Changing the living room: focusing on smart TV entrepreneurs

Video aggregation application TV Cat interface

After two years of hard work on smart TV, Deng finally saw a glimmer of light.

Two years ago, Deng was the general manager of the Internet Business Department, a man who was often thought to be part of the traditional media circle, but did an internet thing, leaving the TV Cat (www.moretv.com.cn) to create the smart-TV app.

In Deng's view, 2013 is a watershed for smart television. This year, only intelligent TV box shipments reached more than 8 million units, and 2012 only more than 3 million units. The field of intelligent television is more popular, "Gesanchaiwu has a press conference".

Allwin Consulting (AVC) data show: January 2013, intelligent TV penetration rate of 37%, in the fourth quarter of 2013, the penetration rate of intelligent TV has reached more than 50%. 2014, the total number of intelligent TV market will reach 31.28 million, permeability 69%, non-intelligent TV will soon quit the stage of history.

Since 2013, smart TV and boxes have become a real concern for the people, and for many years, the market has been a niche for high-definition video enthusiasts and Geek (geeks).

Competing video aggregation app

TV cat is a video aggregation app, simply that the user installed the application, can be a one-time search on TV more than 10 video site video resources, direct playback, rather than one by one install these video site app.

"Video aggregation is a super application of smart TV, the most demanding of all kinds of apps." Deng said that the television and box manufacturers, although there are various video partners, but almost no one can cover all the mainstream video site content. If there is no video aggregation class app, users have to install Youku, Sohu, Archie art, etc. more than 10 kinds of app.

"This kind of toss on the ipad is very troublesome, in the operation inconvenient television, install dozens of kinds of app is more unrealistic, young users are not willing to toss, let alone TV users there are a large number of middle-aged and old people." "Deng said.

Users have a strong demand for video, so that the video aggregator app becomes the first group of entrepreneurs on TV to choose together. Almost synchronized with the TV cat, Rabbit video, Thai-Czech video, VST, such as a batch of video aggregation applications began to enter the market, the old video tool Electric Donkey and 360 TV guards also began to turn to the field of video aggregation.

Rabbit Video (www.tuziv.tv) is a 2012 video aggregation application. Founder Ho Guomin recalls that before the rabbit video was an intelligent hardware company, at that time the product is an Android smart speaker, but the hardware research and development investment is huge, only the mold, small quantities of testing costs will be millions, and the smart speaker is a niche products, high investment, the return is uncertain, so decisively give up the direction of the hardware, turn to the field of television.

"Before 2013, when users were focused on box brands such as Bor and Mai, these brands specialize in high-definition players, which were priced at more than 800 yuan." "Ho Guomin revealed that the 2013 millet, music and other manufacturers to enter, the threshold of TV box greatly reduced, smart TV growth is also very fast, the rabbit video of the daily increase in the number of users more than 5 times times.

Grey Zone of policy

Seven Internet television licence holders seven Internet television licence holders

Although the rapid development of video aggregation app, from the policy point of view, this is a "should not exist in the market."

According to the SARFT 2011 issued the "Holding Internet Television licensing agency Operation management Requirements" (Industry said 181th), "Internet TV integration platform can only choose to connect the SARFT approved the Internet television content service agencies set up a legitimate content service platform" " Internet TV integration platform can not be linked to the Web site set up on the public Internet, can not be directly to the public Internet content to provide users.

The document is also the most important regulatory document in the current Smart TV and box industry. It is precisely because of the requirements of the above-mentioned documents, millet, music and so on manufacturers have to choose Sarft's own Internet television license of the seven licensing party to set up a joint venture, and in the product of the built-in licensing side of the broadcast platform to meet compliance requirements.

"If strictly according to the policy, whether Youku (19.99, 0.02, 0.1%), Sohu (59.05,-0.41,-0.69%) video or Archie Art, these clients are not allowed to appear on the television, not even the browser is not allowed." "In Ho Guomin's view, this 2011 document has not been able to adapt to the rapid development of smart devices." Manufacturers are breaking the policy limit by 1.1 points.

Ho Guomin revealed that most of the TV and box when the factory is not a third-party application, but Android is an open system, manufacturers can inform users through the Forum installation methods, to guide users to install their own applications, the current rabbit video most users are their own active installation.

"Who made you do that, who allowed you to do it?" "TV Cat CEO Deng said," from a policy point of view there should be no such products exist. "He admits that video aggregation app is the grey area of policy, but the TV cat's strategy is to first make a user needs, withstand the scrutiny of products, do not touch the red line, such as not providing foreign channels, not Ober color edge content, do not provide piracy and so on."

"Although the policy is not allowed, we have the opportunity to get the endorsement of the policy." Can communicate with policy management, managers want to be controllable, safe, which is not contradictory to our demands. We are trying to understand the ideas of policy regulators and try to communicate. "Deng said.

In Ho Guomin's view, the regulatory policies of radio and television systems are changing. "TV, box, app, the middle link is actually not control, the supervision cost is too high, our content is actually from the video site, as long as the source can control the entire industry." ”

To survive in a double crevice

In addition to the policy constraints, the copyright pressure from the video site to the TV aggregation class app into a double gap.

"Video sites have two different understandings of copyright, one is the entry type and the other is the media type," Ho Guomin said. Entry-type video sites want to be able to take all the traffic into their own arms, prohibit the aggregation app index its content, such as Youku. Media type will actively output content, welcome to aggregate app Index, offer SDK, such as Sohu Video and music view. ”

"Youku such video sites that users should be in their own hands, do not care about the flow we give him, if you want to see the content of Youku must come to Youku station to see." "Ho Guomin revealed that Youku requires bunnies to download Youku clients, but users who click on the TV and then pop the dialog box to download the client experience are very bad.

An aggregation video app insider told Sina Technology, in order to be able to aggregate the most complete video resources, for youku such sites, they often take a hotlinking way. That is to capture the source address of the video, and then put it in their own app play, for the video site, they only know that the video was played once, do not know where to be played.

"The way the video site should respond to hotlinking is to periodically modify the video source address rules so that hotlinking capture fails." This has also led to a long-running covert battle between video sites and converged apps. We will specifically arrange for people to stare at the video site has changed the rules, once found that the rules have changed immediately adjust the capture mode, the new video source recapture. said the person.

In Deng's view, the copyright restrictions behind the distribution of benefits, as long as the two sides can agree on the distribution of benefits, there will be opportunities from confrontation into cooperation. "But now the market has just started, not a penny income, there is no benefit ah." It is too early to talk about the problem of division of interests. ”

"The aggregation app is essentially a vertical search engine, and it's reasonable for users to think it's worth it, and it's going to be known how the app will co-exist with the video site." "Deng said.

Video games: Warming up the market

In addition to the cluster video app, a number of industry insiders believe that the game will be the most promising field on television, many entrepreneurs began to enter, Feng Jianguang is one of them.

Feng Jianguang March 2013 created a fun game (www.youjoy.tv), dedicated to smart television research and development of chess and card games. At present, there are two games available, one is Texas poker, the first is to fight the landlord.

The first problem that starts a business with a happy game is that there are too many terminals, TV + boxes have hundreds of brands, and each product's remote control layout is different. In order to fit the market model, only TV box Feng Jianguang bought more than 50 kinds. "In order to fit these terminals, the development cycle of the product has to be extended considerably, similar to the state of the Android phone game just when it started." ”

The second issue is the question of payment. There is no one in the market to pay the company for the television payment of a perfect solution when the Texas poker game is just online. Feng Jianguang can only use the "stupid Way"-on Taobao hanging out point card, and then let users go to Taobao to pay.

A few months later, the music game began to join the pay Treasure TV payment, into the payment scene after the TV will appear a two-dimensional code, users use mobile phone to pay treasure sweep code can be completed to pay. At present, pay the Alipay TV payment and point card payment is the only two ways to pay the game.

However, the problem of payment and adaptation is not the biggest difficulty to face. The biggest problem is that some manufacturers to quickly improve the number of built-in games, from Android directly transplanted a large number of mobile games to television. It seems that there are hundreds of thousands of games on TV, but these games are not for television development, the experience is very poor, almost destroy the reputation of video games.

"More than 90% of the video games are from the transplant game, a touch-screen mobile phone development of the game, how can adapt to the TV remote control?" "In Feng Jianguang's view, video games need to end quickly with transplants, and entrepreneurs must specialize in television development."

However, because of the limitations of TV manipulation, it is difficult for developers to develop real fun games. "TV (box) remote control is usually only seven keys, up, down, left, right, return, OK, menu, game development can only be limited to these 7 keys." Big game can not do, only a little leisure entertainment games. ”

Last year, the television industry had a small share of the excitement of the game. Feng Jianguang that the TV body sense game has not been popular with users, even can say has been proved to have failed, the current hot spot is the handle game. Over the past year, including Tcl, Shanda, and many companies have released the use of handle-controlled Android TV box, Feng Jianguang is expected to experience the second half of the game is a good handle games born.

However, in the view of TV Cat CEO Deng, the ban on video games over the past more than 10 years has led to a lack of education for Chinese users of video games, the United States has Xbox, Japan has PlayStation, what is China? No game has to be played on TV, and no game is particularly suitable for television, so Chinese video games may take a long time to explore.

Deng hopes that more Internet teams will be able to kill into the smart-television arena. "The screen is different, the shape of the product is completely different, whether it is video or game, on television, every field has the opportunity to shuffle." ”

(Responsible editor: Lvguang)