OTT AND MEDIA STREAMING
Over the top media service (OTT) has been one of the phenomenal technologies that have come into existence in recent years.
In simple words, it is an online media streaming service offered to viewers directly through the internet through devices like mobiles, desktops, tablets, or OTT devices, such as smart TVs, Chromecast, PlayStation and so on.
It’s fascinating how far we’ve come in this part of technology. Back in the days radio was a big source of entertainment, although it had only an audio to listen, however, even that would make people gather around it.Being the best of that time, it was people’s favourite.
As the time and technology walked ahead, in the year 1927 TV was introduced to the world. The combination of audio and visuals made it perfect home entertainment set. Later on, broadcast satellite service providers started giving packages of channels where people could and still can choose the channels they want and watch programs live telecast scheduled on it.
So, we’ve come a long way in this particular technology, every year there has been innovations. Now we have smart TVs where you can do almost all things what you can do on smartphones.
We all would agree that the preference over TV watching has changed over time with changes in technology. The big change came when we were introduced to high speed internet which made it possible to deliver video content through internet. Take the example of Youtube, it’s a very popular video streaming service with huge content on it.
Video on Demand (VOD) has been quite popular in today’s world and OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar are great examples of this paid media streaming service. Initially, people were reluctant to try these services because without good speed internet it was useless, and since it was something new topeople,they were sceptical about it. Eventually, it was accepted by people and year by year there were millions of new usersgetting added in the list. The strategy of giving a 1-month free trial actually did work for these OTT giants, once the users tasted what it was, they couldn’t resist.
People hardly watch regular TV shows now, people like to watch what they want, at any time they want, at any place they want. When you have that kind of convenience and freedom, it’s only obvious that it would be preferred by all.
THERE ARE 3 MODELS IN WHICH USUALLY VOD CONTENT IS DELIVERED THROUGH OTT PLATFORMS
Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD)
The users pay a monthly or yearly fee and watch all the content made available to them. Examples are Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Go
Transactional Video on Demand (TVOD)
The users pay a fee only for a particular film they want to watch. It is more like purchasing or renting the movie for a specific time period or a number of times to watch. Examples are iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Prime Video, Youtube
Advertisement Video on Demand (AVOD)
Usually there are no charges to users in this model, the revenue is earned by the service provider through the ads displayed in the app. Examples are Youtube, Hulu, Aol.
Sometimes the mix of these models create the best package for users. To give an example, Amazon Prime Video uses SVOD as well as TVOD and Youtube use AVOD as well as TVOD.
As the popularity of OTT platforms have grown, even film distributors, film producers and content creators have started coming up with their own media streaming platform. Looks like very soon we’ll have many more platforms with a unique content on each of it which we don’t get to see usually in other places. One thing is for sure is that with advancing technology, we’re definitely going to have more innovations in OTT and media streaming services.