The OTTv Summit Mumbai which was held on 18 Mat, 2017 at Taj Lands End was a brief event with players from the industry making up the list of attendees along with the young enthusiasts.
The panels provided some insights on how the television and digital industry works, its current state and made some projections as well.
They asserted that Television and OTT services will run side by side and one will not obliterate the other, to which there was a difference of opinion. Sony Pictures India, head marketing and analytics digital business, Abhishek Joshi asserted that television is old and has had enough time to grow, OTT platforms, the concept itself is fairly new and it will take time to solidify its place.
Another fact stated was that digital gives the consumer the power to choose, while it’s not much present in the case of television.
After the initial round of panels, the attendees had a decent networking session over lunch and trying out the VR gear presented by the studios around.
REALVISION, VR filmmaker, Clyde DeSouza took to the stage soon to present a short overview on how VR is advancing and how to monetise it.
He asserted the problem with this quote, “One OTT pie, too many forking it.” He then focused on the perks by which a VR offering can make an OTT platform ‘sticky’, as in keep the users attracted. As Netflix and Hulu already have or are working on their individual VR apps, the speaker was sure that it was the way to go for others as well.
According to him, VR offers emotional engagements and activates empathy with the consumers being transported to that state completely. Thus, even though the price of the HMDs coupled with other factors are holding back the medium from being easily usable, the speaker wants entities to ‘future proof’ their VR content.
Coming to monetisation, he said that news mediums can make it work in real time, by giving the viewers an immersive experience of what they are reporting.
He even proposed the idea of creating these content in India, making it worthy of dubbing and then exporting it to other parts of the world.
The last session about VR discussed the scope of VR properties over OTT platforms. While some were bullish about the fact, others rested their case with speculations, but no one outright denied it.
The panel consisted of Enlighten, CEO and founder, Pranav Ashar; Real Vision (Dubai), VR filmmaker and partner, Clyde DeSouza; Digital Art VRe, managing director and co-founder, Ajay Parge and 360 VRX, VR technologist, Gaurang Shah.
Most of the panelists initiated the session with their individual achievements in the field of VR.
As asserted by the panel, AR devices are still at infant stages and would take a lot of time to be perfected, hence VR would grow by the time. However, both the mediums are completely different and have no competition as such.
Other than this, pilgrimages and tourism can be major sectors where VR can be used was the verdict of the panel.
Also read: OTTv 2017: Co-existence with traditional TV predicted, scope for OTT kids content