In 2017, the Online Video Landscape Is Changing at a Rapid Rate
不管是谁先说的, “变化越多, the more they stay the same” clearly had no idea what life would be like in 2017. It’s hard to imagine a year in which there’s been more shifts, 更多的动乱, and more changes to not just the surfaces of our lives, but to some of the core underlying principles that inform the world we live in—and how we live in it.
我知道这都是相对的, and the seismic shifts we’ve seen in the last year still might pale in comparison to, 说, 1917年，1929年，1941年. But things aren’t the same as they were a year ago, and that’s as true of the online video industry as it is of the world at large.
看看我们的年度 流媒体100强榜单, our yearly effort to recognize the most important, 有影响力的, and innovative companies in the online video space. This year’s list includes 22 new entrants, the most new entrants we’ve ever chosen. While we still focus on companies that are advancing the technologies that steer the streaming industry (hence no recognition for content creators), the particulars of the technology have changed so significantly that we had no choice but to acknowledge the importance of things like app development, 服务质量, and quality of experience—areas that weren’t even a part of our first 流媒体100强榜单 in 2011. (当然, that meant that 22 companies who were on last year’s list didn’t make the cut this year. That doesn’t mean those companies are no longer healthy and vital, just that they’re no longer quite in the rarified air occupied by the top 100.)
Or look at the feature 文章 in this issue. Jan Ozer写道 the importance of Encrypted Media Extensions，蒂姆·西格林谈到 可互操作的主格式Mark Alamares探索了 virtual reality/360° live-streaming workflow持平, all topics that were either literally unheard of or at least only theoretical when we started StreamingMedia.20年前.
Of course, even sought-after changes have their downsides, as Troy Dreier pointedly explores in this month’s installment of The Industry, in which he skewers those who complain that the explosion in OTT services and emergence of the skinny bundle has given them “too much choice.” As someone who just recently was able to watch the NFL opener between the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks on Hulu’s live TV service when my over-the-air antenna lost the signal, I can testify that there’s never any such thing as too much choice.
不可否认, it’s usually the other way around—over-the-top (OTT) delivery fails while other tried-and-true methods succeed. Just ask anyone who tried to watch the Mayweather/McGregor fight via the UFC’s streaming service in August. 仍然, perhaps the biggest change we’ve seen in the past year is the vast improvement in both the content and the quality of OTT services. Those services may never completely displace broadcast and cable, but they’ve now evolved to the point where consumers can “cut the cord” without feeling like they’re sacrificing anything truly crucial.
再一次, losing out on a few live TV channels or missing out on a sporting event are minor when you look at them in the bigger picture of all the other changes that have rocked our world so far in 2017. 仍然, while it’s always important to keep in perspective online video’s place in the grand scheme of things, it’s undeniably thrilling to be part of an industry where so much is changing, and almost all of it is for the better.
[This article appears in the October 2017 issue of 流媒体杂志 为“Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes."]
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