Amino’s Response

Below is a copy of Amino’s submission to the BBC trustees on their Canvas initiative.  Would love to know whether you agree or disagree?

 

Amino fully acknowledges that the UK public have demonstrated a real appetite for the BBC’s free on-demand services with the impressive usage of iPlayer by 1.4 million PC users per week. We also support the initiative to build on the Virgin Media experience and extend this content on to the television to deliver greater mass-market appeal. The BBC has stated its intention to work with partners to generate a set of standards that allow it and others to work with a manageable environment for the cross-platform distribution of its content so that UK consumers, with no contract, have a device that is simple to install and use and open to all content providers. 

Project Canvas is being proposed as a set of standards to promote the accessibility of OTT content to the public in the same way that Freeview is a vehicle to give the public access to Digital Television services. Amino welcomes the introduction of an appropriate open standard for OTT.

However, in proposing Canvas as the vehicle to drive those standards, the BBC must be careful to:

Recognise this is not Freeview

·         The comparison of Canvas with Freeview is inaccurate – in the latter the consortium owned the masts that broadcasted the streams that the Freeview boxes were designed to receive.  In the OTT world, those ‘streams’ are many and varied and dictating one standard over another would inevitably bias the market. Clearly by the Trust stating that the current Freeview vehicle is not the right mechanism to deliver Canvas, the BBC are aware that the analogy is false.

Facilitate and not control

·         Pre-approving Canvas content would leave the BBC as the gatekeeper for the UK public on what content and business models are acceptable.  That is a route to many media headlines and much heartache for the corporation.  The shouts of ‘who moderates the moderator’ will be deafening.

Work with the market, not against It

·         The Open IPTV Forum was created in March 2007 and is a well-supported, pan-industry standards organisation which has been working tirelessly to produce end- to- end specifications for IPTV based upon existing technologies and open standards.  We note that BBC has now joined this organisation but needs to support these proposed specifications and not contradict them.

Support UK plc

·         The Canvas solution could well be a ground-breaking architecture for the rest of the world to copy and follow (as was Freeview).  This offers a superb opportunity for uniquely innovative UK technologies companies to assist the BBC to develop and then ultimately export this model globally.  However, currently, the Canvas team are working with Cisco, Thomson and Humax to define the hardware reference platform.  The BBC is also working with Adobe in defining the software standard.  This is despite the fact that the UK has a wealth of UK talent in companies like Amino, Pace, IP Vision and ANT – all of whom are being starved of a significant commercial advantage.  In the end, the loser will be UK plc as American, French and Korean companies exploit that advantage.  It is not sufficient to justify this preference on previous Freeview/FreeSat relationships nor on the receipt of external R&D funding.

 

Encourage innovation through flexibility

·         Standards can be both liberating and constricting.  In defining a platform and publishing the specification for that platform, the BBC will encourage strong content and application innovation in the UK.  However, the platform will have to morph as new technologies appear – particularly driven by the fast moving internet.  This is similar to the transition from DVB-T to DVB-T2 but many more times and much faster.   So Canvas will have to be flexible, and not prescriptive, if the platform is to match the success of the PC internet world.  Such flexibility will certainly cost money, drive obsolescence and frustrate some but will be essential to the longevity of the platform.

In conclusion, Amino believes that Canvas has laudable aims.  However, like Project Kangaroo before it, the road to delivering a standard UK OTT platform is covered with the potholes of bias, self-interest, indecision, dominance and obsolescence.  The answer is to adopt the role of facilitator – not dictator – and acknowledge that this may well cost the BBC more but will deliver much more to UK citizens and business.

Amino’s recommendation to the Trust is to:

1.       Define the standards of how to access BBC iPlayer content but not how to deliver it.  This means promoting innovation through open API’s and not through a standardised platform.  Granted there will need to be brand guidelines around the use of that content but that is all.  The internal BBC view will be that ‘iPlayer’ is a combination of content and experience that cannot be picked apart.  Don’t be fooled – others may deliver a better experience around that content if they are given the opportunity to do so.

2.       Select technologies that are standardised and platform independent to enable both a smooth service evolution and the portability of Canvas to other platforms and territories.

3.       Actively support UK plc technology companies to drive ‘standardisation by default’ so that innovation is encouraged but duplication is avoided.

4.       Support a set of technologies (encoding, encapsulation and presentation) to avoid bias and widen the appeal.  This is the only way to be transparent and applicable to all.

5.     Be open to all business models.If Canvas is to be an alternative to Pay-TV then there had better be paid-for content and advertising present