SeeSaw

SeeSaw is the one-stop shop for online television that Arqiva built from the ashes of Project Kangaroo. SeeSaw entered an invite-only beta last month, but has now launched fully, with any British resident now able to use the service as they wish.

SeeSaw is a free, advertising-based site which draws video offerings from a number of different sources. It then serves them up in a very user-friendly environment with good quality video playback and a minimum of adverts.

From Beta To Public

Having used SeeSaw during the beta period, I reviewed how the site was progressing a few weeks ago. I really like the design and layout, but the content and how the site is going to offer anything above and beyond the sources its using remain sticking points to a wholehearted recommendation.

The good thing is that the site is now open for all to use and make their own minds up. The beta was very short and nothing has changed as far as I can see. Unfortunately that also means there are no new sources, with the BBC, 4oD, and Five still the only content providers listed.

Arqiva launched the site fully on Wednesday, with SeeSaw controller John Keeling telling the Daily Mail:

“It’s like having an enormous buffet… you can either just snack on it and catch up on what you’ve missed or gorge yourself with an entire season – it’s absolutely at your fingertips and your control.”

This is the tip of the iceberg, it feels to me like it did 20 years ago when I was at Sky and multi-channel TV was just beginning and you saw satellite dishes sprouting on people’s homes like mushrooms.”

Future Options

While SeeSaw is currently free to watch, with revenue being gained from 2 minutes of adverts for each video, this will change later in the year. Arqiva hopes to double its content over the next few months, including premium U.S. content.

At this point, planned for around June, Arqiva will begin to explore pay options. Users will then be able to rent shows and possibly TV movies as well. These will be streams rather than downloads, with a 48-hour window to watch the bought content without ads.

SeeSaw is also thought to be investigating the possibilities of a subscription package for the premium service. Which isn’t surprising as it’s a route also being explored by Hulu, YouTube, and Apple for iTunes.

Conclusions

The SeeSaw story is only just beginning, and it’s started well. Arqiva’s willingness to forge deals with content providers, that Hulu hasn’t been able to do in its race to go international, means more content is sure to arrive. And that will be key in persuading people that SeeSaw is an essential service.

SeeSaw

SeeSaw is the service which has risen from the ashes of Project Kangaroo, an attempt to build a one-stop shop for all British TV catch-up services. And SeeSaw fulfills that original remit, drawing its content from the likes of the BBC, Channel 4, and Five.

Arqiva spent an estimated $8 million on the infrastructure for SeeSaw, and the company intends to turn a profit. That’s why although it’s currently a free, advertising-backed endeavor, the future will likely see paid-for options as well, possibly with international programming at its heart.

User Experience

Arqiva has taken the minimalist approach to online video. The colors are basic, the interface easy to navigate, the menu and program options simple enough for even a child to understand. Which is a good thing, and owes much to both the style of the iPlayer and Hulu.

The homepage currently displays a rolling carousel of content at the top, with ‘Catch Up TV’, ‘What’s New’, and ‘All-Star Casts’ sub-menus completing the line up. The latter is part of the offering that will change according to current events. So, SeeSaw’s editors will offer playlists of content that may appeal for a particular reason at a given time.

You can choose one of the shows on the homepage or navigate via a topbar listing categories (such as Comedy and Sport) and Channels (currently only BBC, 4oD, and Five).

Video Playback

Clicking on a show brings up the video, details of the chosen program, and further episodes if applicable. Navigating the site is quick, although that could change when more people begin using it after the full launch.

Starting the video means the pre-roll ads begin. There are typically two or three on each show. The quality of the video is brilliant, much better than seen on the MSN Video Player, and the option to choose from ‘Low’, ‘Medium’, and ‘High’ bandwidth settings is welcome.

Nothing Original

Watching content on the SeeSaw beta is a fine experience, but the problem is the content itself. The current offerings are a fraction of what you can get from the sources themselves, and there’s little reason (beyond the changing playlists) to choose SeeSaw over the source it’s drawing its content from.

SeeSaw has the ambition and the core components necessary to make it a great service. But as always content is key. Arqiva is no doubt busy behind the scenes forging new content deals to add to what is there already. But until they’re in place, SeeSaw is unnecessary in the big scheme of things.

Give it six months and a host of new content and then it may well be the service it promises to be.

Kangaroo – SeeSaw

SeeSaw has risen out of the ashes of Project Kangaroo, the joint project between BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 that would have seen all strands of British TV brought together in one Web video portal. That was until the Competition Commission killed Kangaroo off after BSkyB and Virgin Media pledged complaints.

The BBC and its partners have gone on to create Project Canvas, a much more ambitious effort that seeks to create a new standard and platform for IPTV in the U.K. Set-top boxes are even part of the plan.

Arqiva bought the Kangaroo infrastructure last July for an estimated £8 million ($14 million).

SeeSaw Starts

SeeSaw entered its beta testing period on Tuesday (Jan. 26). Anyone resident in the U.K. can sign up for the beta, with invites sent out on a first-come, first-served basis. I applied on Wednesday and received mine on Friday.

Up to 10,000 invites will be sent out during the beta period, and I’d assume most people who apply will receive one. While Arqiva hasn’t announced its final launch date, the beta is expected to last around a month, with feedback welcomed during that period.

Content Deals

SeeSaw currently has content from the BBC, some old, some new, Channel 4’s 4oD, and Five. But there is more content on the way, with Arqiva thought to be keen to do deals with a number of other content providers.

According to PaidContent, independent U.K. producers Shed Media and talkbackTHAMES are on board, as are U.S. producer RHI Entertainment, Distributor Digital Rights Group, and Perform, which specializes in sports content.

Conclusions

I’ve only used SeeSaw briefly so far, but hope to have a full, first-impressions review up in a day or two.

As with every online video service, content is key, and that is what Arqiva needs to focus on if it’s to succeed as a service that not only wants to offer content for free and paid for by advertising, but also content it can charge for.

Whether it can do this will not become clear until well after the beta period has ended and the full service is up and running.

And yet, the BBC Trust is set to review it the video on-demand service.

BBC iPlayer

I use the BBC iPlayer on a weekly basis. It’s brilliantly designed and brilliantly maintained. In terms of British VoD offerings, the only service that comes close is 4oD, but the iPlayer tops the Channel 4 offering on content and user-friendliness.

And it isn’t just me who thinks this. The iPlayer has been consistently growing in popularity since launch; partly due to word of mouth, partly because video on-demand is becoming more accepted in the mainstream, and partly thanks to the wealth of devices iPlayer is now available on.

Record Month

In December, the BBC revealed usage stats for the whole of 2009. It was revealed that requests in November had hit 90 million. New figures for December have now revealed the number of requests has broken through the 100 million barrier, with 115 million requests for the last month of the noughties.

Games consoles are becoming an increasingly popular method for accessing the iPlayer, with one in eight requests coming from the PS3 or Wii.

Top Gear was again the most popular show. While David Tennant’s last Doctor Who and Gavin & Stacey’s last ever episode also proved popular.

Erik Huggers, director of future media and technology at the BBC, told Pocket-lint:

“Breaking the 100 million barrier is a great way to kick off 2010 and these figures show that by offering simple and varied access to BBC iPlayer people are really finding it easy to catch up with their favourite programmes at a time that suits them.”

BBC Trust Review

Despite this unarguable success, the BBC Trust is embarking on a three-month review of the iPlayer. According to The Telegraph, the seven-day TV catch-up service and the Virgin TV cable service will be part of the review, with a public consultation until March and a final assessment due in April.

Conclusions

New Year’s Day was the biggest day over the holidays for the iPlayer, which suggests 2010 has started exactly as 2009 ended. Assuming the BBC Trust don’t meddle with the service, then surely the only way is up.

Project Canvas

Project Canvas is the innovative and ambitious endeavor that emerged from the death of Project Kangaroo. The BBC is heading the charge, with backing from the likes of ITV, Five, Channel 4, BT, and TalkTalk.

Canvas is a user interface and set of Internet TV protocols that could provide a standard for everyone in the future. There are also plans to release an Internet-connected set-top box by the end of this year.

Canvas Competition

The problem for Canvas is that it’s by no means the only effort to provide a standard for on-demand Web TV viewed from the sofa in your living room.

Yahoo launched its Connected TV service at CES 2009, while at CES 2010, which Chris Tew is covering in great detail here on WebTVWire, others have launched similar efforts.

TV On Demand On TV

CES 2010 has seen the launch of DivX TV, DivX’s latest attempt at reinventing itself. Rather than a set-top box, DivX wants to be the premiere Web TV platform on all manner of different devices.

Vudu has also announced a streaming movie service available on TV sets and Blu-ray players from the big-name manufacturers such as Sanyo, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba, and Mitsubishi.

And let’s not forget Boxee, which has just entered its full public beta. This is the open source offering that already has a massive range of content, although most of it is geo-blocked outside of the States.

Conclusions

I’m not suggesting it’s too late for Canvas to establish itself. Certainly, in the U.K. at least, it stands a very good chance of doing so. I just wish the BBC worked in a slightly different way so that everything didn’t have to go through committee after committee to get approved. Vital months have been lost as a result.

BBC iPlayer

The BBC launched the iPlayer on Christmas Day 2007 after six months in beta. In that short time, the iPlayer had already been improved substantially, with streaming options added as well as download options, and operating systems other than Windows supported.

Since then, the iPlayer has grown in leaps and bounds.

This year saw a semi-relaunch with downloads for Mac and Linux users, and HD content added to the already impressive line-up of content. The iPlayer also migrated to a number of other devices, including the PS3, the Wii, and the iPhone.

The BBC has marked the iPlayer’s second birthday by releasing detailed stats for the service in 2009.

Most Watched Shows

Top Gear takes the crown, with the top two spots on the list of the most-watched shows. Episode 1 of Series 13 was streamed an impressive 1.6 million times, with Episode 1 of Series 14 managing 1.3 million streams.

Other notables include Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time, David Attenborough’s Life, and the first episode of David Tennant’s last story arc as Doctor Who.

Devices and Viewing Times

The iPlayer is now accessible on more than 20 devices. Computers are still the mainstay, accounting for 86 percent of requests. However, requests via the Wii and mobile devices have both risen in recent months.

Requests from iPhone users accounted for around seven percent of the total in October, with ‘iPlayer on Mobile’ being most popular late on weekday evenings and in the early morning on weekends. Which suggests a lot of people watch iPlayer in bed.

Conclusions

2009 has been the best year yet for the iPlayer, with streaming figures hitting close to 90 million in November. Whether the BBC can top this in 2010 while still improving the service remains to be seen. But as an avid user I certainly hope so.

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Canvas Emerges

Project Canvas emerged in the aftermath of Project Kangaroo, which the Competition Commission shuttered after complaints from Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB and Virgin Media about the possibility of it creating a monopoly.

The BBC moved on to Project Canvas, a more ambitious undertaking, and one that has also been the subject of criticism from BSkyB and Virgin Media, the largest satellite and cable operators in the U.K.

But no matter, as Project Canvas has now cleared the first hurdle on its path to becoming reality.

BBC Trust Approval

The BBC Trust is the body which governs the BBC and everything it does. This is needed because the BBC is a publicly-funded corporation rather than a private, commercial company.

At the end of November it emerged that Project Canvas could be delayed until 2011 due to the notoriously laborious red tape at the BBC. But that now looks like being a pessimistic timescale as the BBC Trust has approved Canvas after nine months of consultation and review.

Proposed Conditions

The BBC Trust’s approval is merely a preliminary one at this stage. It is now holding a second round of consultation until February, and has set some conditions on the BBC’s participation in the venture.

BBC News reports the following conditions as having been proposed:

• The core technical specification must be published well in advance to allow manufacturers to adapt to the Canvas standard.

• Other content providers must have access to the platform.

• Any quality standards for internet service providers must be applied on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis.

• A Trust review, 12 months after its launch, will assess the effects Canvas has on the partner’s incentives to syndicate their content to other platforms.

• The platform must remain accessible without a subscription.

• The BBC must return for further approval if costs exceed those projected by more than 20% in any one year.

• The BBC must report on whether the proposed accessibility features, such as audio description, have been incorporated. The Trust will review the signposting of content and parental controls.

Conclusions

While this doesn’t mean Project Canvas will definitely see the light of day, it makes it much more likely. And that could mean Canvas set-top boxes on sales by this time next year.

The proposed cost is £200 and for that price it would seem to be a bargain, enabling a whole range of online TV offerings to be watched in the living room.

However, Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB isn’t happy with the proposals, and BBC red tape means it probably won’t arrive until 2011 – if at all.

Kangaroo To Canvas

Project Kangaroo was a joint project between the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4, the big three broadcasters in the U.K. It would have resulted in a one-stop shop for the online catch-up services currently offered by all three separately.

Unfortunately, BSkyB and Virgin Media complained about the project and the Competition Commission consequently culled the project before it truly got off the ground. The technology was then sold to Arqiva, which plans to use it to set up its own online television service.

However, the BBC had already moved onto Project Canvas. The same companies are involved, along with British Telecom, with Canvas conceived as an open standard for online video. Set-top boxes would mean viewers had access to a whole range of Internet TV.

Canvas Video Demo

The BBC’s future media & technology director Erik Huggers detailed Project Canvas a few weeks ago at C21Media’s FutureMedia conference in London. His presentation included a video demonstration of how Canvas would work with the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The demo gave a good flavor of what to expect should Canvas make it to launch. It could truly revolutionize Internet television in the U.K. and give not just the BBC but also commercial third parties to chance to reach viewers like never before.

BSkyB Complains

However, there are a couple of hurdles to overcome before that. The satellite broadcaster BSkyB has come out strongly against Canvas, and its arguments are very similar to those used against Kangaroo.

Rupert Murdoch’s company suggests that membership of the scheme is exclusionary and that it isn’t actually an open joint venture. It is also against the BBC’s involvement as it is funded by the license fee and Canvas is an abuse of that public money.

This may seem like sour grapes but similar arguments managed to get Kangaroo killed.

Seeking Approval

Regardless of BSkyB’s objections, Project Canvas still has to make its way through the BBC’s red tape before it can be launched. The BBC Trust is currently consulting on the scheme and deciding whether it makes budgetary sense to go ahead with it.

Unfortunately, this means that Canvas is unlikely to see the light of day before 2011, with there still being a small chance of a Christmas 2010 release for the set-top boxes. That is, if Canvas gets given the OK in the first place.

BBC iPlayer

The BBC iPlayer has shone like a beacon since its full launch almost two years ago in December 2007. The catch-up TV service lead the way not only in the U.K. but around the world, with Hulu being its big-name opposite in the U.S.

Rather than rest on its laurels, the BBC carried on improving the service despite already providing millions of streams to viewers. The current iteration of the iPlayer service is more user-friendly and easy-to-use than any Web application or online video site.

RTS Judges’ Award

Last week saw the iPlayer praised to the highest degree when the BBC won the Judges’ Award at the 2009 Royal Television Society Innovation Awards. Jeff Henry, chair of the awards, said:

“There have been great British innovations – the steam engine, the gas turbine, radio waves, jet engines and arguably video games. Even the inventors of Viagra. But seriously, the role of honour of great British innovation now has a proud new addition,”

“For all the hard work, commitment and belief shown by the BBC and its staff, with particular recognition of Anthony Rose’s contribution, the RTS Innovation Awards proudly presents the Judges Award to the BBC iPlayer, proving that it is not just a gift for Christmas, but for life.”

Being placed alongside such great inventions as the steam engine and radio waves is pretty unbelievable. But the iPlayer may well prove to be as innovative and important as those inventions in years to come for what it represents – a world where online television is the norm rather than niche.

IPlayer Wii Channel

The BBC topped off an already great week by unveiling its plans to launch a dedicated channel on the Nintendo Wii games console. The service has been available on the console for a while through the Web browser, but a dedicated channel should be much more accessible and user-friendly.

All Wii owners in the U.K. with a Broadband connection will be able to use the Wii iPlayer. From Nov. 18, the BBC iPlayer can be downloaded for free from the console’s online shop.

Conclusions

The iPlayer is a fantastic service that continues to improve and be added to more devices in order to gain viewers. And the RTS award for innovation is wholly deserved.

The only thing that the BBC now needs to do is launch the iPlayer internationally. Whether that’ll ever happen, and whether if it did it would be free, are questions that I personally cannot answer. But I can hope.

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Ashley Highfield?

Who is Ashley Highfield? Only the man who as director of future media and technology at the BBC did more than anyone else to push the iPlayer through from being a mere concept to a reality.

Highfield left the BBC shortly after the iPlayer launched to become managing director of consumer and online at Microsoft U.K. While there he has helped launch the MSN Video Player, which quite frankly pails into insignificance against the iPlayer.

Highfield Talks

Highfield was speaking last week at C&binet, the government’s digital creative industry conference. According to The Guardian newspaper, he said:

“I think the iPlayer was a catalyst to get a lot more content [made available on-demand] in the UK. All boats rise on that, commercial or not. A reasonable question to ask now is about ‘windowing’. Is seven days free right or should it be shortened [and should the BBC] get rid of hold-back periods [so commercial companies can more quickly exploit online TV revenues from content]?”

A Change Of Mind

It’s clear just from this short statement that Highfield’s opinion on these matters has changed since he moved from the public broadcaster to a private company in Microsoft.

I’d suggest his comments are intended to move BBC content into the commercial sector more quickly than it is now. The MSN Video Player is full of archive material but if the iPlayer charged for content then it would instantly enter that competitive world.

Conclusions

It feels as though all the companies offering free TV services at the moment are considering charging. That’s not the case, of course. This hasn’t come directly from the BBC and I doubt it will ever actually charge for content. First and foremost it would risk a backlash from British citizens who already pay a TV license fee to access BBC shows.

Hulu, on the other hand, is likely to start charging in the next year or so. But even that is likely to only be for certain, selected content rather than a flat charge for the whole service.

Still, it’s a worrying trend for those of us who have got used to watching free TV services on the Web.