Millet box Brokeback to survive: failed to change the rules of Internet TV game

TechWeb Jing January 29 Report

Almost dead in the belly of the millet box resurrected. Yesterday afternoon, the millet Company and CNTV (China Network Television) subsidiary of the Future Television announced a strategic cooperation, the millet box will be officially connected to the future television operating China's Internet TV integrated broadcast control platform, to the compliance, regain vitality. But the cost of rebirth equals Brokeback.

November 14, 2012 Millet box release, set-top box + Third-party video application access platform concept to get the industry enough attention. But the short-lived, due to the intervention of SARFT, millet box in the month of 22nd announced the suspension of content services. At this point, the license issue becomes a plague to the survival of the Millet box "magic spell" according to the current regulation of SARFT, the Internet TV platform to implement the "Content Services + Integrated business" dual licensing control: On the one hand, the content can be controlled, access to the SARFT approved seven broadcast control platform; Each equipment must have the SARFT uniform distribution number. Obviously the millet box does not conform to the rules of the game.

In yesterday and CNTV formally finalized cooperation before this period of time, about the fate of millet box speculation in endlessly, is "early Yao" or eventually "amnesty"? In fact, the result is not difficult to guess. So there was the cooperation yesterday.

The resurrection of the severed arm

The two sides on the cooperation of the official rhetoric is: the Millet box will be connected to the future television operation of China's Internet TV integrated broadcast control platform, including program integration and broadcast control, EPG management system, Client management system, user management system, billing certification system will be all the future TV management, The Millet box provides services to users through the integrated broadcast and control platform of China Internet TV.

With Cntv "Support", the millet box has the possibility of the resurrection. It is said that after the official approval of the competent authorities, the Millet box will be listed in the pilot area of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Changsha sales. Smoothly, the millet box can be in the hands of the user before the Spring Festival.

Of course, the cost of rebirth is immense.

SARFT issued in 2011, "Holding Internet television licensing agency Operation management Requirements" (Industry said 181th) clearly pointed out: Internet television integration of the choice of cooperative Internet TV Terminal products, can only connect the Internet TV integrated platform, the end product must not have other access to the Internet channel, Must not connect with the network operation Enterprise's related management system, the database.

Future TV general manager Zhang Yuxia also said that the millet box and CNTV binding cooperation is unique, millet box users can watch CCTV and CNTV TV movies and other video programs. This means that the previous Millet box promised to search video, Tencent video and other video site cooperation will end, third-party application access has been cut off.

Strictly speaking, the millet box set out again is not the same product as the Millet box released in November 2012. Millet Company in the product structure and even lei in mind the position is far different.

This "box" is not the "box"

When the Millet box was released, Lei said, "mobile phones will become the center of the World", "five or six years ago, I think, hand opportunity to replace the computer as the most commonly used terminals, TV will become a mobile phone display." Based on this view, I must get through the phone and TV connection. And the Millet box is the most important link to realize this idea, is the most important mobile phone accessories, Lei said.

The only way to achieve that idea is through Internet content. But as an Internet operation thinking company, the current output of millet is extremely limited, Internet TV, the protagonist of the video content is not the slightest involvement. According to the idea, the millet box through with Tencent, Sohu and other video providers to make up the short board, and the Millet mobile phone application supermarket content extradition to the set-top box platform. In this way, the soft and hard combination of millet can be smoothly extended from the mobile end to the living room.

But under the premise of policy irregularities, all ideas are only conceived. The fact is that after access to the broadcast control platform, the Millet box can only use the very limited video resources of the broadcast and control partners (and belong to public resources), and become a hardware shell without voice.

Compared to the Millet box, the music video TV also advertised not in the hardware, but the situation is much better. According to the official data, le View currently has 90,000 episodes, more than 5,000 movies, with the 2012 60% hit TV drama and 2013 40%-50% hit TV video site television screen exclusive rights, the film company's music, the annual production and distribution of nearly 30 blockbuster.

At the same time, the video box also quietly used the policy of the gray space, its built-in a Web browser, open after the built-in navigation will introduce users to cool, odd art Web page, users click on the movie into the play page can be automatically full screen, through these settings, music as a direct introduction of the content of Third-party websites, Complements its own repository of resources.

One side is difficult to shake the rules of the game, one side is the pursuit of competition, after the arm of the millet box and what are the charm and imagination space? There is a view that the millet box or possibly through the brush package to achieve Third-party video application content loading, commonly known as the jailbreak version of the box. But under the policy regulation, the official escapes the likelihood to be very small, the Netizen or the third party merchant provides the brush package the possibility also to exist, but the premise is, the coming Millet box value is worth?

Conclusion

At this point, the Millet box set off the storm this pause. In the process, there has been a set-top box practitioners worried about Millet's high-profile entry will trigger policy and regulatory tightening, but also the practitioners hope that the millet box to take the lead to break the existing policy constraints, inspired radio and television system system reform. The results were unchanged. The rules of the game are still running. Change may only be the mentality of the players.