TV in 20 years

 March 1, 2011, OTT Con, San Jose, CA– Scott Puopolo, vice president service provider practice Cisco projected next generation television characteristics. In some ways, the future is already here. The three drivers are altering the landscape are technology advances, business changes, and behavioral changes.

People already use multiple channels, screens, and platforms to get the television. In a survey of 750 people across the entire television ecosystem, the changes are already evident. Ubiquitous broadband and advances in screens interfaces and AI are helping people get access to their content at any time. By 2015, over 500 billion hours of content will be available through various delivery mediums including broadcast, cable, and over the top.

The explosion in content and content sources puts pressure on existing business models to change. Viewers are no longer captive to producers constraints, they can get the content they want at any time. As a result, the old business models of captive audience and advertising supported content must change to reflect the realities that people now control the medium rather than the other way around.

As a result of technology changes that enabled time-shifting and on-the-go content consumption, viewers behaviors are changing dramatically. As a result of increases in time shifting, over 40 percent of viewers now watch the programs at their own convenience and schedule rather than when the content is broadcast. People can get to their programs through multiple channels and platforms, and as a result are not dependent upon the original sources for the content.

So television in 20 years will become an increasingly immersive experience. Dedicated TVs will give way to multiple screens, and dedicated channels will go away. As the television gives way to multiple platforms, the remote control will become unnecessary. Future television will change viewing habits from passive watching to higher levels of involvement, and augmented reality technologies will blur the distinction between reality and television.

As the channels go away, we’ll watch customized TV streams or access content through search. Content will be on-demand, personalized, but branded in a Pandora-like setting. Content will be a combination of on-demand and real-time, user generated and professional, and over the top and walled garden content. Technologies will migrate from DVRs and Netflix UI, to recommendation engines based on past behaviors and social networks, to integrated media interfaces that provide personalized linear TV. Eventually this will all become “Mood TV”, content matched to your environment and current mental state.

Words, gestures, and gadgets will control the TV of the future. We are already seeing this as smart phones and tablets are starting to replace remote controls. Viewers will use speech, gestures, and eye movements to navigate content, and the TV will follow you from room to room, and from screen to screen. Future televisions might incorporate gesture sensing interfaces and voice controls leading to elimination of remotes shipping with TVs. Longer-term, eye-tracking technologies and even direct mind interfaces will control the display.

Technology advances will bring a new sensory elements to programs. Viewers will not only watch shows, but will smell, feel, and taste them too, as more lifelike images in super HD or life-size holograms become available. In addition, the viewer will be able to choose their perspective. Some of the technologies are already in existence, but a lot of work is required for 360° camera angles and other sensory inputs. The Star Trek holodeck is out there somewhere.

Television will change from a dedicated box to be something that exists on any flat surface. Content can be resized and placed anywhere and integrated entertainment, home monitoring and control, e-mail, and other social media will all be together on the screens. We will go from IP connected TVs and TV on PCs and phones to embedded screens which will accommodate pinch and pull to size. Screen technologies will allow flexible shapes and materials and eventually the screens will also be able to visualize the viewer.

All of these technology changes will drive viewers to become more involved. Fan involvement will grow from simple to immersive as viewers see additional scenes based on their profiles and preferences. Something already starting in some networks, characters now engage with fans outside of the storyline. We will see greater consumer involvement in content generation as viewers interact with characters across various media. In the future, TV “friends” will be involved in your life through artificial intelligence and augmented reality, and these friends will be very lifelike.

All of these technology advances and behavioral changes will completely reconfigure what the public considers to be television. New creation technologies will enable ordinary Joe’s to create high-grade content, and the high amount of interconnected responses will enable ads to be personalized to your specific needs, desires, and moods. The television content will follow you wherever you go.

The implications of these changes spans the entire television value chain.

TV Value Chain

Data and analytics will use more metadata and will track and manage content across the chain. The ability to recover viewer information will affect all of these areas. Standards will enable transfer across devices, platforms, and will allow content to flow more easily from production to the providers and finally to the viewers.

The incorporation of sensory technologies to and from the viewer will change the quality of content delivery and the ability to deliver completely personalized content. The computing capabilities and bandwidth need to increase dramatically to support a higher levels of customization and multiple views will demand significant improvements in infrastructure. The techniques to produce multiple views and multisensory experiences with change production completely.

Digital rights management must work across devices and manage the copying, tagging, and storing of digital content. Branding will still be critical but will be moving out of the creators hands. Users can change their views and even affect the content by being part of it. All of these things will require new business models that work for the business to business to consumer range, and can securely access and use personal data. For more details, go to www.cisco.com/go/ibsg/serviceprovider