Once a TV Station has made the decision to offer a linear feed on the internet, the next major decision is whether to hire a bandwidth provider to distribute the signal and market and administer all customers directly, to partner with
The following table compares these options:
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3rd Party CDN (Akami)
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JumpTV
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In House
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Bandwidth Cost to Channel
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$5 to $10 per month per subscriber depending on quality of the stream
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None
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$5 to $15 per customer
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Human Resources Required
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None
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None
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Requires engineers to purchase bandwidth, manage network, procure, install, and manage DRM software
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Telephone and e-mail customer service, billing, tech support, etc.
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$1.50 per subscriber, including credit card fraud and chargebacks
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None
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Varies depending on Stations in house on-line support facilities
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Security, digital rights management and user authentication costs
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Thousands in set up fees plus $0.25 per subscriber
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None
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$50,000 to $100,000 set up fees and 1 to 25 cents per digital license
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Geotracking (to locate which country viewer is in to ensure adherence to program licensing restrictions) and program insertion/re-looping
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$0.10 per subscriber – though often not possible as broadcaster does not control server to identify where each subscriber is located
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None
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Requires engineering resources to set up geo-blocking software.
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Security
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No economic incentive for bandwidth providers to discourage pirated streams and no CDN will prevent users from sharing credentials to steal streams.
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JumpTV monitors the Internet for streams that might be stolen, and works to shut them down. JumpTV also prevents piracy of its own streams by blocking multiple people from using the same login and password.
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Requires security policies around credit cards, and custom development of streaming server plug-ins to prevent signal theft.
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Setup costs
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A mid-market tech provider charges $200,000 for their base package for Internet TV and e-commerce software
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None – no cost for JumpTV’s full functionality suite
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Depends on skills of in house staff.
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Marketing
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Most CDNs will not do any significan marketing.
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None
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Varies
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Channel Line-up and Bundles
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None; channel sits on its own and all visibility for the online product is through channel’s own web sites and/or marketing initiatives; channel must monitor market and adjust prices on an ongoing basis
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Channel is placed on the world’s largest line-up of expatriate channels and is also sold as part of country bundles; JumpTV monitors market prices
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None; channel sits on its own and all visibility for the online product is through channel’s own web sites and/or marketing initiatives; channel must monitor market and adjust prices on an ongoing basis
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Redistribution via ISP’s, IPTV networks, mobile, hotel and multi-dwelling unit carriage systems
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Channel must independently broker independently and pay ongoing royalties (e.g. share of revenue) to carriage networks
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JumpTV provides this freely for each customer as part of the standard package
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Channel must independently broker independently and pay ongoing royalties (e.g. share of revenue) to carriage networks
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Global network performance
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Good: this is typically the focus of their business
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JumpTV’s proprietary network has good coverage in its key customer geographies and is augmented by global bandwidth providers; JumpTV negotiates volume rates and incurs these costs
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Generally an in-house solution delivers poor quality and very little scalability.
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Local Ad Insertion
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No available.
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JumpTV will provide hyper-targed local ads based on the demographics and geographic location of the subscriber and collaborate with the channel partner on ad sales
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It is generally not feasible for an in-house solution to provide hyper-targeted local ads
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Other functions required by broadcaster
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Web site design, maintenance of EPGs, manage pricing, manage PPV & VOD, events, Indemnification against violation of broadcast standards internationally (done through subscriber agreement), search engine marketing, etc.
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- Broadcaster only needs to regularly liaise with JumpTV (e.g. providing program guides, marketing contact, technology contact, etc.)
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Web site design, maintenance of EPGs, manage pricing, manage PPV & VOD, events, search engine marketing, etc.
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Business Focus
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General bandwidth services including batch loads, VoD bursts, VoIP telephones, traditional web site hosting
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JumpTV’s ONLY business focus is live television marketing and streaming over the Internet
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Generation of world class Television content and on-air broadcasting
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Description of JumpTV
JumpTV is an online broadcaster of ethnic content and most of our best paying customers live in North America and
Challenges of global online video streaming
When broadcasters consider doing online streaming in-house they are often unaware of the costs or challenges associated. Each TV Station strives to maintain a certain quality of product which befits its brand promise, likewise it is important for a channel to maintain that same quality which requires a minimum video stream bandwidth of 350Kbps. Bandwidth is not free and streaming servers are not cheap. To service a large number of viewers a channel must have server farms and procure high quality, low latency internet connections with multiple tier one backbone providers. This is generally both cost and technically prohibitive to be done right. Often broadcasters will decide to outsource bandwidth and delivery to a 3rd party CDN, but this can be extremely expensive and will often cost well beyond what a customer would pay for a subscription or what a broadcaster could gain in advertising revenue. JumpTV already has agreements in place with tier one carriers and other ISPs to deliver its signals at bulk discount rates. We continue to invest every day in our network to provide your viewers with the best possible experience.
The technical challenge of maintaining control of the digital rights of a channel’s intellectual property can be daunting. JumpTV has developed technology which prevents multiple people from sharing the same login name and password and JumpTV can also provide a channel partner with live stream encryption to prevent viewers from recording the video stream on their PCs and then sharing it with friends through peer-to-peer networks like Kazza.
Additionally, maintaining a billing, technical support and customer support for an online video product is extremely expensive.
Many Broadcasters look to JumpTV and online television to deliver them robust statistics around viewer habits. With JumpTV you can learn what times of day your viewers are watching and where in the world they are watching from. Ideally, you will know when younger viewers or older viewers or male viewers or female viewers are most likely to be watching your programs. This demographic information will begin to be available to our channel partners by the end of 2006.
In addition, JumpTV will offer you the opportunity to deliver hyper-targeted, interstitial video ads to subscribers which are synchronized, according to IAB standards, to banner ads next to the video stream. Starting in Q4, 2006, we will be inserting advertisements into video streams which are tailored to the demographics of the viewer and the time of day in his or her time zone. No longer will a Colombian in
JumpTV Experience
When you work with JumpTV, you gain the experience of many years in the streaming video business which includes the following highlights:
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JumpTV has executed hundreds of bandwidth purchase deals;
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JumpTV has implemented online streaming for more than 120 TV stations from more than 45 countries;
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With thousands of customers connecting to our systems every day, JumpTV has the experience to keep a large global streaming infrastructure up and running 24x7x365;
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JumpTV has invested over $10m in our online infrastructure and continues to invest on a daily basis;
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JumpTV has developed an affiliate network of thousands of individual web sites around the world to aggregate interest in online ethnic television;
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JumpTV has created detailed integration plans for several of the worlds largest ISPs and portals (some of these will be announced in the coming month).
Some JumpTV Technical Highlights
JumpTV’s infrastructure features the following:
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45+ Content Aggregation and Encoding nodes
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3 Streaming Server Farms currently in production (
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5+ Server Farms in development (including: Frankfurt, Tokyo, San Jose, Miami, Dubai)
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3 Global Tier one distribution networks (Teleglobe, Cogent, Nine Systems) and one (Limelight) in final negotiations.
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Total Bandwidth Available is over 6,000Mbps (Plus virtually unlimited additional overflow bandwidth through CDN partners Limelight and Nine Systems).
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Total Video Storage for Archive, Time Shift and VoD purposes is over 6 Terabytes or 30,000 hrs of video at 350k. JumpTV can store/archive video in real time as it is streamed from the channel or via double-pass encoding from DVD or Digibeta in our
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Security: Proprietary JumpTV Security Plug-in for Windows Media Server prevents tracks all active users on the network and disables any account being used by more than one individual at the same time.
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Logging: JumpTV can provide exact usage data for each channel including number of minutes used, most watched programs, and geographic location of all subscribers
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Live Linear streaming (up to 1MB streams)
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Time shifting – channel streams
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Video On Demand
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Pay Per View
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More than 30,000 hours of Video Archive Storage
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Digital Rights Management
(encryption using Microsoft’s DRM Framework plus JumpTV proprietary Windows Media Security Plug-in)
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Subscriber referral tracking
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CRM Ticketing System
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Geo-filtering content and geo-blocking users based on IP address
JumpTV is currently researching peer-to-peer networks for distribution of our live feeds in addition to VoD and downloadable content including:
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Kontiki
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Coral CDN
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Octoshapre
Content distributed through peer-to-peer networks will be secured through encryption with Microsoft Digital Rights Management
General Overview of Content Security on the JumpTV Network
The Security of Channel Partners’ intellectual property—as well as the private information about our subscribers—is of prime importance to JumpTV. JumpTV has developed proprietary technology to guard against theft of our video streams and other media assets. JumpTV’s systems ensure that your digital content is secured from the moment it is in the JumpTV network. Using Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management technology, JumpTV allows our channel partners to protect their digital media content by packaging files with robust encryption algorithms. You can feel confident that your digital media files will stay protected, no matter how widely they are distributed.
In addition to standard Microsoft-based Digital Rights Management, JumpTV has developed a proprietary server plug-in for the Windows Media Server as well as video stream management tools to prevent the unauthorized sharing of usernames and passwords (and the concurrent use of the same credentials). To do this in a scalable, secure and cost effective fashion, JumpTV has maintained full control of its streaming servers. This technology power’s JumpTV’s ability to offer its customers “download to own” and “download to rent” content on a Pay per View (PPV) and Video on Demand (VoD) basis. In addition, JumpTV is preparing to roll out varied payment options including pre-purchase of metered minutes.
Some highlights of our system based on Microsoft Technology:
Persistent Protection
"Locking" digital media files with a license key to maintain content protection, even if these files are widely distributed. Each license is uniquely assigned to each computer. This prevents illegal distribution of digital media files.
Strong Encryption
Proven encryption schemes that ensure distributed digital media files are not exposed to piracy or other illegal use.
Individualization
JumpTV assigns each Windows Media Player a unique GUI_ID thereby linking the player to the host computer and preventing media player spoofing. With individualization, any compromised player can be identified and disabled during the licensing process.
Separately Distributed Licenses and Content
Licenses are issued independently of the actual digital media files, providing maximum flexibility and allowing wide distribution of content. Each time a digital media file or stream is played, JumpTV checks to see if the consumer's computer has a license. Consumers who do not have a valid license are directed to our web site to purchase a license.
Concurrent Usage Blocking
JumpTV’s proprietary security plug in prevents concurrent usage of the same credentials even if DRM Encryption is not activated by writing usage data from each user to the DB and checking every 60 seconds to ensure that no other subscriber is using the same credentials at the same time.
Secure Audio Path
Microsoft’s Windows Media Rights Manager ensures content protection in the operating system from the player to the sound card driver in the Windows Millennium Edition and Windows XP operating systems. This secure relationship reduces the likelihood that any unauthorized program will capture a digital media stream within a computer.
Conclusion
Although JumpTV has great technology, it is not an Akami or even a technology company. JumpTV is an international TV brand that focuses on connecting with ethnic communities. We care about your country, your culture, your language and your Diaspora. Every day we think about how to connect with your customers online.
More than any other company we can offer you a genuine ethnic bundle to complement your content and attract more customers.