The Connected Home and Multi-Device Video: The Big Picture

Multiroom TV – the distribution of pay TV services to multiple TV screens within each home served – has become an established feature of most service providers’ offerings. Multiroom TV is now being supplemented by multiscreen or multi-device offerings – meaning that TV services are available to users via consumer electronics devices such as tablets and smartphones as well as via traditional set-top boxes, initially within the home. Increasingly, service providers are also supporting distribution to devices including tablets and smartphones outside the home as well via 3G, LTE and public WiFi networks.

TV operators face a range of challenges in delivering these services and, in particular, in ensuring a consistent user experience across networks over which they have limited or no control. While consumers are likely to be more forgiving of service dropouts outside the home they are increasingly coming to expect that the service delivered to others TVs, tablets, smartphones, game consoles and other devices within the home should be at least as good as that delivered to the main TV screen.

DTVE surveyed 235 senior industry participants from 61 countries to find out how they viewed multiroom and multi-device delivery of video services and what challenges they face in supporting such services. Our sample included satellite operators, cable operators, telecom service providers, mobile operators, over-thetop consumer IP video service providers and free-to-air broadcasters.