(17 April 2008 4:00 pm)

LAS VEGAS: With technology advancing at a mind boggling speed and consumers embracing new ways to access and consume content at an even faster rate, the entertainment content business globally is experiencing dynamism of the kind it has never seen before.

Content on the go, anytime, anywhere, and a near infinite amount of choice in variety, genres and formats, makes the business like a million piece jigsaw puzzle and almost impossible to find order in the chaos.

Result? The need to explore and monetize every emerging platform and access technology. And with so many platforms, digital video production is the buzz word. Shoot it in HD and then output to various formats and resolutions.

Amongst many focused tracks at the NAB Show 08 was one on Broadband TV.

Interesting pointers shared across the sessions at that track included:

Growing demand for Webisodes
In the session on Redefining video for multiple streams, Dmitry Shapiro of Veoh Networks shared: "Short form programming has become very appealing to consumers and the good news is that advertisers believe in it as well. There is a complete business case for webisode productions."

People watch longer versions on the web too!
Dmitry further added that it was not just shortform, his insight was that consumers watched long-form content on the broadband internet too.

"It doesn't matter which screen they are viewing it on as long as they are getting what they want and where they want it. People are watching long-form, youngsters especially watch a lot of regular TV shows via broadband on their laptops," Dmitry said.

Video Snacking
In his keynote, NBC Universal VP for Consumer & Broadcast technology Sheau Ng said: "From content creation to production, to distribution to consumption, there is a new phenomena called video snacking. People watch their internet video during lunch time and though it is relatively new to tell, mobile is yet another platform for video and this is just the beginning."

On linear content, social networking and communities, Sheau Ng said: "We expect the expansion of our business on the internet will continue for the foreseeable future." He laid strong emphasis on social networking and communities.

Sheau Ng pointed out, "Our need to belong and need for social context to everything we do and a strong sense of belonging to a community existed since our ancestral cave dwelling days. Today, location is not the only basis for community, digital technology has enabled many ways to form communities based on several parameters and social networking has found place in our local vernacular.

"Over the past 18 months, we have moved a significant amount of our shows and TV content onto the web too, available as downloads and streaming. And we are not alone, virtually all TV networks have moved in a similar way from linear to non linear."

"KULU.COM is a JV between us and Newscorp. Users can share video clips by embedding them into their messages. We also have NBC Direct, an innovative application where users feed in their favorite TV shows and new episodes will be downloaded automatically and added to their PC/Laptops for viewing online or offline."

Personalised Advertising
The sessions also revealed that an important shift was taking place in advertising.

"Personalized ad placement becomes extremely useful to every one involved and the collaboration among content technology and service industries can be quite bright for all of us," said Ng.

Content: What you want, when you want, where you want
Kevin Wirick, VP-Marketing IP Video Solutions, Home & Networks Mobility for Motorola spoke about the kinds of new services that consumers want and how networks would need to evolve to meet the same demand.

The big trends, according to Wirick, were Video Explosion, From Prime time to My Time, and Broadband on the go.

"DVR, VoD, stream to PC, download with commercials, download without commercials, transferring on personal media, broadband mobile - there are many ways in which consumers watch programs today," saidWirick. Though today DVR capacity is average 160 GB harddrive, in a couple of of years it will be a 1000 GB which can store Mpeg HD 340 hours of content.

He gave his take on the Ideal mobile tv experience which would allow to navigate using program guide and channel zapping; have links to related information; view short episodes; have programme interactivity; and downloads.

The key points throughout the sessions in the broadband TV track were: necessity of good content; emergence of video production; and the business viability of short form content for the web as well as mobile broadband.