Lokesh Chauhan, Chief Technology Officer, Eros Now

What's the biggest technology challenge you face in adding (or boosting) your online and/or streaming video elements?
"A large section of users today consume content on the go. Bandwidth availability at phones is dependent on network signals which has its limitations eg – Underground Stations, Highways have spotty network. Tier 2,3 towns see much smaller consumption as compared to large cities specifically because of low bandwidth availability."

Is there any one particular technology that has made a radical difference to the way you operate? What is it?
"Recommendation Personalisation. Effort in relevant content discovery causes biggest drop-offs from platform. Consumption behaviour based Recommendation drives higher engagement and affinity to the platform. Video consumption rates increases multi-fold with discovery of relevant content upfront. A caveat – Introducing healthy mix of non-associative content also enables enriching user profile. A show like Stranger Thingswould not have been discoverable if only personalisation was applied."

What do you wish broadcast/streaming tech vendors would do (or say or offer) for you that they aren't doing now?
"Pushing the boundary on video delivery mechanisms by coming up with better compression strategy. Content packaged with better sound profiles & higher video quality enhances user experience and will always drive engagement. HEVC 265 solves this to an extent but there is still a lot left to be desired."

What's at the top of your tech wish list for 2019?
"Better availability of stable 4G/Internet speeds at across the globe. The only thing holding OTT back is buffering due to unstable network. The sooner that happens that will be better. TV/cable isn’t personalised and once this roadblock goes away it won’t be competitive against OTT."

Published in ContentAsia Issue Six 2019, 4 November 2019