Prior to Parks Associates’ 1st-annual Future of Video: OTT, Pay TV, and Digital Media conference, Jonathan Ruff, Senior Director of Technical & Product Marketing, ARRIS shared insights with the analyst team to discuss what is driving growth in video entertainment and what the biggest impacts on technology will be in the near future.

Jonathan participated on the The Impact of Voice Interaction on Video Services panel on Wednesday, December 12, at 10:45 AM. He was joined by the following panelists:

Kamran Lotfi, Director of Product Management, Video, Gracenote
Jen Prenner, GM, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon

What is the greatest challenge facing the video industry over the next three years?
The biggest challenge facing the industry will be the migration to IP streaming delivery of all video content PayTV (Programming), streaming services both from Web based Content providers, traditional programmers and PayTV providers making their content libraries/services available as an aggregated library and the selection effortless of what the consumer wants to watch.

What is driving growth in video entertainment today? How does that change over the next few years?
Wi-Fi set tops with support for IP video streaming services such as Netflix Hulu, HBO Go will drive the growth in the video entertainment today and for the next few years. Simplifying the effort subscribers have to go through to watch video entertainment on their screens on their time schedule will expand, traditional Pay TV providers will continue to expand the library of video content sources beyond traditional programmers and make voice visual search the primary way consumers select the content they want to view. Video consumption on large screen TVs continues to grow along with other screens.

What technology will have the biggest impact on your business in the next 18 months and why?Greater availability and adoption of gigabit high speed data services will continue to see growth in our business and renewed opportunities in the management of home Wi-Fi networks and Wi-Fi over which IP streamed video content including 4k will be consumed on Wi-Fi set tops and Smart Media Devices.

What is one thing that the Pay-TV ecosystem needs to learn from the online giants in video (Google, Netflix, Facebook, and Amazon)?
Viewership data, applied analytics, on actual real-time consumer viewership has value and in cooperation with other datasets can enable new monetization opportunities for PAY-TV ecosystems in adjacent markets, identify and evaluate new services opportunities and further optimize their delivery systems.

What will pay TV services look like in five years?
Pay TV will continue to exist from the viewpoint of consumers purchasing a monthly video service from a service provider, it will no longer be solely about aggregation of programming services both standard and premium but will be an aggregation of media or content services. The guide will still be there but video will only be streamed when someone selects the channel or program to watch. The majority of non -live will be consumed when the viewer wants to watch and not when it may have been scheduled and the advertising in these programs will be all dynamic whether it’s the ad avails ‘sold’ by the original content owner or it’s the local ad opportunities video service providers sell.

For more information on the Future of Video, visit: www.fov2018.com.