontend app?
The answer is no, it’s not entirely correct to think that SSAI implies that the video serving backend controls all ad-playback and tracking, while the client or app simply playback a stream with all the advertisements embedded within it.
In most cases, a different UI is required while the ads are playing. For instance, hiding player controls, restricting seeking (or scrubbing) past unwatched ad breaks, sending analytics events for ad impressions, etc. In order to achieve this, most SSAI providers require a “client-side” SDK that helps to implement such logic.
As adverts are embedded within a stream, there is no straightforward way to know when the ads are actually playing, especially within Live events where the stream itself is an endless moving DVR window. In order to get this information, the “Client-side” SDKs rely on the VAST responses that are supplied separately from the stream and contain arrays of ad breaks with their respective timestamps.
Another way of getting this information is listening to ID3 tags, which is a type of metadata that is embedded in the media itself. However even if the SDK provides you with all this data, you still have to implement client-side UI logic around it.
So in gist, SSAI has a bit of CSAI 😉