Podcast: TVBLOB Aims to Put “Life Back In TV— the Web Way”

While working for one of the leading IPTV middleware providers (Espial), I saw how difficult it can be to implement the various manifestations of Internet and web-enabled IP set-top boxes being deployed in the market. The challenge has always been a lack of standards, and too many deployments that are specific to a set-top box manufacturer or service provider. This leads to many inefficiencies in terms of cost and time to build new boxes to meet the rapidly evolving needs of customers.

One company has set out to solve this daunting problem. TVBLOB bills itself as “a new kind of open TV ecosystem that brings the power of the Web to TVs, the Web way”. TVBLOB was founded by experienced new media entrepreneur Fabrizio Caffarelli, who pondered “Why not bring the power of the Web to the television, and let people make their own TV?” In our continuing podcast series on IPTV and over the top video, we spoke with Fabrizio about this goal.

Click here to listen to podcast.

What became clear to Fabrizio is that it is not just technology that can solve the challenge of providing an open platform for building web-enabled boxes. There needs to be a whole new collaborative business model. Similar to the PC industry, there needs to be expert partners working together, each specializing in what they do best, whether that be new silicon chipsets, applications, digital rights software, etc. TVBLOB aims to provide a standard software framework and applications engine as a starting point, essentially a middleware platform that can allow a faster implementation and re-use of core technologies, as well as a more future-proof box that does not need replacing every two years.

TVBLOB’s goal is to help manufacturers build a new set-top box device that will be compatible with cable, satellite, or over the top business models. In Fabrizio’s view, it should allow full access to all the sites and applications of the web, without the complexity and limitations of being tied to a PC. According to him, “the spirit of the web is free and participatory and open.”

How does this compare to Roku or Vudu, or TVs enabled by Yahoo Widgets? We talk about this in the podcast. The opportunity, as Fabrizio sees it, is to be able to standardize all the software guts that go into these types of boxes, allowing them to translate and fine-tune the TVBLOB framework, rather than re-creating the wheel each time. TVBLOB provides an open SDK and all the standard rendering tools many of these boxes already use such as AJAX, HTML, and JavaScript. Following a larger trend, most of the processing happens in the cloud, allowing the box to be a fairly light-weight and low-cost device. TVBLOB also provides an adaption engine and download manager for streaming and buffering video content, which today can deliver 720P quality content on a 1 MB stream with 1 second of delay.

While one can debate the pros and cons of such an approach, there is certainly a need for more standards when it comes to OTT boxes. The consumer confusion caused by the proliferation of various Internet video devices and technologies has helped to stall the wide-scale adoption of products that can bridge the divide between the Internet and people’s PCs and the widescreen viewing on the home’s HDTVs. The hope is that a more standards-based development platform could give manufacturers and consumers alike the confidence that they are making the right bets on new OTT technology.

While commendable, TVBLOBs technology still does not answer larger issues regarding the OTT business model. Questions such as which networking protocol is best to place-shift Internet video content to the TVs in the home (802.11n, WHDI, WirelessHD, Ethernet, powerline, etc.), which applications to enable, what new user interfaces or remote controls are required for an optimal 10-foot viewing experience, and how to force various partners to collaborate on standardization and consumer education? It also doesn’t answer the questions about the changing business models of various players, such as who benefits from new forms of online video advertising and who pays for the increased bandwidth load of online video?

Fabrizio reminds me that TVBLOB is only providing a platform and it is up to manufacturing partners to translate the experience and work with video content owners and service providers to implement any new device. It is not unlike the challenge faced by cell phone manufacturers who first built web-enabled smart phones and then needed to figure out how to best serve up Internet content through truncated mobile browsers and smaller keypads.

The TVBLOB framework has already been designed into a new hybrid OTT/STB built by Telsey. The company is still looking for partners for deployments in North America. Since most European regulations block online content from the likes of Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu (alas, just recently they closed down a commonly hacked VPN hole for Hulu), TVBLOB may find its most eager partners are in the States, where the business value of what they are trying to do is more tangible.