TORONTO – Rogers Communications’ announcement on Friday of NextBox 2.0 is not “the next big thing,” but just the next new fork in an ever-fragmenting road.
While the telcos roll out their IPTV offerings running Microsoft Mediaroom’s whole home PVR functionality and slick, flexible on-screen guides and web applications, Rogers NextBox 2.0 (Cisco’s much-touted Videoscape) is an utterly necessary upgrade to the cable experience, bringing it to a more even footing with the growing competition of Bell’s Fibe TV in Toronto.
While about 300,000 of Rogers existing digital cable boxes will be able to handle the new guide upgrade, to get the whole home DVR (for up to eight TV sets), customers will have to upgrade to the NextBox 2.0. In fact, Rogers has been quietly deploying the solution already “in areas where people might be tempted to go to another solution,” said the company’s vice-president, video products, David Purdy in an interview.
The new guide takes the look into this decade, making most existing cable guides out there look like the old alphanumeric text news channels from the 1980s. It also works more quickly and customers can now search by actor or director, for example, instead of just by show name and time (something the telcos’ IPTV solution has offered for some time. For that matter, that sort of search has been a part of the TiVo service since it’s U.S. launch years ago).
Anyhow, knowing a growing number of consumers want it all instantly, meaning they want their TV wherever, whenever and however, now – and that how they can go about that changes often – Purdy added that this new launch “is the start and not the end of our revolutionizing of the entertainment experience.”
For example, while the company demonstrated whole home DVR and TV viewing on laptops or tablets with Rogers Anyplace TV (formerly Rogers On Demand Online), still just 22 channels are available that way and there is no way to watch DVR-recorded content on anything except a cable connected television.
However, more connectivity and additional choice are some of the next steps, says Purdy. “It should be 222 channels,” he agreed. “And we’re going to get there very quickly.” Broadcasters simply may not have negotiated the linear broadcast rights for all platforms and even the show creators up the production line may have to revisit contracts with actors unions, for example, too.
“There’s also a genuine concern about security,” added Purdy. “We had to do work to secure our service to ensure there’s digital rights management built into it so that if somebody steals the asset we can track back who put the asset on BitTorrent or whatever.”
However, with a ready way for customers to enjoy the content they already paid for on any device, Purdy hopes this will limit piracy. “You can’t be going after the pirates if you don’t have a reasonably priced, simple to use, legal alternative,” he said – and Rogers Anyplace TV aims at just that. “The next step is shutting down the pirates stealing the content.’
As for having whole-home PVR enabled on more screens than just the TVs tied to cable? “Very soon. We’re working on that right now,” said Purdy. “That live streaming app has a phase two and a phase three.
“What I would love to see is for you to be able to use the tablet as your remote,” he continued, but for more than just a new way to change channels and adjust the volume – as a device for the display of program-synchronous content, for example. Many customers already watch TV with laptops or tablets in hand, so why not make use of that small screen, tying it into what’s on the big screen in a way “that enhances the experience,” he said.
For example, when you attend a baseball game, the Jumbotron generally shows the player at bat and his statistics for the game and the season, along with other fun facts. What if that data was made available on a viewer’s tablet while they are at home watching the game on their TV, as the batter walked up to the plate? “It’s a wonderful complementary tool,” said Purdy. “Imagine if that was on your tablet, synched up to the broadcast.”
However, while there are many customers looking to tweet, like, or seek out programming content online while they watch TV, there are a great number who like their cable just the way it is and don’t want anything to change. Rogers has to remember those folks too, even as it touts its shiny new toys. Their personal TV demands must also be served, even if that means leaving them alone. “For every customer out there who wants the latest and greatest, the slickest, most advanced, there’s another person out there who says ‘don’t move a single channel’,” says Purdy.
For example, “there are 20% to 30% of our customers who don’t use the electronic program guide. They just go channel up and channel down.”
The NextBox 2.0 isn’t for them, not yet anyway.
