February 27, 2025 • 43 mins
What if you could transform a startup into a leading enterprise in the booming OTT space? Join us on Voices of Video as we chat with Dailos Medina, co-founder of 2Coders, who reveals the secrets behind his company's remarkable growth journey. Dailos shares stories from their humble beginnings in 2013 to becoming industry leaders in smart TV and mobile app development. Discover how a pandemic-driven expansion saw their team increase from 10 to 50, opening new offices in Tenerife and North Macedonia, and learn about the evolution from bespoke software to standardized, efficient solutions.
Explore the essentials of building a top-notch streaming platform with us, focusing on the pivotal role of the player for an unbeatable user experience. Dailos discusses the intricacies of encoding efficiency and how Two Coders offers flexible, customizable front-end solutions, allowing clients to tailor their platforms with interactive features and seamless CMS integrations. With a keen emphasis on delivering high-quality content, primarily in entertainment and sports, we also touch upon how major leagues influence the development of engaging new features to captivate audiences.
As competition heats up, dive into how streaming services are embracing cutting-edge trends like AI-driven personalization, server-side ads, and the promise of virtual and augmented reality. Dailos gives us a sneak peek into 2Coders’ ambitious launch of their media platform, Velvet.
Stay tuned for more in-depth insights on video technology, trends, and practical applications. Subscribe to Voices of Video: Inside the Tech for exclusive, hands-on knowledge from the experts. For more resources, visit Voices of Video.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
voices of video.
Voices of video.
The voices of video voices ofvideo well, good morning or good
afternoon or good eveningeveryone.
Thank you for joining us foranother episode of Voices of
Video.
Hey, I have another amazingguest and, as I always say, all
(00:32):
of our guests are amazing, but Ireally am honored and very
pleased to have Dylos Medinawith us today.
So, first of all, dylos,welcome to Voices of Video.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Thank you for having me.
It's an honor and a pleasure tobe here with you today.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, yeah, well, as we were talking before we went
live, one of the things I loveabout Voices of Video and this
whole format is it's sort oflike if we just stuck a camera
up in front of both of our faces, but we're really just talking,
you know?
So we're going to have a greatconversation today and you are
(01:14):
the co-founder of Two Coders,and so why don't you just
introduce Two Coders?
You know, tell us who you are,what you do, what the company
does.
Tell us about you know why youstarted it, how you started the
company.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, so we started the companyin 2013.
Actually, my partner, david,the other co-founder of the
company.
We were working together in thesame place and we had the idea
to go to IBC actually and triedin the Netherlands and try to
(01:51):
find some projects.
We are based in Canary Islands,in Gran Canaria, so we thought
it was going to be a good ideato move to the north and try to
find new opportunities what ourcompany does.
So we do software developmentin general, smart TVs, native
(02:12):
mobile applications, web TVs.
We work mainly in the OTT space, but we also work for other
sectors like governmentcompanies, digital
transformation of companies, sokind of different type of
(02:33):
projects, but most of themrelated to OTT.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, that's great.
That's great.
And so you talk aboutdeveloping apps.
So you talk about developingapps.
Now would this be like if Ihave a streaming service and I
need coverage on a newtelevision SDK or a game console
or something, then you couldbuild that app for me, Is that?
(02:59):
Basically the core of yourbusiness.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, exactly.
So we have our own platformthat we will mention later, but
we also have a strong network ofpartners that we rely on, so we
can build end-to-end solutionswith these partners.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
So, yeah, Wow, well, it's so important.
I actually started my career instreaming more on the hardware
side and the device side, andmedia players specifically, and
so I spent a lot of years there,and getting apps across all the
(03:39):
various devices that consumershave in their hands or in their
home is always a challenge, andit's incredible how much work it
is.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, nowadays they expect a lot of quality, and so
we have to dedicate a lot oftime to have the best
performance, to look beautiful,because you know people are used
to the best UI, so yeah, itrequires a lot of work and
refinement.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
That's great, that's great.
Well, that keeps you busy.
How big is the company so?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
we actually started two of us, the co-founders, back
in 2013.
And the company slowly startedgrowing.
We actually started two of usthe co-founders back in 2013.
And the company slowly startedgrowing, but for us, the year
that it was a boom, for us itwas 2020.
Actually, covid, you know,bringing a lot of opportunities.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Everybody needed an app or needed a new app.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So yeah, at that time we were around 10 people.
So yeah, at that time we werearound 10 people.
But that year we duplicated theamount of people in the company
and nowadays we are around 50people in the company.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
That's great.
Wow, that's amazing.
That's a 5x growth, 500% growth.
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, and everybody is in the canary islands or
where?
No?
Since then, actually in 2020,as we started to have a lot of
demand on on projects uh, it wasbecoming a bit hard to find
developers here and we are basedin canary islands, so this is a
small place so we decided toopen new offices.
We have other offices intenerife and other of the
islands, and also we hadcontacts in North Macedonia,
(05:29):
skopje, so we started ourcompany there and now we are
split half of the company inMacedonia, half of the company
in Canary Islands.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, that's amazing, wow, okay, Well, good, well,
you know, let's we we are goingto talk about.
It's fascinating to me becauseservice companies you know
follow follow one consistenttheme and trend.
It starts out being a servicecompany You're, you know, you
(06:07):
are engineers for hire and everyproject you know might be
similar, but it's basicallydifferent.
You build what the customerwants, Right, and, and that's
and that's very rewarding andand and.
You can build a nice businessthat way.
But in my observation and I'vebeen a part of a few, a few of
these trends myself you knoweventually you end up building
(06:29):
effectively a product because,obviously, as you're basically
developing, you know not exactlythe same solution for everybody
, but you know you're buildingan app for Samsung TVs, for
example.
Well, you know, platform A orstreaming service B could have a
(06:49):
very, very different look andfeel to the UI and they have
different priorities, but theunderlying technology is largely
the same.
You know the developmentlanguage is the same.
Obviously, the SDK you'rerunning on is, of course, the
same because it's the Samsung TVand you know.
So I would love to hear ifyou've also gone in kind of a
(07:14):
similar direction where you knowyou've us, before we actually
start talking about that becauseyou know what's the journey
been from doing.
You know one-off bespokesoftware projects, you know, to
having something that is maybe alittle more, I'll say, turnkey.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, exactly so.
Indeed, this is what happenedwith 2Coders also, so we started
building projects.
This is what happened withTukoders also, so we started
building projects.
Actually, from the verybeginning when we founded the
company, we had the idea or thevision to have our own products,
but day to day it would take usto be in a thousand projects.
So we were starting somepossible options for products,
(08:07):
but it wasn't until two or threeyears ago when we started to
have a solid base to start areal product, and it's actually
based on OTT.
So, yeah, that's where we arenow trying to promote this new
product that we have built inthe past two years.
And it was funny because it allstarted like an onboarding you
(08:30):
know code base that we have forthe developers because, you know
, OTT is a niche sector, so notall the developers have the
experience with players withstreaming, exactly.
So we have always to dedicate atleast one month to months, uh,
you know, uh, onboarding them.
And what's a streaming?
(08:51):
How it works, how a playerworks.
So we started building anapplication for the onboarding
uh of the new developers andthat ended up becoming a product
.
Oh, wow, wow wow, wow.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So literally your internal you know these are my
words but your training platform, you know, for new engineers
joining the team ultimatelybecame what you now, you know it
sounds like either all the timeor most of the time.
Take to the customer yes, wow,that's amazing, well, cool.
You know it sounds like eitherall the time or most of the time
.
Take to the customer and useWow, that's amazing, well, cool.
(09:29):
Well, so what?
You know?
What are some of the challenges?
You know, I know, having beenin this space for a while, I get
approached all the time,whether it's on LinkedIn or just
cold email and definitely attrade shows.
And, by the way, I think it'spretty cool that you started at
(09:50):
IBC 2013 and IBC is now justwell, it's two weeks away.
Now we're two weeks, yeah, so Iget approached all the time
(10:12):
from software developmentcompanies that are wanting to
know if I have projects or canrefer them.
How do you find your customersand what's that been like?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Or how do people find you?
So initially we were a verysmall team and the beginning of
everything was going to IBC.
We actually came back with oneproject from IBC and that's how
we accepted the company.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Congratulations, that's amazing, yeah, thanks.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
And after that, to be honest, everything know spread
of mouth.
So one customer was referringto other customer.
Exactly word of mouth.
So every customer was referringus to other customers.
So in the beginning of ourstory it was that way.
(11:01):
So we didn't have marketingdepartment.
We were all developers at thebeginning and we were bringing
projects all the time yeah we'rebringing projects yeah, now
it's a bit different, of course.
Now that we are, we have our ownproducts.
Things have changed a lot andnow we have a bigger size in the
(11:25):
company.
We have our marketing and suresales department.
So, and mainly this year hasbeen a game changer for us.
So we are trying to beeverywhere talking to a lot of
people, partners.
Things have changed a lot.
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Wow, that's very cool .
Well, let's get started andtell us you know, maybe a good
place to start to actually talkabout this platform, the
technology, what you'vedeveloped.
I think you have a case studythat you study that you'd like
to share with us, so tell usabout that.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, actually we have several case studies, but
we noticed that some problem orcomplication that customers used
to have is integratingthird-party providers in their
platforms.
Our customers, to you know,make easy chance or integrate
(12:36):
new providers in their platformwithout having to spend a lot of
time or having developersworking on that integration.
So we built some SDKs that relyon partners.
So imagine that you want tobuild your own OTT platform.
You have already your front-endsolution and your back-end, but
(12:58):
you need to integrate a newplayer from a third-party
provider.
So with our SDK, you have amenu where you can select your
player, your analytics provider,your backend adapter.
So, running a script, you haveyour own SDK with your providers
(13:23):
ready to integrate in yourplatform.
So in one year, if you want toswitch to another player or you
want to switch to anotheranalytics provider, you can just
need to rebuild the SDK andeverything will work out of the
box.
So you don't have to beintegrating.
We give you all of thatstraight away.
Wow, okay.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Well, I can certainly understand why the value, why
that's valuable.
You know the use for that, youknow.
Let me ask you this I think oneof the questions that anybody
building a streaming service hasis you know there's always a
(14:04):
lot of focus, and you know theworld that we live in here at
NetEnt is definitely in theencoding, encoding side.
You know it's, it's in theencoder, and not just because
that's where we work, but youknow a lot of people, when
they're going to build aplatform or if they're going to
fundamentally redesign, you knowthey put a lot of focus into
(14:26):
that, because, of course, thatdetermines you know your bit
rate efficiency, or you knowwhich is directly correlated to
cost, and you know the videoquality you deliver, and there's
lots of other.
You know very good reasons.
Um plus, it's sort of uh.
You know it's sort of the um,uh, sexy side of streaming.
(14:46):
You know um a lot of discussionaround the codec.
You know should use ab1 or hevc, or you know um, but um, the
player, though, is isfundamentally where I can
produce the most amazing stream.
That's very compact, but youknow, if I don't have either um
(15:09):
uh, you know um a very reliabledecoding you, or if my player
requires a lot of battery, oryou know, there can be a lot of
things.
So talk to us.
Talk to us about how, how yourcustomers are thinking about
choosing a player, and have youdeveloped your own player, you
(15:30):
know, or are you tempted todevelop your own?
But talk to us about the player, because it's pretty important.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, we don't have our own player.
We rely on partners for that,so something that we didn't want
is reinvent the wheel there areso many players out there and
very good ones.
So we didn't want to, you know,rebuild something that was
already done in a very good ones.
So we didn't want to, you know,rebuild something that was
(15:58):
already done in a very good way.
So, yeah, our customers ofcourse wants performance, good
quality, you know.
So they are always looking tonew features.
They all want to stand out fromother platforms, so they want,
you know, to integrate features.
They all want to stand out fromother platforms, so they want
to integrate new features likemulti-view overlays.
(16:23):
So that's why we came up withthis idea.
So we just give you the optionthat you can choose and put on
top of what we offer whateveryou want.
So if you want to put overlaysover our player, you can do it.
You just have the base.
We actually build our ownfront-end solution.
So if you don't have anything,you have a starter pack where
(16:45):
you can build your front-endsolution from the ground up
using that template, but alsoCMS.
We also have CMS built on topof Strapi.
But if you have a provider foryour CMS and you're happy with
it, you can just build anadapter and use our SDKs with
(17:05):
your adapter and your CMS andyou don't have to change your
you know, migrate all yourcontent to a new platform or
anything.
You can keep using your own CMS.
So yeah, that was the idea.
Try to give them tools to buildquickly and to be able to
customize your solution as youwant.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Sure sure.
Now your customers.
What content types are theydelivering?
You know, is this traditionalentertainment content?
Is it sports?
What is it?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
oh, mainly entertainment and sports.
Uh, so we normally work withthe partners that work a lot
with the major leagues and sport, uh, um, leagues.
So we work a lot with sportscustomers, but also we have
worked with a lot ofentertainment and you know this
(18:05):
type of customers.
Yeah, but we have worked withlive streaming, live events, you
know VOD, et cetera.
Interesting, interesting.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah, what about interactive?
Have you done anything you knowwith interactive?
That's really hot today is youknow whether it's in-stream, you
know advertising, that you knowsomehow.
You know you can make apurchase, or you know quizzes,
or, or quizzes or betting, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
For some of the projects we also have integrated
things like Is Live, or LiveLike to have interaction during
the playback.
So Is Live, for instance, givesyou a stats of the match you
are seeing real time and you canplay with it.
So it has a lot of interaction.
(19:00):
Also, multiview we have workedwith Tynemedia, a company from
the Netherlands specialized onMultiview players and also 360.
So we have built 360 playerswith them.
So, yeah, a lot of interactionwith the users.
Very nice things out there.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah, interesting.
And those requirements aredriven by your customer right,
or do you bring some of thoseideas to the customer?
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Normally it's the customer.
You know they are major leaguesso they are, you know, aware of
all the latest trends, sonormally requirements come from
them.
But we are actually buildingfor our platform some new things
that we want to present in IBC,so it would be interesting to
show people what we arepreparing for for the, our OTT
(19:58):
platform, and it's for userengagement and and yeah, and
interaction with the, with yourfriends, et cetera.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Cool, well, let's.
Well, let's get back to talkabout this platform, because I I
think that we can go a lotdeeper and, um, you know, I
certainly would like to hear youtalk about.
Okay, so you have the abilityfor me to bring you know my own
player.
I can bring my cms, I can plugin, um, you know, correct me if,
(20:30):
if, if it's not the exact view,but it's like I can plug in the
functional pieces that I needfor an end-to-end streaming
platform, uh, and very easilychange those out, right?
so I'm not yeah, I'm not tied toyou know using I, I don't know
(20:51):
um.
You know like, do you supportFFmpeg and GStreamer and GPAC
and unified streaming and I'mjust pulling you know and Wowza,
for example, is that one waythat you know I could bring
whichever transcoder that I want, or media processing framework?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Okay, Exactly so, yeah, that's right.
Exactly so, yeah, that's right.
So we have already a goodnetwork of partners, but we are
trying to increase that networkEvery time.
We are trying to integrate newplatforms too.
At the moment, we havestreaming providers.
(21:30):
We are talking to CMS providersalso, so our idea is to be
integrating more providers soanyone can use our platform.
It's so flexible that youimagine that you want to replace
only tvOS, so you don't have tochange your whole platform just
(21:53):
to change one platform.
You can start with one platformand then start migrating the
other ones without changing yourCMS or your streaming provider,
etc.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
So that's the idea behind it.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So it's flexible enough and built for change, so
you can change everything.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah, interesting, interesting, are you?
I'm curious are you relyingmostly on the native SDK of the
device and then you know you'reusing that, or are you streaming
?
Are you using like an HTML5,you know, effectively a
browser-based, so it's kind of aweb app type of a framework.
(22:34):
What approach are you using?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Exactly for mobile, for tvOS and BTV, we use an AT
platform, so we are not usingany kind of HTML hybrid solution
.
But for responsive web consolesand web TVs, smart TVs, set of
boxes, we are using a HTMLsolution, so it's basically the
(23:00):
same code base for all of them,with a small difference in every
platform has their own remotecontrols and their own players.
So, with the slight changes atthe base, it's the same.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah.
I mean the latter, you know,using an HTML5 kind of a web app
approach, has the obviousadvantage in that, by definition
, across devices the userexperience is effectively the
same, whereas the SDK, thenative SDK, especially on
(23:42):
set-top boxes, I think they tendto be sort of normalizing more
and more.
But Apple TV or TV Plus looksdifferent than Roku and it looks
different thanfill-in-the-blank some others.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Well then, okay, so how is thisdeployed?
So let's say that I'm operatinga service today.
(24:06):
Maybe I built it, maybe I havea team, maybe you built it for
me.
But I talk to you and I say,wow, this sounds amazing.
So how is this deployed?
Do I need to be running on AWSor do I run in my own data
center?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, it's flexible again, so we are not tied to any
specific hosting provider.
So you could use AWS AzureAgain.
If you want to host it yourself, you also can do it.
You have your data center.
You want to host it yourself?
That's fine.
(24:45):
We are not again tied to anytype of hosting provider.
And then also, you can set upyour CDNs as you wish, so you
can serve your contenteverywhere.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Uh, yeah, with the provider you want yeah, exactly
I, I would assume that'sdefinitely required.
Um, so is it set up where Ieffectively have a container?
Uh, you know where you'vedockerized, I guess?
Uh, and that's exactly a word,but um, where?
You have a container whereyou've Dockerized, I guess, and
I shouldn't say exactly a word,but where you have a container
for each of these services, andthen I can kind of swap things
(25:23):
in and out that way.
Is that, at the most basiclevel, how the system works?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all using this type of
technology, so DevOps knows moreabout that than myself, but we
can serve that in Dockerinstances, etc.
So, yeah, okay.
Or app services, so you candeploy whatever you prefer.
(25:50):
You can deploy whatever youprefer.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Okay, interesting.
All right, well, sounds good.
Why don't we talk?
You're in a good position toobserve trends that are
happening in the industry, andoftentimes we find that we also
get asked by both our customersand others who are just saying,
(26:18):
hey, so what are you guys seeing, what are you hearing?
What are people talking about?
So let's start with some of thecurrent industry challenges Now
.
First of all, are yourcustomers mostly concentrated in
Europe, or are they Europe,latin America, us?
(26:39):
Where are your customersstrongest in?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
terms of where they're delivering their service
.
We have a lot of customers inthe UK, also the US.
Even now we are working with acustomer in Australia, so it's
everywhere.
So we don't have any specificregion where we have our
customers.
So, luckily we have customerseverywhere.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, yeah, okay.
So what are you seeing forchallenges?
It's very well publicized inthe US market because the
biggest companies are all publicand so every time they report
earnings, they are reporting youknow their subscriber growth or
(27:27):
, in the case of the cablecompanies, you know their
subscriber losses you know,quarter upon quarter, so as much
as certainly all entertainmentcontent distribution has gone to
OTT.
So you know that's been a factfor years, so that's not new
(27:49):
news.
But you know there's someinteresting challenges because,
setting aside Netflix and againyou know I'm going to make some
very general statements.
So if anybody who's listeningworks for some of these
platforms I'm not suggestingthat only Netflix is successful
(28:19):
is successful, but you know itis generally true that you know
Netflix is, is the, is the onestreaming service that you know
the stock continues to perform.
They are just, you know, reallydoing a great job on video
delivery, quality, theexperience, the content catalog.
You know so.
So, um, that that's so.
How are, how are companiesdealing with this?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
You know, um, yeah, as you say, netflix is setting
the standard, so everyone is isused to Netflix quality, to uh
Netflix uh user experience.
So, as you say, it's outstanding.
So all the users want the samein all platforms.
So people are very worriedabout performance, security, you
(29:04):
know, interaction and now, asyou say, also a lot of customers
are interested in server-sideadvertisements to get revenue
from their platforms.
So finding new ways of fundingtheir companies.
So, yeah, a lot of focus onthat Also customers are asking
(29:29):
for with the appearance of theVision Pro, the Apple Vision Pro
.
Now there is some interest onvirtual reality, on mental
reality, ai.
Of course.
Ai will bring some new thingsfor customization and for user
personalization.
So there are a lot of trendsnow that are going this way.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
So, yeah, vision Pro is really fascinating.
Um, it's a very specific device, uh, that is both the, the, the
the player as well as thescreen, you know um, so, so what
are?
Uh, what are people doing?
Is it more, you know, like agimmick?
Um, sort of just to kind ofmake people like, oh wow, check
(30:18):
this out, it's cool, but theywatch for 10 minutes and then
they take it off and they lookon their phone?
Or are they creating newexperiences, like, what are your
customers doing with the VisionPro?
How are they using thatexperience?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I think the first step is migrating what they have
in other platforms to visionpro, just having something that
people can use.
But this is not the final step.
They will have to take moreadvantage of the device features
and I think this device is islike a beta uh you know version
(30:53):
of what we are going to get intwo, three years.
So we have to be prepared forwhat's coming and I think this I
personally think this is goingto become something very big and
, yeah, people is starting tothink about new experiences that
they can share on Vision Pro.
We probably will get newproviders giving similar devices
(31:16):
out there.
We had already we had the Quest3 there, but, yeah, I think
this is going to be a big thingin a few years from now.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know I know VR and you know XR
extended reality.
But you know XR is definitelytaking, is taking a hold in kind
of more enterprise corporatetraining.
You know simulation typeenvironments, you know, or even
(31:51):
like remote, remote technicalwork, you know.
So I'm aware of some very, veryinteresting use cases.
So it's definitely a thing.
But for entertainment, you know, vr sort of, I think there's
even.
I'm always a little bitsurprised when I meet people in
our industry who are so quick tolike dismiss the exciting new
(32:15):
things.
You know like, oh yeah, vr,that's never going to take off.
Nobody cares about it.
Because, first of all, you knowlike we have a vested interest
in these things succeeding.
You know if they succeed well,we're going to get to deliver
more content.
That means that, you know, nomatter what part of the
ecosystem I'm in, it's probablygoing to be good for me.
(32:37):
You know.
Plus it just, you know, stokesnew investment.
It generally stimulatesupgrades.
Sometimes, you know, entireworkflows have to be rebuilt,
which means, you know, moredevelopment, more products, more
software license, anyway.
(32:57):
So I'm always surprised when Irun into, but it is generally
true that the industry haslargely said yeah, vr, nobody
cares about it, we're not evenfocused on it, and that's true.
It is true that you know it'snot every house has, you know,
has a vision pro.
(33:19):
You know, that is true.
But these things have a way ofchanging very fast and they
change slow until one daythere's a tipping point.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Right and so.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
I really see there's a tipping point that's coming.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
And you know we are all people.
You know the new generation.
They are digital natives andthey will request for a lot of
these type of devices.
So what is working today, maybein 10 years will change
completely.
So we have to be prepared forwhat's coming.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure.
Okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Um well, so I really would like to know, though, what
do you see as the biggestchallenges you know that are
facing the streaming mediaindustry?
Yeah, so, as I said before,netflix is setting the standards
very high, so low latency.
You know you have to be at thesame level of Netflix.
If you are not there, peoplewon't consume your content.
So this is one of the mainchallenges now have perfect
(34:33):
performance when you're playingvideo, have a very interactive
platform that gives youpersonalization that you can
customize your way, et cetera.
So I think everyone's workingin that way, trying to improve
quality and being everywhere inall platforms and, yeah, being
everywhere in all platforms.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
So what I hear you saying is that your customers
are coming to you and youobviously have to sit down and
have a pretty in-depthconversation about the features
and the functions, but youprobably have to start by saying
you know what's your target,what are you trying to achieve?
And what I hear you saying isalmost everybody's saying we
(35:21):
need to be Netflix.
It's kind of the reference.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah exactly.
Yeah, every platform has theirown niche, of course.
Yeah, when they come to you,they have the target audience
already set.
It's very clear.
So after that, when making thatability comes, as I said,
(35:45):
netflix is setting the standards.
So, yeah, it's all around that.
You know having good quality,you know a beautiful user
interface.
Have it everywhere available inyour phone even in your car.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
You know Devices.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right, that'sright.
So are a lot of your customerscoming to you with requirements
for infotainment systems?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
you know in-car infotainment yeah, we are
actually talking to one companyright now to try to do something
with our platform in cars, soeven in planes.
You know, we have been tryingto talk to a company that make
infotainment system for privatejets.
So yeah, that's something thatis also in our radar.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Okay, yeah, very, very cool, all right, so how is
2Coders preparing for thesefuture developments?
I think we both tend to agreethat new entertainment
experiences like BR, for example, you know they're, they're,
they're definitely notmainstream today.
(36:58):
They're you know I don't thinkwe're going to be mainstream
tomorrow, but at some point theywill be.
You know they're going to be apart of the normal, you know,
entertainment landscape, yeah,so what are?
What are you doing to prepare?
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah so we are actually investing a lot on
research and development.
I would say half of ourdevelopers are working on
internal products and, you know,training for new trends.
We are always, you know,looking for new challenges.
Vision Pro is one of them, butwe are also I was discussing
(37:37):
with David, my co-founder, thatthey were looking at videos of
how supermarkets prepare theirproducts in the shop so trying
to get ideas from other sectorsthat we can apply to our sector.
So we are always trying.
We have uh in our blood, theentrepreneurship, uh, you know,
(38:00):
um idea, so we are always tryingto find new ways to develop pro
our product.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
so, yeah, interesting I think research it's very
important if you want to veryimportant if you want to be to
succeed as a company.
Yeah, yeah, definitely,definitely.
Yeah, I mean as a um, you know,as a software uh, development
house and um, you know, workingwith a cross-section of the of
(38:29):
the industry.
I think that a lot of customerswill come to you and you know,
obviously they're hiring you tobuild something and you know you
(38:49):
have to deliver that have alittle bit more experience than
they could have even internallywith, like um, which
technologies are even work today.
You know, because I thinkthat's um, one of the, you know
I call it.
It's a consistent theme, it's aconsistent problem that never
goes away in our industry is um,everybody, you know, hears
(39:13):
about the latest codec standardor the latest technology
standard, or you know, there's,there's always something new.
But then the question is but isit really ready?
You know, can it really support?
You know my platform, which youknow might be quite large, and
you've got a perspective on that.
So do you find that's true?
(39:35):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
So we always try to be using the technologies that
we think they will have longerjourney so they won't end in two
years and then we have torebuild everything from from the
(40:00):
ground up.
We normally we tend to usenative uh for mobiles tvs for
all devices, but of course, as Imentioned earlier, for set of
boxes and smart tvs it's mucheasier to have one cold base
share.
So we use, we rely a lot of onreact for for uh web development
.
Uh, we use it also for for uhfor our web platform, but then
(40:25):
we also rely a lot on thetechnologies that our partner
provides.
So we always try to uh to to bealigned with what they are
using.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yeah, so yeah, got it .
Got it.
Okay, very interesting, well,good, well, this has been a nice
conversation.
I've really enjoyed hearingyour both the entrepreneurial
journey and congratulations onall of the growth and I guess,
(40:59):
10, 11 years.
It's pretty amazing to go fromyou and your co-founder in 2013
to grow the company to 10 peopleand then now to be at 50 people
um, that's you know, with twooffices, and that's it's very
impressive.
What, um you know?
(41:20):
Are there any upcoming projects?
Or you know announcements umthat you're going to be sharing
at ibc?
Can you, can you give thelisteners an?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
intro.
As I've been mentioning duringthe our podcast, uh, velvet is
our main focus right now and wewill be presenting all of this
in IBC in 15 days, so we arevery excited with this
opportunity.
It's the first time we're goingto have our own booth in IBC,
(41:51):
so, yeah, it's going to be areally exciting moment for
moment for us.
Uh, we're looking forward to bethere what is the name of the
platform?
Speaker 1 (42:00):
your?
product velvet, velvet, velvet,velvet media platform okay,
velvet yeah, okay, okay, cool,cool, okay, well, good, well, um
, for any of the listeners whoare going to be at ibc, uh,
obviously there's always a lotto look at.
It's a pretty big show, but itsounds like you probably should
(42:22):
stop by Two Coders and meet theteam and check out Velvet and,
of course, while you're walkingaround, stop by the NetEnt booth
as well.
While you're walking around,stop by the NetEnt booth as well
.
We'll be very happy to hostanybody who wants to experience
more of what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah, everyone is welcome to talk to us and we
will be delighted to show youwhat we have built.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, great, well, good, well, Dylos, thank you
again for coming on Voices ofVideo and we will see each other
in two weeks in Amsterdam.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
That's great.
It will be nice to see you inperson.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Awesome, likewise Well good, thank you.
This episode of Voices of Videois brought to you by NetInt
Technologies.
If you are looking forcutting-edge video encoding
solutions, check out NetInt'sproducts at netintcom.
voices of video.
Voices of video.
The voices of video voices ofvideo well, good morning or good
afternoon or good eveningeveryone.
Thank you for joining us foranother episode of Voices of
Video.
Hey, I have another amazingguest and, as I always say, all
(00:32):
of our guests are amazing, but Ireally am honored and very
pleased to have Dylos Medinawith us today.
So, first of all, dylos,welcome to Voices of Video.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Thank you for having me.
It's an honor and a pleasure tobe here with you today.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, yeah, well, as we were talking before we went
live, one of the things I loveabout Voices of Video and this
whole format is it's sort oflike if we just stuck a camera
up in front of both of our faces, but we're really just talking,
you know?
So we're going to have a greatconversation today and you are
(01:14):
the co-founder of Two Coders,and so why don't you just
introduce Two Coders?
You know, tell us who you are,what you do, what the company
does.
Tell us about you know why youstarted it, how you started the
company.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, so we started the companyin 2013.
Actually, my partner, david,the other co-founder of the
company.
We were working together in thesame place and we had the idea
to go to IBC actually and triedin the Netherlands and try to
(01:51):
find some projects.
We are based in Canary Islands,in Gran Canaria, so we thought
it was going to be a good ideato move to the north and try to
find new opportunities what ourcompany does.
So we do software developmentin general, smart TVs, native
(02:12):
mobile applications, web TVs.
We work mainly in the OTT space, but we also work for other
sectors like governmentcompanies, digital
transformation of companies, sokind of different type of
(02:33):
projects, but most of themrelated to OTT.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, that's great.
That's great.
And so you talk aboutdeveloping apps.
So you talk about developingapps.
Now would this be like if Ihave a streaming service and I
need coverage on a newtelevision SDK or a game console
or something, then you couldbuild that app for me, Is that?
(02:59):
Basically the core of yourbusiness.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, exactly.
So we have our own platformthat we will mention later, but
we also have a strong network ofpartners that we rely on, so we
can build end-to-end solutionswith these partners.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
So, yeah, Wow, well, it's so important.
I actually started my career instreaming more on the hardware
side and the device side, andmedia players specifically, and
so I spent a lot of years there,and getting apps across all the
(03:39):
various devices that consumershave in their hands or in their
home is always a challenge, andit's incredible how much work it
is.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, nowadays they expect a lot of quality, and so
we have to dedicate a lot oftime to have the best
performance, to look beautiful,because you know people are used
to the best UI, so yeah, itrequires a lot of work and
refinement.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
That's great, that's great.
Well, that keeps you busy.
How big is the company so?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
we actually started two of us, the co-founders, back
in 2013.
And the company slowly startedgrowing.
We actually started two of usthe co-founders back in 2013.
And the company slowly startedgrowing, but for us, the year
that it was a boom, for us itwas 2020.
Actually, covid, you know,bringing a lot of opportunities.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Everybody needed an app or needed a new app.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So yeah, at that time we were around 10 people.
So yeah, at that time we werearound 10 people.
But that year we duplicated theamount of people in the company
and nowadays we are around 50people in the company.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
That's great.
Wow, that's amazing.
That's a 5x growth, 500% growth.
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, and everybody is in the canary islands or
where?
No?
Since then, actually in 2020,as we started to have a lot of
demand on on projects uh, it wasbecoming a bit hard to find
developers here and we are basedin canary islands, so this is a
small place so we decided toopen new offices.
We have other offices intenerife and other of the
islands, and also we hadcontacts in North Macedonia,
(05:29):
skopje, so we started ourcompany there and now we are
split half of the company inMacedonia, half of the company
in Canary Islands.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, that's amazing, wow, okay, Well, good, well,
you know, let's we we are goingto talk about.
It's fascinating to me becauseservice companies you know
follow follow one consistenttheme and trend.
It starts out being a servicecompany You're, you know, you
(06:07):
are engineers for hire and everyproject you know might be
similar, but it's basicallydifferent.
You build what the customerwants, Right, and, and that's
and that's very rewarding andand and.
You can build a nice businessthat way.
But in my observation and I'vebeen a part of a few, a few of
these trends myself you knoweventually you end up building
(06:29):
effectively a product because,obviously, as you're basically
developing, you know not exactlythe same solution for everybody
, but you know you're buildingan app for Samsung TVs, for
example.
Well, you know, platform A orstreaming service B could have a
(06:49):
very, very different look andfeel to the UI and they have
different priorities, but theunderlying technology is largely
the same.
You know the developmentlanguage is the same.
Obviously, the SDK you'rerunning on is, of course, the
same because it's the Samsung TVand you know.
So I would love to hear ifyou've also gone in kind of a
(07:14):
similar direction where you knowyou've us, before we actually
start talking about that becauseyou know what's the journey
been from doing.
You know one-off bespokesoftware projects, you know, to
having something that is maybe alittle more, I'll say, turnkey.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, exactly so.
Indeed, this is what happenedwith 2Coders also, so we started
building projects.
This is what happened withTukoders also, so we started
building projects.
Actually, from the verybeginning when we founded the
company, we had the idea or thevision to have our own products,
but day to day it would take usto be in a thousand projects.
So we were starting somepossible options for products,
(08:07):
but it wasn't until two or threeyears ago when we started to
have a solid base to start areal product, and it's actually
based on OTT.
So, yeah, that's where we arenow trying to promote this new
product that we have built inthe past two years.
And it was funny because it allstarted like an onboarding you
(08:30):
know code base that we have forthe developers because, you know
, OTT is a niche sector, so notall the developers have the
experience with players withstreaming, exactly.
So we have always to dedicate atleast one month to months, uh,
you know, uh, onboarding them.
And what's a streaming?
(08:51):
How it works, how a playerworks.
So we started building anapplication for the onboarding
uh of the new developers andthat ended up becoming a product
.
Oh, wow, wow wow, wow.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So literally your internal you know these are my
words but your training platform, you know, for new engineers
joining the team ultimatelybecame what you now, you know it
sounds like either all the timeor most of the time.
Take to the customer yes, wow,that's amazing, well, cool.
You know it sounds like eitherall the time or most of the time
.
Take to the customer and useWow, that's amazing, well, cool.
(09:29):
Well, so what?
You know?
What are some of the challenges?
You know, I know, having beenin this space for a while, I get
approached all the time,whether it's on LinkedIn or just
cold email and definitely attrade shows.
And, by the way, I think it'spretty cool that you started at
(09:50):
IBC 2013 and IBC is now justwell, it's two weeks away.
Now we're two weeks, yeah, so Iget approached all the time
(10:12):
from software developmentcompanies that are wanting to
know if I have projects or canrefer them.
How do you find your customersand what's that been like?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Or how do people find you?
So initially we were a verysmall team and the beginning of
everything was going to IBC.
We actually came back with oneproject from IBC and that's how
we accepted the company.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Congratulations, that's amazing, yeah, thanks.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
And after that, to be honest, everything know spread
of mouth.
So one customer was referringto other customer.
Exactly word of mouth.
So every customer was referringus to other customers.
So in the beginning of ourstory it was that way.
(11:01):
So we didn't have marketingdepartment.
We were all developers at thebeginning and we were bringing
projects all the time yeah we'rebringing projects yeah, now
it's a bit different, of course.
Now that we are, we have our ownproducts.
Things have changed a lot andnow we have a bigger size in the
(11:25):
company.
We have our marketing and suresales department.
So, and mainly this year hasbeen a game changer for us.
So we are trying to beeverywhere talking to a lot of
people, partners.
Things have changed a lot.
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Wow, that's very cool .
Well, let's get started andtell us you know, maybe a good
place to start to actually talkabout this platform, the
technology, what you'vedeveloped.
I think you have a case studythat you study that you'd like
to share with us, so tell usabout that.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, actually we have several case studies, but
we noticed that some problem orcomplication that customers used
to have is integratingthird-party providers in their
platforms.
Our customers, to you know,make easy chance or integrate
(12:36):
new providers in their platformwithout having to spend a lot of
time or having developersworking on that integration.
So we built some SDKs that relyon partners.
So imagine that you want tobuild your own OTT platform.
You have already your front-endsolution and your back-end, but
(12:58):
you need to integrate a newplayer from a third-party
provider.
So with our SDK, you have amenu where you can select your
player, your analytics provider,your backend adapter.
So, running a script, you haveyour own SDK with your providers
(13:23):
ready to integrate in yourplatform.
So in one year, if you want toswitch to another player or you
want to switch to anotheranalytics provider, you can just
need to rebuild the SDK andeverything will work out of the
box.
So you don't have to beintegrating.
We give you all of thatstraight away.
Wow, okay.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Well, I can certainly understand why the value, why
that's valuable.
You know the use for that, youknow.
Let me ask you this I think oneof the questions that anybody
building a streaming service hasis you know there's always a
(14:04):
lot of focus, and you know theworld that we live in here at
NetEnt is definitely in theencoding, encoding side.
You know it's, it's in theencoder, and not just because
that's where we work, but youknow a lot of people, when
they're going to build aplatform or if they're going to
fundamentally redesign, you knowthey put a lot of focus into
(14:26):
that, because, of course, thatdetermines you know your bit
rate efficiency, or you knowwhich is directly correlated to
cost, and you know the videoquality you deliver, and there's
lots of other.
You know very good reasons.
Um plus, it's sort of uh.
You know it's sort of the um,uh, sexy side of streaming.
(14:46):
You know um a lot of discussionaround the codec.
You know should use ab1 or hevc, or you know um, but um, the
player, though, is isfundamentally where I can
produce the most amazing stream.
That's very compact, but youknow, if I don't have either um
(15:09):
uh, you know um a very reliabledecoding you, or if my player
requires a lot of battery, oryou know, there can be a lot of
things.
So talk to us.
Talk to us about how, how yourcustomers are thinking about
choosing a player, and have youdeveloped your own player, you
(15:30):
know, or are you tempted todevelop your own?
But talk to us about the player, because it's pretty important.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, we don't have our own player.
We rely on partners for that,so something that we didn't want
is reinvent the wheel there areso many players out there and
very good ones.
So we didn't want to, you know,rebuild something that was
already done in a very good ones.
So we didn't want to, you know,rebuild something that was
(15:58):
already done in a very good way.
So, yeah, our customers ofcourse wants performance, good
quality, you know.
So they are always looking tonew features.
They all want to stand out fromother platforms, so they want,
you know, to integrate features.
They all want to stand out fromother platforms, so they want
to integrate new features likemulti-view overlays.
(16:23):
So that's why we came up withthis idea.
So we just give you the optionthat you can choose and put on
top of what we offer whateveryou want.
So if you want to put overlaysover our player, you can do it.
You just have the base.
We actually build our ownfront-end solution.
So if you don't have anything,you have a starter pack where
(16:45):
you can build your front-endsolution from the ground up
using that template, but alsoCMS.
We also have CMS built on topof Strapi.
But if you have a provider foryour CMS and you're happy with
it, you can just build anadapter and use our SDKs with
(17:05):
your adapter and your CMS andyou don't have to change your
you know, migrate all yourcontent to a new platform or
anything.
You can keep using your own CMS.
So yeah, that was the idea.
Try to give them tools to buildquickly and to be able to
customize your solution as youwant.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Sure sure.
Now your customers.
What content types are theydelivering?
You know, is this traditionalentertainment content?
Is it sports?
What is it?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
oh, mainly entertainment and sports.
Uh, so we normally work withthe partners that work a lot
with the major leagues and sport, uh, um, leagues.
So we work a lot with sportscustomers, but also we have
worked with a lot ofentertainment and you know this
(18:05):
type of customers.
Yeah, but we have worked withlive streaming, live events, you
know VOD, et cetera.
Interesting, interesting.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah, what about interactive?
Have you done anything you knowwith interactive?
That's really hot today is youknow whether it's in-stream, you
know advertising, that you knowsomehow.
You know you can make apurchase, or you know quizzes,
or, or quizzes or betting, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
For some of the projects we also have integrated
things like Is Live, or LiveLike to have interaction during
the playback.
So Is Live, for instance, givesyou a stats of the match you
are seeing real time and you canplay with it.
So it has a lot of interaction.
(19:00):
Also, multiview we have workedwith Tynemedia, a company from
the Netherlands specialized onMultiview players and also 360.
So we have built 360 playerswith them.
So, yeah, a lot of interactionwith the users.
Very nice things out there.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah, interesting.
And those requirements aredriven by your customer right,
or do you bring some of thoseideas to the customer?
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Normally it's the customer.
You know they are major leaguesso they are, you know, aware of
all the latest trends, sonormally requirements come from
them.
But we are actually buildingfor our platform some new things
that we want to present in IBC,so it would be interesting to
show people what we arepreparing for for the, our OTT
(19:58):
platform, and it's for userengagement and and yeah, and
interaction with the, with yourfriends, et cetera.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Cool, well, let's.
Well, let's get back to talkabout this platform, because I I
think that we can go a lotdeeper and, um, you know, I
certainly would like to hear youtalk about.
Okay, so you have the abilityfor me to bring you know my own
player.
I can bring my cms, I can plugin, um, you know, correct me if,
(20:30):
if, if it's not the exact view,but it's like I can plug in the
functional pieces that I needfor an end-to-end streaming
platform, uh, and very easilychange those out, right?
so I'm not yeah, I'm not tied toyou know using I, I don't know
(20:51):
um.
You know like, do you supportFFmpeg and GStreamer and GPAC
and unified streaming and I'mjust pulling you know and Wowza,
for example, is that one waythat you know I could bring
whichever transcoder that I want, or media processing framework?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Okay, Exactly so, yeah, that's right.
Exactly so, yeah, that's right.
So we have already a goodnetwork of partners, but we are
trying to increase that networkEvery time.
We are trying to integrate newplatforms too.
At the moment, we havestreaming providers.
(21:30):
We are talking to CMS providersalso, so our idea is to be
integrating more providers soanyone can use our platform.
It's so flexible that youimagine that you want to replace
only tvOS, so you don't have tochange your whole platform just
(21:53):
to change one platform.
You can start with one platformand then start migrating the
other ones without changing yourCMS or your streaming provider,
etc.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
So that's the idea behind it.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So it's flexible enough and built for change, so
you can change everything.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah, interesting, interesting, are you?
I'm curious are you relyingmostly on the native SDK of the
device and then you know you'reusing that, or are you streaming
?
Are you using like an HTML5,you know, effectively a
browser-based, so it's kind of aweb app type of a framework.
(22:34):
What approach are you using?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Exactly for mobile, for tvOS and BTV, we use an AT
platform, so we are not usingany kind of HTML hybrid solution
.
But for responsive web consolesand web TVs, smart TVs, set of
boxes, we are using a HTMLsolution, so it's basically the
(23:00):
same code base for all of them,with a small difference in every
platform has their own remotecontrols and their own players.
So, with the slight changes atthe base, it's the same.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah.
I mean the latter, you know,using an HTML5 kind of a web app
approach, has the obviousadvantage in that, by definition
, across devices the userexperience is effectively the
same, whereas the SDK, thenative SDK, especially on
(23:42):
set-top boxes, I think they tendto be sort of normalizing more
and more.
But Apple TV or TV Plus looksdifferent than Roku and it looks
different thanfill-in-the-blank some others.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Well then, okay, so how is thisdeployed?
So let's say that I'm operatinga service today.
(24:06):
Maybe I built it, maybe I havea team, maybe you built it for
me.
But I talk to you and I say,wow, this sounds amazing.
So how is this deployed?
Do I need to be running on AWSor do I run in my own data
center?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, it's flexible again, so we are not tied to any
specific hosting provider.
So you could use AWS AzureAgain.
If you want to host it yourself, you also can do it.
You have your data center.
You want to host it yourself?
That's fine.
(24:45):
We are not again tied to anytype of hosting provider.
And then also, you can set upyour CDNs as you wish, so you
can serve your contenteverywhere.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Uh, yeah, with the provider you want yeah, exactly
I, I would assume that'sdefinitely required.
Um, so is it set up where Ieffectively have a container?
Uh, you know where you'vedockerized, I guess?
Uh, and that's exactly a word,but um, where?
You have a container whereyou've Dockerized, I guess, and
I shouldn't say exactly a word,but where you have a container
for each of these services, andthen I can kind of swap things
(25:23):
in and out that way.
Is that, at the most basiclevel, how the system works?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all using this type of
technology, so DevOps knows moreabout that than myself, but we
can serve that in Dockerinstances, etc.
So, yeah, okay.
Or app services, so you candeploy whatever you prefer.
(25:50):
You can deploy whatever youprefer.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Okay, interesting.
All right, well, sounds good.
Why don't we talk?
You're in a good position toobserve trends that are
happening in the industry, andoftentimes we find that we also
get asked by both our customersand others who are just saying,
(26:18):
hey, so what are you guys seeing, what are you hearing?
What are people talking about?
So let's start with some of thecurrent industry challenges Now
.
First of all, are yourcustomers mostly concentrated in
Europe, or are they Europe,latin America, us?
(26:39):
Where are your customersstrongest in?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
terms of where they're delivering their service
.
We have a lot of customers inthe UK, also the US.
Even now we are working with acustomer in Australia, so it's
everywhere.
So we don't have any specificregion where we have our
customers.
So, luckily we have customerseverywhere.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, yeah, okay.
So what are you seeing forchallenges?
It's very well publicized inthe US market because the
biggest companies are all publicand so every time they report
earnings, they are reporting youknow their subscriber growth or
(27:27):
, in the case of the cablecompanies, you know their
subscriber losses you know,quarter upon quarter, so as much
as certainly all entertainmentcontent distribution has gone to
OTT.
So you know that's been a factfor years, so that's not new
(27:49):
news.
But you know there's someinteresting challenges because,
setting aside Netflix and againyou know I'm going to make some
very general statements.
So if anybody who's listeningworks for some of these
platforms I'm not suggestingthat only Netflix is successful
(28:19):
is successful, but you know itis generally true that you know
Netflix is, is the, is the onestreaming service that you know
the stock continues to perform.
They are just, you know, reallydoing a great job on video
delivery, quality, theexperience, the content catalog.
You know so.
So, um, that that's so.
How are, how are companiesdealing with this?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
You know, um, yeah, as you say, netflix is setting
the standard, so everyone is isused to Netflix quality, to uh
Netflix uh user experience.
So, as you say, it's outstanding.
So all the users want the samein all platforms.
So people are very worriedabout performance, security, you
(29:04):
know, interaction and now, asyou say, also a lot of customers
are interested in server-sideadvertisements to get revenue
from their platforms.
So finding new ways of fundingtheir companies.
So, yeah, a lot of focus onthat Also customers are asking
(29:29):
for with the appearance of theVision Pro, the Apple Vision Pro
.
Now there is some interest onvirtual reality, on mental
reality, ai.
Of course.
Ai will bring some new thingsfor customization and for user
personalization.
So there are a lot of trendsnow that are going this way.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
So, yeah, vision Pro is really fascinating.
Um, it's a very specific device, uh, that is both the, the, the
the player as well as thescreen, you know um, so, so what
are?
Uh, what are people doing?
Is it more, you know, like agimmick?
Um, sort of just to kind ofmake people like, oh wow, check
(30:18):
this out, it's cool, but theywatch for 10 minutes and then
they take it off and they lookon their phone?
Or are they creating newexperiences, like, what are your
customers doing with the VisionPro?
How are they using thatexperience?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I think the first step is migrating what they have
in other platforms to visionpro, just having something that
people can use.
But this is not the final step.
They will have to take moreadvantage of the device features
and I think this device is islike a beta uh you know version
(30:53):
of what we are going to get intwo, three years.
So we have to be prepared forwhat's coming and I think this I
personally think this is goingto become something very big and
, yeah, people is starting tothink about new experiences that
they can share on Vision Pro.
We probably will get newproviders giving similar devices
(31:16):
out there.
We had already we had the Quest3 there, but, yeah, I think
this is going to be a big thingin a few years from now.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know I know VR and you know XR
extended reality.
But you know XR is definitelytaking, is taking a hold in kind
of more enterprise corporatetraining.
You know simulation typeenvironments, you know, or even
(31:51):
like remote, remote technicalwork, you know.
So I'm aware of some very, veryinteresting use cases.
So it's definitely a thing.
But for entertainment, you know, vr sort of, I think there's
even.
I'm always a little bitsurprised when I meet people in
our industry who are so quick tolike dismiss the exciting new
(32:15):
things.
You know like, oh yeah, vr,that's never going to take off.
Nobody cares about it.
Because, first of all, you knowlike we have a vested interest
in these things succeeding.
You know if they succeed well,we're going to get to deliver
more content.
That means that, you know, nomatter what part of the
ecosystem I'm in, it's probablygoing to be good for me.
(32:37):
You know.
Plus it just, you know, stokesnew investment.
It generally stimulatesupgrades.
Sometimes, you know, entireworkflows have to be rebuilt,
which means, you know, moredevelopment, more products, more
software license, anyway.
(32:57):
So I'm always surprised when Irun into, but it is generally
true that the industry haslargely said yeah, vr, nobody
cares about it, we're not evenfocused on it, and that's true.
It is true that you know it'snot every house has, you know,
has a vision pro.
(33:19):
You know, that is true.
But these things have a way ofchanging very fast and they
change slow until one daythere's a tipping point.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Right and so.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
I really see there's a tipping point that's coming.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
And you know we are all people.
You know the new generation.
They are digital natives andthey will request for a lot of
these type of devices.
So what is working today, maybein 10 years will change
completely.
So we have to be prepared forwhat's coming.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure.
Okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Um well, so I really would like to know, though, what
do you see as the biggestchallenges you know that are
facing the streaming mediaindustry?
Yeah, so, as I said before,netflix is setting the standards
very high, so low latency.
You know you have to be at thesame level of Netflix.
If you are not there, peoplewon't consume your content.
So this is one of the mainchallenges now have perfect
(34:33):
performance when you're playingvideo, have a very interactive
platform that gives youpersonalization that you can
customize your way, et cetera.
So I think everyone's workingin that way, trying to improve
quality and being everywhere inall platforms and, yeah, being
everywhere in all platforms.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
So what I hear you saying is that your customers
are coming to you and youobviously have to sit down and
have a pretty in-depthconversation about the features
and the functions, but youprobably have to start by saying
you know what's your target,what are you trying to achieve?
And what I hear you saying isalmost everybody's saying we
(35:21):
need to be Netflix.
It's kind of the reference.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah exactly.
Yeah, every platform has theirown niche, of course.
Yeah, when they come to you,they have the target audience
already set.
It's very clear.
So after that, when making thatability comes, as I said,
(35:45):
netflix is setting the standards.
So, yeah, it's all around that.
You know having good quality,you know a beautiful user
interface.
Have it everywhere available inyour phone even in your car.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
You know Devices.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right, that'sright.
So are a lot of your customerscoming to you with requirements
for infotainment systems?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
you know in-car infotainment yeah, we are
actually talking to one companyright now to try to do something
with our platform in cars, soeven in planes.
You know, we have been tryingto talk to a company that make
infotainment system for privatejets.
So yeah, that's something thatis also in our radar.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Okay, yeah, very, very cool, all right, so how is
2Coders preparing for thesefuture developments?
I think we both tend to agreethat new entertainment
experiences like BR, for example, you know they're, they're,
they're definitely notmainstream today.
(36:58):
They're you know I don't thinkwe're going to be mainstream
tomorrow, but at some point theywill be.
You know they're going to be apart of the normal, you know,
entertainment landscape, yeah,so what are?
What are you doing to prepare?
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah so we are actually investing a lot on
research and development.
I would say half of ourdevelopers are working on
internal products and, you know,training for new trends.
We are always, you know,looking for new challenges.
Vision Pro is one of them, butwe are also I was discussing
(37:37):
with David, my co-founder, thatthey were looking at videos of
how supermarkets prepare theirproducts in the shop so trying
to get ideas from other sectorsthat we can apply to our sector.
So we are always trying.
We have uh in our blood, theentrepreneurship, uh, you know,
(38:00):
um idea, so we are always tryingto find new ways to develop pro
our product.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
so, yeah, interesting I think research it's very
important if you want to veryimportant if you want to be to
succeed as a company.
Yeah, yeah, definitely,definitely.
Yeah, I mean as a um, you know,as a software uh, development
house and um, you know, workingwith a cross-section of the of
(38:29):
the industry.
I think that a lot of customerswill come to you and you know,
obviously they're hiring you tobuild something and you know you
(38:49):
have to deliver that have alittle bit more experience than
they could have even internallywith, like um, which
technologies are even work today.
You know, because I thinkthat's um, one of the, you know
I call it.
It's a consistent theme, it's aconsistent problem that never
goes away in our industry is um,everybody, you know, hears
(39:13):
about the latest codec standardor the latest technology
standard, or you know, there's,there's always something new.
But then the question is but isit really ready?
You know, can it really support?
You know my platform, which youknow might be quite large, and
you've got a perspective on that.
So do you find that's true?
(39:35):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
So we always try to be using the technologies that
we think they will have longerjourney so they won't end in two
years and then we have torebuild everything from from the
(40:00):
ground up.
We normally we tend to usenative uh for mobiles tvs for
all devices, but of course, as Imentioned earlier, for set of
boxes and smart tvs it's mucheasier to have one cold base
share.
So we use, we rely a lot of onreact for for uh web development
.
Uh, we use it also for for uhfor our web platform, but then
(40:25):
we also rely a lot on thetechnologies that our partner
provides.
So we always try to uh to to bealigned with what they are
using.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yeah, so yeah, got it .
Got it.
Okay, very interesting, well,good, well, this has been a nice
conversation.
I've really enjoyed hearingyour both the entrepreneurial
journey and congratulations onall of the growth and I guess,
(40:59):
10, 11 years.
It's pretty amazing to go fromyou and your co-founder in 2013
to grow the company to 10 peopleand then now to be at 50 people
um, that's you know, with twooffices, and that's it's very
impressive.
What, um you know?
(41:20):
Are there any upcoming projects?
Or you know announcements umthat you're going to be sharing
at ibc?
Can you, can you give thelisteners an?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
intro.
As I've been mentioning duringthe our podcast, uh, velvet is
our main focus right now and wewill be presenting all of this
in IBC in 15 days, so we arevery excited with this
opportunity.
It's the first time we're goingto have our own booth in IBC,
(41:51):
so, yeah, it's going to be areally exciting moment for
moment for us.
Uh, we're looking forward to bethere what is the name of the
platform?
Speaker 1 (42:00):
your?
product velvet, velvet, velvet,velvet media platform okay,
velvet yeah, okay, okay, cool,cool, okay, well, good, well, um
, for any of the listeners whoare going to be at ibc, uh,
obviously there's always a lotto look at.
It's a pretty big show, but itsounds like you probably should
(42:22):
stop by Two Coders and meet theteam and check out Velvet and,
of course, while you're walkingaround, stop by the NetEnt booth
as well.
While you're walking around,stop by the NetEnt booth as well
.
We'll be very happy to hostanybody who wants to experience
more of what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah, everyone is welcome to talk to us and we
will be delighted to show youwhat we have built.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, great, well, good, well, Dylos, thank you
again for coming on Voices ofVideo and we will see each other
in two weeks in Amsterdam.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
That's great.
It will be nice to see you inperson.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Awesome, likewise Well good, thank you.
This episode of Voices of Videois brought to you by NetInt
Technologies.
If you are looking forcutting-edge video encoding
solutions, check out NetInt'sproducts at netintcom.
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