From Sci Fi to Syfy, what’s the difference?

According to Media Week, NBC is the latest company to exercise rebranding during this tough climate. NBC is rebranding its Sci Fi Channel to Syfy, which will be introduced first in the US in July, with UK activities due to follow suit at the beginning of Q3 this year.

Although I’m somewhat undecided about the so called “phonetic” name change, the company explains “the new spelling will allow NBC to have an ownable trademark that it hopes will gain greater recognition among consumers across new-media and non-linear digital platforms - such as Hulu and iTunes”.

Last year both Sky and ITV renamed their VOD services to Sky Player and ITV Player respectively, as posted here.

ANT Galio is shortlisted for IPTV World Series Awards

We’re all extremely excited over here to have been shortlisted for the IPTV World Series Awards in the Best IPTV Service Delivery Platform or Client Software category.

It’s great to be recognised for ANT Galio which has gone from strength to strength in the worldwide IPTV market. I’ll be attending the awards ceremony (25th March, Millennium Gloucester Hotel, London) to fly the flag for ANT.

If you’re attending feel free to drop by and say ‘hello!’

BSkyB prepares for 3D content

Rapid TV News has reported that BSkyB is to launch a 3D service in the near future. Sky’s chief engineer broadcast strategist, Chris Johns, has reportedly told a London conference that Sky will increasingly focus on building and delivering its own archive of 3D material as part of Sky’s “Vision of the Future”; services like the Arts Channel, sports and general entertainment will be the first to receive investment.

Sky’s decision to invest in 3D systems is driven by the burgeoning distribution demand from Hollywood, which is said to be releasing some 61 movies in 3D over the next 18 months.

Interestingly, Sky is also said to be focused on delivering everyday 3D home entertainment through simple and cost-effective technology routes without the need for newer “3D Ready” or “HD Ready” set-top boxes.

IPTV industry must also face up to scrutiny around behavioural advertising

The online advertising industry has launched a set of guidelines for a genre of web adverts that have been causing controversy.

The code of practice has been drawn up by the Internet Advertising Bureau and focuses on the emergence of behavioural advertising, a form of targeting consumers based on people’s browsing activity.

The TV industry should be listening closely to this news. It’s an issue that could soon spill into the TV world as service providers start to converge traditional broadcast channels with content from the web.

Telcos, other service providers and advertisers themselves have been talking about the convergence of the TV & the web for some time. In many ways, it’s a case of when, and not if, it will happen. Convergence will revolutionise the way people watch and use the TV, but it will also mean that broadcasters have to be much more targeted in their advertising. However, there’s a fine line to tread between offering consumers good, targeted services based on viewing preferences and what could be perceived as ‘snooping’. Whatever the outcome of this discussion, eventually the TV industry will have to face up to these issues and adopt some sort of guidelines or best practice of its own.

If you have any thoughts of your own on this – I’d be glad to hear more about them.

BBC experiments with real-time content

The BBC is publicly testing an interesting online project called BBC News Radar, an online app that displays the latest BBC news and updates in a simple and streamlined format, similar to the microblogging phenomenon Twitter. On the BBC Journalist Labs blog, Jake MacMullin, the developer behind the app, revealed that the BBC might even consider placing it permanently on the BBC website.


Now, it’s quite interesting to see mainstream media like the BBC is taking the initiative to introduce real-time content. With the web constantly grappling for our dwindling attention, it kind of makes sense for content providers to offer more concise and speedy content updates. With technology improvements increasingly delivering content to the user instantly, there’s no doubt that real-time content will be favoured in future.

Here at ANT, we’ve already begun to see demand for this type of concise news content to be delivered direct to the TV. In fact, we’ll be demonstrating something that meets this demand in a couple of weeks time at the IPTV World Forum in London.

If you’re planning to attend the show why not pay us a visit, we’ll be at stand number 70.

Weekly news roundup 27.02.09

IPTV

• The Guardian reports that starting up project Canvas could cost up to £24m
• Microsoft improves its Xbox Live service proposition (via TechRadar)

On Demand

• ITV on-demand becomes available on Virgin Media’s catch up service (via TechRadar)
• Panasonic revealed that the BBC iPlayer will come to Freesat this year, allowing on-demand TV to be watched through set top boxes without subscribing to Virgin Media. (via ElectricPig)
• YouTube and iPlayer heading for Freeview mark two (via Telegraph)

Content providers

• Amazon Beats Apple's iTunes As Preferred Digital Media Provider according to Strategy Analytics.
• Popular video-sharing site Metacafe aims to launch optimised service through IPTV (via NMA)

HDTV

• Telegraph article covers which broadcasters delivering HD content at what costs

Blu-ray

• Panasonic launches duel tuner Freesat HD PVR (via TechWatch)

50Mbps broadband: yay or nay?

I’ve been following the series of Speed Diary posts from Darren Waters on BBC dot.life in which he questions the real benefit of having 50Mbps broadband connection in an average household, where you get an adequate performance at a connection speed as low as 3mbps.

Broadband providers are increasingly using the term “high speed” as a strap line to sell broadband packages without really highlighting the benefits for end users, therefore Darren’s attempt to challenge it is a valid one.

So, in order to find out how the experience of using 50Mbps broadband compared with less speedier ASDL connection, Darren performed some of the most bandwidth intensive activities such as video streaming (iPlayer), and online gaming (Xbox), and simultaneous downloads. During the test, he made the following observations, which are interesting:

1. Having faster broadband doesn’t necessarily improve the speed of your web browsing experience
2. Accessing the web over wi-fi on a portable device like an iPhone or PSP with a 50Mbps connection seems no different to using an ADSL 6Mbps connection
3. Speed Tests are useful but no replacement for the actual experience in using a connection

Although I suspect the first two points might have their rightful place in the current market, I believe the quality of high-speed broadband will eventually catch up as the demand for multi-platform, streamlined HD content increases. However, I do agree with the last point that broadband speed alone shouldn’t define the quality of experience of using mega speedy broadband.

Take a few minutes to read Darren’s diary posts as it makes a very interesting read:

Speed Diary: Day One
Speed Diary: Day Two
Speed Diary: Day Three
Speed Diary: Day Four

The Future of interactive TV revealed

There was a great story in the Metro last week picking up on some predictions from interactive technology research house Future Laboratory based around the future of interactive TV and networked homes. Although the mainstream media has been riding on the TV on Contact Lenses headlines, I particularly enjoyed the following predictions:

1. Intelligent home entertainment management system based on humanoid avatars will be huge. What’s more these interactive avatars will eliminate the need for content search through a remote control as it will enable viewers to control TV through voice recognition or dialogue.
2. The choice for channels will continue to grow but user generated content (UGC) will equally dominate viewers preference for home entertainment
3. With TV screens networked to the internet, viewers will be able to tailor their home entertainment the way they customise social networking sites like Myspace
4. Watching a telly will no longer be passive as people will be share preferences and connect with others through their networked TVs
5. Multi-sensory technology planted on our bodies will enable highly immersive TV watching experience

Although some of these may seem a little too futuristic for some we’ve already seem some of these themes demonstrated at shows & exhibitions in the last 12 months. UGC, Avatars and Social Networking sites on the TV are more than just ideas.

You can read the full story here

Weekly IPTV news roundup

So much is going on in our industry at the moment, I'm having a hard time keeping up.

As is customary for Q1 there’s a wealth of forecast statistics and deployment numbers being circulated in the news. Here’s a brief round-up of stories that I’ve seen in the past few weeks:

IPTV in France

• 1/3 of all French broadband subscribers now take an IPTV service, according to France's telecoms regulator Arcep.
• France now has 5.4 million IPTV subscribers and is growing at 39% year on year.
• France Telecom's Orange TV is the market leader with 1.5m subs or around 27% of the market, with Neuf TV in second place.

Global IPTV

• Worldwide IPTV subscribers reach 16m
• Meanwhile, In-Stat is predicting that the global IPTV market will more than treble by the end of 2012 and will break the 72 million mark in 2013.

IPTV carriers

• Estonia's Elion announced that they ended 2008 with 82,500 IPTV and cable subscribers, up from 57,700 the previous year. Elion now estimates it has a 26% share of the cable market but remains in 3rd place after Starman and STV.

Set-top box

• Amino have shipped over 2m units

Interview with Tattletech

Last week, I was kindly asked to take part in the Tattletech Hot Seat where we discussed some relevant trends in the IPTV industry including TV widgets, mobile apps and IPTV browser technology. You can read the full interview here.

While you take a few minutes to read the interview, please do check out some of their other stories covering news and opinions from the telecommunications industry and mobile sector.

On-demand TV competition heats up

There’s been a significant improvement in the quality of on-demand TV services offered by the UK broadcasters and cable and satellite networks. This is partly due to the increased adoption of high-speed broadband and the government’s plans to boost the digital industry.

As the competition heats up for on-demand TV providers to offer the most compelling, on-demand content package at a competitive price, viewers are being given more options to watch on-demand TV through platforms of their choice. To help viewers gain better perspective on what’s out there, I put together slides comparing some of the most popular on-demand TV services in the UK with a little help from my team at ANT.

UK On-demand TVs Compared

View more presentations from ANTplc. (tags: tv on-demand)

Breaking news online

There’s an interesting flow chart, originally posted by Michael Surtees on DesignNotes that I thought I’d share.

The chart below illustrates how people used different online tools and platforms to break the Hudson River plane crash news. While looking at it, I was amazed to see how news can be instantly broken to potentially hundreds and thousands of online surfers and viewers, with the use of simple microblogging and live-streaming tools like Twitter.


With mobile and live streaming tools playing an increasingly important role in breaking eye witness stories, it seems to be just a question of time before these are incorporated into a microblogging TV widget running on an IPTV platform.

Global IPTV subscribers reach 16 million

It’s always useful to keep an eye out for new industry forecasts. The latest set conducted by US research company Dittberner (as posted on Broadband TV News), says the total number of IPTV subscribers worldwide has reached 16 million, marking a significant growth compared to previous years.

Moreover, the research revealed that EMEA has seen the most growth in IPTV subscribers and more specifically France has the highest number of subscribers with the second highest broadband penetration level worldwide. France's high IPTV adoption was attributed to its extensive deployment of home gateways that allow the “efficient creation of higher revenue services”.

CES 2009: An Appreciation of Innovation

I returned from CES a few weeks ago, nevertheless I’ve been planning to blog on this for a quite some time so here it goes.

This years Consumer Electronics Show once again provided the forum for new products, new technologies and new ideas of how it all might work together. In the backdrop of broader global economic challenges, this show certainly provided the inspiration to march forward into 2009 on the right foot.

A number of interesting new technologies caught my eye while in Vegas, ranging from advances in seamless wireless connectivity, connected home services, Microsoft’s Surface Tables, 3D Gaming and TV experiences, embedded services to truly brilliant Web Connected TV’s.

With a personal project underway back at home, I was impressed to see a diverse set of well priced solutions for distributing content around the home. This came in the form of solutions like the Divx Connected TV device that allows you to stream content (video, pictures, music and applications) in HD to your TV or watch on your PC. There was also a wide range of HDMI to Ethernet switches & transceivers, making it much easier to distribute from a central location around your home in HD – if only these were available before I started a few month ago… Even so, the vision of a connected home was realised in a very practical way by a number of exhibitors.

Channel4 Skins on Messenger

As Skins' second series makes a start on Thursday, C4 has launched a new messenger service (in partnership with Microsoft MSN Messenger) that enables a chat based TV viewing experience. According to its website the series will be supported by soundtracks, diaries, and extras in real time.

Although the technology behind it is nothing new, Instant Messaging coupled with interactive streaming is an interesting move from C4 in an attempt to take the series across multiple platforms in real time. It’s a smart move to embrace the twitter style community that I’ve talked about in the past that watches TV and chats at the same time online. How long before this all takes place on the same screen though, as we showed at the IPTV World Forum last March, the technology is ready…

On-demand adds to TV viewer figures

I read an excellent article from Julian Clover of Broadband TV News over the weekend about how on-demand TV is reinterpreting broadcasters’ approach to measuring viewer figures.

According to Julian’s insight, since the on-demand measuring system Unitam, for digital cable and satellite channels, was rolled out in 2006, on-demand data now contributes significantly to broadcasters’ performance figures. Meanwhile, BARB data has revealed that the number of hours we spend watching the fixed TV has dropped.

What’s more interesting, it’s said that multichannel broadcasters like Sky are benefiting most from these new consolidated viewing figures from BARB.

Julian also points out that the new figures make ITV2 and ITV3 as the most watched individual channels partly because of a successful cross promotion and a wider reach through Freeview DTT platform.

Twitter is a hit in the UK

Internet research company, Hitwise, reported that Twitter is one of the fastest growing web sites in the UK, with traffic rising tenfold in the past 12 months.

What started as a very dense community site around micro-conversations has had a 974 per cent traffic increase in the UK last year alone. This astonishing fast growth was said to be augmented by a number of global catastrophic events including Mumbai bombing incident and the Hudson airplane crash, during which active users of the site ushered in to provide real-time eye witness updates. In addition, Twitter has attracted a number of global celebrities like Barack Obama and Britney Spears, as well as popular TV personalities including Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross.

Webuser has a pretty decent list for all celebrity users here, if you’d like to join the microverse.

Watch the Pope on Youtube TV

As reported on Wired, the most watched video sharing site Youtube recently launched a video channel available on Nitendo Wii and PS3 consoles, bringing in a vast archive of user and pro generated content direct to TV viewers, including video messages from the Pope Benedict XVI, a new channel launched by the Vatican. Youtube TV has been developed with the TV user in mind rather than the PC or laptop, this is a smart approach when taking web content to the TV, they’ve also tweaked it so that can watch a series of similar videos on an auto-play. See below for a demo of Youtube on PS3.

It was mentioned that the quality of watching Youtube on Wii and PS differs slightly, but overall Wii has the upper hand when it comes to delivery as it has more than 40 million consoles in use globally, as posted previously here.

Currently in Beta, Youtube TV is said to be providing APIs for developers.

How are you watching Barack Obama’s Inauguration?

With millions and possibly billions of global citizens expected to watch and celebrate the new US president Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony tomorrow, it’s predicted that all major broadcast and internet sites will be inundated with live reporting. However, with so many options out there, how are you planning to watch the inauguration?

If you're not sure yet, below are where the celebration will be broadcast online:

• Barack Obama Inauguration website
• Online News sites i.e BBC or Sky HD
• Youtube or Hulu
• Mobile (via uStream.com)
• P2P app (Livestation)
• Webcast (Everything Obama page on Joost)
• Facebook (in partnership with CNN)
• Current & Twitter
• Photosynth 3D Panorama
  

Who Wants Widgets?

When any technology is suddenly hyped or gets a ramp in news coverage, it is always interesting to read the minority report. Farhad Manjoo's CES piece in Slate magazine is no exception. In this article he addresses a topic I commented on last week – the rise of widgets on the TV.

While Manjoo makes some good points, his central argument seems to be the tired old lean-forward vs lean-back user interaction that sums up the differences between TV and PC. For me, widgets are more subtle - I see them as an evolution of the European teletext service and the digital red button apps. Teletext and EPG are not lean-forward activities, they are just ways to augment the information that the TV provides the user. TV widgets will fulfil a similar function.

What about Flickr and Amazon though? Is one-click ordering a book really that interactively different than one-click ordering a movie? Is organising your photos really so different to organising your night's viewing? It doesn't feel different to me.

Open IPTV Forum publishes system and protocol specifications

The Open IPTV Forum published version 1.0 of their end-to-end specifications for an IPTV System yesterday. As active members of the Forum and a strong supporters of open standards, the team at ANT are pleased that the specifications are now generally available to the public, and we hope that they will help the industry as a whole to move forward and build some really exciting new services that show off the real potential of IPTV.

Apple drops DRM for good

Apple has announced that every song in its iTunes music store will be DRM-free and available in high quality 256bit audio by the end of March this year. iTunes music store has over 10 million music tracks and 75 million users, which makes it no.1 music retailer in the US.

Apple has also taken the opportunity to release iTunes 8 and revamp its music store price points, moving from a single price point of 99c in the US to a three tier pricing model: 69c for old music, 99c for tastemaker or emerging music and $1.29 for new singles from popular artists.

It's taken an incredibly long time for music listeners to change Apple's outlook on DRM, but it looks like the music executives are finally starting to understand and accept that in fact DRM fails to prevent piracy - indeed it only really serves to penalise and annoy law-abiding music downloaders.

Yahoo lands full on TV Widgets

Yahoo has re-emerged with yet another strategically important partnership in the TV space, as it announced that it will be offering a TV Widget service in partnership with Samsung.

It was revealed that the service will be offered on Samsung’s new internet-connected HDTVs with content feeds from Yahoo! news channels and Flickr, where viewers will be able to browse news and photos on a large screen. The widget service will provide updates on localised content such as weather forecasts, the stock market and shares information.

With the emergence of large HDTVs, services like this will help content providers to push both existing and new content through easily accessible widgets in real time. However, whilst TV widgets can’t be interacted with in the same way as a PC or lap top, they will give new media content providers a great opportunity to tie the widget, or application, more closely to the content.

The real value of widget technology can be achieved when it’s extended to multiple devices from games consoles, to set-top boxes and mobile phones further enabling end-to-end peer interaction. Here at ANT we’ve already experimented with similar services on the STB and will be launching more in the future so watch this space!

Wii bit of TV from Nintendo

Nintendo is set to offer TV on the Wii game console, the move marks an interesting development in the IPTV and broadcast industry, as it’s reckoned that 40 million households worldwide use the Wii and almost half are connected to the internet. Nintendo will be looking to build on advertising and content revenue with the new service. It is expected to begin in Japan this spring and will be rolled out globally by the end of the year with exclusive content including cartoons, cookery programmes, brain-training quizzes and lifestyle shows.

Tiscali cuts Italian IPTV service

On the eve of New Year, Tiscali announced that it will no longer continue its IPTV service in Italy, much to the surprise of its 50,000 customers. Already, Tiscali's exit has caused remarks about the state of the company’s position in the IPTV and broadband market and whether it will seize significant stronghold in the highly competitive UK market. Both Telcos and ISP operators like Sky, Virgin and Vodafone are increasingly towering over with better integrated network bundles.

Dead kangaroo?

Project Kangaroo has been well publicised in the past year or so as the three main terrestrial broadcasters in the UK attempt to team up to deliver an iPlayer-type service that will aggregate content and serve it up on demand via broadband.

The Competition Commission put a halt to the project in December claiming that it simply isn’t fair to other retail and wholesale content providers.

The Commission has tasked the terrestrial trio to examine its structure and to specifically examine “the terms of exclusivity between the joint venture and its parents.” It’ll be interesting to see how they respond to this, failing that the future of the project is uncertain.

Consuming Content Differently

A record 15 million people may have tuned into watch the final of X Factor last weekend, I wasn’t one of them.

We headed out to the supermarket for a spot of pre-Christmas shopping. While the rest of the country was tuned to the Grand Final, the shopping isles of Tesco were completely empty.

When they got home around an hour after the show had sta
rted they were able to skip the adverts and annoying pre-song interviews thanks to the joys of a PVR.

I wonder how many other viewers opted for a similar tactic it’s just so easy to do, as a consumer this makes a lot of sense but for the advertisers paying for prime time exposure this isn’t what they want to see.

ITV in Catch Up rebrand

Almost 12 months to the day that the BBC launched iPlayer, ITV is renaming its itv.com on demand offering. From today the ITV platform currently know as Catch Up will go by the moniker of ITV Player. The service allows punters to view a selection of the best ITV shows for 30 days.

Undocumented TV support for the iPhone

Both the Apple iPhone and iTouch have TV support but it hasn’t been published as part of the specification. So how do we know? According to Make Magazine, the developers of Moto Chaser, a motorbike race game, set up a demo of the iPhone's video-out capabilities in only an afternoon after being set a challenge.

Using the undocumented MPTVOutWindow class and iPod A/V cables, it's possible to program an iPhone to have television output. What's cool about this is that since the iPhone be both the game platform and a controller, since it contains Wiimote-like accelerometer features.

Neat eh?

Channel 4 targets students with niche ads via IPTV

Channel 4 is the first commercial terrestrial broadcaster to launch targeted advertising via one of the UK's main IPTV services, Inuk. Ads will be carried around Channel 4 content on the IPTV network and specifically target students.
From our perspective, it’s an important step and one that the industry has been talking about for some time. Yet it’s still only scratching the surface of what’s possible with targeted advertising. Using students as a test bed is, however, a great way to trial the technology with a very media savvy audience. How will the 80,000 students who subscribe to the network respond? The proof is in the pudding so they say. So let’s see what news emerges from Channel 4 over the coming weeks and months.

ITV takes on advertising challenge with Graffiti Advertising

ITV has made a bold move in developing a new form of unavoidable advertisement, nicknamed “Graffiti Advertising,” that can be embedded in television programmes. But ITV isn’t the only broadcasting industry player to be concerned about declining advertising revenues. In the US, cable networks and DVR makers have also been testing "speed bumps" that show an advertisement during fast-forwarding and billboards that appear on paused screens. Many more service providers and broadcasters must address the challenge of generating advertising revenue in the rapidly changing world of TV.

ITV has identified the ongoing challenges in attracting traditional advertising revenues, citing the rise of personal video recording and the fast-forward button as a significant contributing factor. The broadcaster is now trialing new technology, known as “automatically placed overlay advertising”, which uses complex computer algorithms to find clear space, such as blue sky or blank walls, in video footage in which to display advertising logos or messages.

Gartner reports further IPTV growth

Gartner has published a report which predicts that worldwide IPTV subscriptions will rise sharply; reaching nearly 20 million by the end of 2008. The uptake of IPTV in Europe has always been strong and, unsurprisingly, the research shows that the largest number of subscribers are based in Western Europe.

This latest research reflects a pattern we’re seeing at ANT. Whilst at IBC earlier this month we witnessed a marked change in the discussions we were having with visitors to the ANT stand. Operators are now far more focussed on what they want to deliver and when their new services will launch. These discussions quickly lead to conversations regarding the next round of applications for IPTV. ANT demonstrated a portal approach at IBC which allows you to access online photos, videos and radio stations in addition to core TV applications such as the EPG. The introduction of on-screen chat whilst watching sporting events also proved to be popular among visitors to the stand. These new and innovative community based applications are set to drive the next generation of IPTV deployments.

Ofcom report signals UK appetite for IPTV technology

Ofcom published its annual Communications Market Report 2008 report yesterday. One of its key finding is that there is a huge demand amongst UK consumers for features delivered by IPTV. It comes on the heals of BARB’s research which showed that on demand services weren’t denting traditional TV services.

But Ofcom reckons that viewers are watching programmes when they want and how they want, rather than just relying on the TV schedules. Time shifting and over the top services delivered via the Internet are both on the rise.

The proportion of people with an internet connection who are watching TV programmes online more than doubled from 8 to 17 per cent in twelve months. The BBC iPlayer, which enables viewers to watch programmes up to a week after they were broadcast, delivered more than 700,000 daily video streams in May 2008.

Nearly a third of internet users (32 per cent) watched video clips and webcasts in 2007, compared to a fifth (21 per cent) in 2006. The number of UK internet users who watched YouTube, reached 9 million in April this year, nearly 50 per cent more than a year ago.

TV catch-up services fail to dent traditional viewing in the UK

Web video catch-up services such as the BBC iPlayer aren’t eating into traditional TV viewing despite their growing popularity, according to a report for ratings body BARB. Audiences watched an average of 2.34 hours of commercial broadcasts between January and June, up 4 per cent on last year. Meanwhile, commercial broadcasters are still looking for ways to generate revenues from these early web offerings.

Thinkbox, which conducted the research on behalf of BARB, says that both broadcast and online TV platforms are growing simultaneously underlining how they fulfill different needs for viewers and that they can co-exist and indeed promote each other.

Whilst online TV is only used by a fraction of the viewers that watch traditional broadcast TV, it’s clear that this is a growing market and can bring value to advertisers looking to reach niche audiences in the long term. However, advertisers face a big challenge in that they’ll need to find new, creative methods for capturing viewers’ attention via this relatively new medium.

Beijing Olympics: A test for TV

The Beijing Olympic Games will surely be a test for the TV industry. For the first time in Olympic history, there will be complete global online coverage of the events.

Major broadcasters such as NBC and BBC, technology providers like Adobe and Microsoft and content networks like Google's Youtube are all getting ready for the online battle.The Athens 2004 Olympics broke all global TV viewing records with near 4 billion unique people watching the games at least once, and a cumulative audience at around 40 billion. However, at that time online broadcast coverage was only available to a few territories.

But times are a-changing. This will be the first games when online streaming video will be availabile to mass audiences. NBC will offer more than 2,000 hours of live video coverage and 3,000 hours of on-demand video on its website. The BBC holds the exclusive rights for the Olympics content in the UK and will bring daily highlights to its iPlayer service. Meanwhile, Youtube has managed to get the rights for online video coverage of the event in the 77 territories that aren't officially covered by Olympic sponsors.

The increasing popularity of streaming video combined with the expectations raised by the Beijing Games will surely boost web traffic and possibly be the greatest test the broadcast and telco industries have faced to date.

Chinese tune into IPTV ahead of Olympics

Chinese tune into IPTV ahead of Olympics

Telco operators in China are experiencing record numbers of new subscribers signing up to their IPTV services ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games next week, say reports in the Shanghai Morning Post.

China Telecom is estimated to be receiving around 3,000 applications for IPTV services each day, thanks in part to a replay function that allows users to revisit programmes aired within the past 48 hours. Shanghai Telecom has also said that it will promote a new service during the Olympics that will enable viewers to watch different sporting events on different windows in the same screen.

Limited content has previously been cited as one of major factors for slower IPTV uptake in China. The Olympic Games will be the first major test for IPTV in China so all eyes will be on the major operators…as well as the athletes, of course;-)

Standards For TV

ANT leads a pack of companies that is lining up to deliver open standards for TV appliances according to a new report by ABI Research.

While PC and consumer electronics giants fight it out to deliver hardware into the living room there is no argument about the software standard to render content to the screen.

The report titled Web-Based Living Room User Interface Overview says that the supply chain for the TV industry is consolidating around HTML-based content services and sees these as the next major revenue opportunity.

Microsoft Opens Up

Microsoft has released the Beta version of its Mediaroom Presentation Framework. The company has made it available to nearly 150 businesses worldwide enabling operators to design their own IPTV-based services applications either directly or through third parties.

Microsoft has finally realised that opening up to third party developers is important in helping to move the industry forward. The company has taken a lot of stick from industry competitors in the past regarding the closed nature of its Mediaroom IPTV solution. However, this latest move is great news for operators, vendors and content developers alike. Open standards are critical in helping service providers deliver the next wave of innovative TV applications.

ANT has been advocating the important of standards for IPTV for some time and is an active member of the Open IPTV Forum. Richard Baker, Executive VP of Sales and Marketing at ANT, talks about it at length in a recent interview with Tracy Swedlow for Interactivetvtoday.com.

Is the Long Tail the wrong tail in IPTV?

This week, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) convention took place in San Francisco, where the impact of digital media on the music industry was the focus. The group, which represents music retailers, including record stores and e-tailers, discussed how trends such as file sharing and the rise in the power of the consumer has changed the way the general public consumes content. Initiatives such as Radiohead’s album ‘giveaway’ last year and Coldplay’s recent fee downloadable single has showed that free downloadable content can work side-by-side with traditional retail methods.

In relation to IPTV, it was highlighted on the Telecom View website that the industry will not really become mainstream unless distributors and marketers include the channel as a tactic rather than something to fight against, much like the music industry has (to some extent). Therefore, distributors would release content via video-on-demand services at the same time as DVDs – rather than viewing the medium as an afterthought. Blockbusters will continue to be the main attraction for viewers. However, we think that the main strength of IPTV is its almost unlimited capacity. Storing content for niche, micro audiences is key and high volume of downloads for this type of media will result in the success of IPTV, not the huge number of downloads for the latest Harry Potter movie. It’s often easy to forget that IPTV can be much more than ‘regular TV on the PC’. The technology can allow us to interact with programmes in a variety of ways never seen before.

On-demand services to generate over $1 billion by 2012

According to a new report by Screen Digest, the on-demand media services will generate $1.1 billion consumer spending by 2012.

Screen Digest says that of this figure, two thirds will be new revenue while the rest will replace traditional DVD spending. The fact that two thirds of the revenue will be new money shows that on-demand services can and will offer something different than merely pushing out more TV.

New technologies will enable better ways in which to search, locate and consume content and will invariably mean additional content becoming available to the consumer following the long tail rule.

Let’s hope that the additional content does not mean more variations on the reality TV shows that dominate the UK TV schedule.