Pixelmetrix OTT Media Grinder (OMG)

Packaged in a compact 1RU form factor, dedicated GigE Interfaces are available for management and Load Generation. The OMG can be operated stand-alone in a single location, or in a distributed, coordinated, multi-site configuration where loading multiple OMG systems provide visibility of service quality across the entire network. 

Track 5 Nines Availability

High Density Load Generation

Highly Configurable Client Profiles

Availability and Performance Reports

Compact 1 RU Chassis

Easy to use HTML5 GUI

 

Pixelmetrix Corporation is a company that develops preventive monitoring products for terrestrial, satellite, cable, and IPTV networks. The company is known for its DVStation product, and also provides equipment and network intelligence systems to television broadcasters for the management and monitoring of "Quality of Service" and "Quality of Experience". Pixelmetrix is headquartered in Singapore, and also has offices in the United States and Europe.

The OTT Media Grinder (OMG) simulates thousands of OTT clients (iPhone, iPad, etc) with multiple user-defined behaviors. Simulating multiple client pools playing real assets, to the end or abruptly terminating, OMG gives you in-depth and unparalleled visibility of adaptive bit rate 'gear changes', buffering, as well as server and network problems.

To quantify the unique QoS/QoE performance factors for Over-The-Top Video, Pixelmetrix has developed the comprehensive VideoMargin™ Metrics, for complete insight into the OTT delivery - measuring network, HTTP and video layer performance.

The seven VideoMargin™ parameters measure each aspect of the delivery domain spanning content server, network, authentication, individual client behavior and collective client behavior as well.  Consolidated 'service availability' is also provided as a single number in a familiar '5 nines' type of representation.

Minerva Ten New North American IPTV

Minerva added ten more IPTV wins in North America, including Mt. Horeb Telephone in Wisconsin, Tullahoma Utilities in Tennessee, and GTA TeleGuam in Guam. With IPTV platforms delivering a superior user experience, HD/PVR set-top boxes now readily available from multiple vendors, and early adopters enjoying rapid subscriber penetration, more network operators are entering the market and preparing to launch triple-play initiatives. Minerva is taking advantage of this market momentum by providing a proven middleware platform that allows operators to launch television services very quickly and compete effectively against incumbents while minimizing infrastructure and operating costs.

Minerva iTVManager is a comprehensive software platform for the delivery and management of a broad set of television services, including HDTV, PVR, VOD, music, games, and communication applications.

iTVManager is the best choice for deploying IPTV services.

iTVManager is a field proven solution for launching, operating and growing a profitable IPTV service. The TV user interface has all the latest HD and PVR features and runs on a variety of leading set-top boxes from ADB, Amino, Cisco/SA, Entone and Motorola. The iTVManager operations and management module offers a complete suite of applications and tools that minimizes the cost of running an IPTV service.

iTVManager

iTVManager is an open, standards-based solution that provides everything needed to build, operate and grow a sustainable, differentiated, profitable IPTV service. A carrier-grade platform deployed by more than 110 operators, iTVManager was the first to support HD, PVR, and Subscription Video-On-Demand (SVOD). The BackOffice framework, built on an Oracle database, provides all the services management and provisioning capabilities necessary to run a complete, highly scalable IPTV service “out of the box”.

iTVManager represents the most open system on the market today with support for set-top boxes from five different vendors, three conditional access systems and four VOD server vendors. In addition, a robust set of APIs allows easy integration with existing OSS/BSS systems. Third-party developers can use XML and Javascript APIs to write advanced TV applications for communications, guided on-demand viewing, polling, personalized advertising, and general information services (e.g., RSS).

iTVManager offers substantial advantages over satellite and cable television and other IPTV offerings. Its advanced region and channel management features allow you to segment your service area, providing customized, superior offerings to any geography or group you desire.

The open platform allows you to extend subscribers’ experiences beyond their current concept of television, by integrating communications and Internet information services. iTVManager’s architecture makes it infrastructure-friendly. Extensive use of multicast technology lowers overall network bandwidth utilization. In addition, embedded STB applications intelligently cache frequently-used data to create a fast, responsive user experience while reducing server load. Intelligent bandwidth management controls let the operator fine-tune services within each subscriber location, so each subscriber can enjoy the maximum level of services the last-mile bandwidth can allow. The small footprint of iTVManager makes it easier to extend capabilities and maximize subscriber growth and retention.

iTVManager empowers users by providing the ability to personalize their own experiences, giving them options to select different user interface designs, set parental control limits and other viewing options. Empowering users makes them more engaged and loyal. Today’s consumers expect more control over their entertainment sources. iTVManager gives subscribers control over what they want, and you control over what you need.

Extensive controls over configuration and business rules simplify setup and management of the system and let you adapt the service to meet your specific requirements – all without programming. Get to market quickly by taking advantage of the “out of the box” functionality of iTVManager. From branding of the user interface to defining the channel line up, service packages, pricing and EPG and VOD ingest. iTVManager gives you simple and full control over the setup and management of the system.

Download the iTVManager Data Sheet

Neptuny to launch ContentWise 2.0 at IBC

Italian firm Neptuny will be launching ContentWise 2.0, the second release of its content recommendation engine for IPTV, interactive cable and WebTV at this year's IBC event, to be held in Amsterdam this September. Enhancements added to the new release include the ability for users to receive real-tme recommendations on live TV shows based on what others are watching, support for content and product up/cross selling by operators, offering users recommendations according to what the user is watching, and enhanced reporting and APIs, offering new predefined reports such as customer purchase likelihood estimations based on recommendations.

ContentWise uses two different mechanisms for providing recommendations - collaborative filtering, where all user recommendations and experiences are used to recommend content that has been chosen by users with simiar tastes, and content-based filtering, using content meta-data to suggest recommendations based on discovered user preferences. Business rules can also be added by the operator to promote specific content according to strategic marketing or revenue objectives.

OVERVIEW

ContentWise SaaS provides the benefits of the ContentWise product in an easy and convenient way. Interactive television operators (e.g. providers, web site owners, content owners, etc.) can now add recommendations to and personalize their WebTV or IPTV in a straightforward manner, leveraging on a remote recommendation engine accessible via Web Service API over secure internet connections.

ContentWise SaaS also enables small operators to benefit from the same powerful personalization features already used by larger operators without having to invest in additional hardware, thereby lowering the total cost of the solution.

ContentWise SaaS relies on a high-availability platform hosted and managed by Neptuny. Connectivity is provided by Fastweb (Swisscom).

KEY FEATURES

* Same functional feature set as Contentwise
* Hosted in a reliable datacenter enviroment
* Deployed on a Cluster-Grid platform
* Operated and maintained entirely by Neptuny
* Security of transaction ensured by HTTPS SOAP or Secure VPN tunnel

BUSINESS BENEFITS

* Easy-to-deploy, powerful recommendation engine
* Enables small operators to provide same advanced features as big ones
* Lower solution costs (avoid hardware, licenses, maintainance)
* Easy transition to an insourced model according to volumes growth
* Flexible service model

HOW IT WORKS

With ContentWise SaaS Edition, the provider has an interface connected to his private instance of the predictive recommendation engine; the interface provides about 150 well-documented APIs to securely store in and retrieve information from ContentWise.

The provider uses the ContentWise interface to store information needed to generate personalized recommendations (user IDs, content metadata, ratings/viewing/purchases). Data are stored securely and can be retrieved using the same interface.

Benefits for providers / operators

* Increases customer spontaneous purchases (up-sell, cross-sell)
* Increases customer satisfaction by personalizing user experience
* Supports marketing of strategic decisions

Benefits for users

* Improves the overall quality of experience
- Facilitates content browsing (personal EPG, VOD selection)
- Reduces time taken to find the "right" content in catalogs
- Lowers user "frustration"

* Personalizes the TV experience
- Recommendations tailored to user preferences
- Suggests "unheard of" content fitting customer taste

ContentWise is a predictive content recommendation system for digital TV operators designed to help viewers select the right content to suit their tastes and requirements.

ContentWise generates recommendations for media content tailored to individuals' preferences, enabling users to quickly find suitable content. Recommendation are based on user ratings and content metadata.

ContentWise is the real answer to the challenge of making customers aware of the full potential of the digital TV offering, by proposing what they like, when they want it. The result is an extraordinary IPTV experience that brings benefits to both providers and final users, increasing revenue opportunities and customer loyalty.

Neptuny, a pioneer of the IPTV sector, will be launching ContentWise 2.0, the second release of the revolutionary Content Recommendation Engine for IPTV, Interactive-Cable TV and WebTV at the next IBC 2008 conference to be held in Amsterdam from 12-16 September 2008. The system will be demonstrated in Neptuny's pod #222 in the IPTV Zone.

Neptuny_ContentWise_2.0_IBC08.pdf (72 Kb)

Mike Cookish on DOCSIS 3.0 / Listen to podcast on CMTS qualification

After interviewing Chris Kohler about the modems that passed CableLabs Cert Wave 58, it seemed only fair to talk with Motorola’s Mike Cookish as well about the bronze DOCSIS 3.0 qualification of Motorola’s cable modem termination system (CMTS). The interview is about 16 minutes long and fairly technical, so for those of you not interested in listening to the whole thing, there are a few choice quotes below the audio link.

On DOCSIS 3.0 speeds:
“Our customer J:COM in Japan on April 25th just launched a 160-megabit service.”

On DOCSIS 3.0 in the US:
“My expectation is that by the end of 2008, the top major operators [in the US]… will be in some form of deployment stage for channel bonding in most parts of their network.”

On the need for both greater overall upstream capacity and peak upstream bandwidth capacity
“The reality is that when operators really want to begin to deploy full-scale, widely-available, production-ready upstream channel bonding they’re going to need two things: they’re going to need to increase the capacity of the number of upstreams for fiber node or neighborhood, and then number two, they’re naturally going to need the DOCSIS 3.0 upstream channel bonding solution.

So in Motorola’s case, we’re working on the upstream portion of our decoupled I-CMTS solution called the RX32 that will provide 32 upstream channels per single card as well as upstream channel bonding, and it’s the two of these that we believe will give the operator the optimum mix of increased average capacity as well as increased peak bandwidth for channel bonding.”

On making more downstream channels available for DOCSIS delivery, and specifically video on the Web:
“There’s a few operators that have implemented a one gigahertz extension beyond the typical 860 [megahertz] plant extension, and I’ve talked to many operators that are going to put DOCSIS 3.0 channels above the 860 megahertz range to get more downstream capacity. And I think there are other strategies being done by the video teams to relieve the amount of downstreams they need. And I think number one it’s analog reclamation. I think it’s switched digital [video] as another case.

But you know the other thing is, as a migration to IP video over DOCSIS happens… and as analog reclamation kicks in for various reasons, I think you’re going to see the video teams free up channels that will be provided to the DOCSIS teams or data teams that they will use for greater high-speed data, voice and IP video solutions, and especially when we talk about IP video in the future, you’re going to need a high number of DOCSIS channels to transport… many video channels to subscribers as that migration from an MPEG-based video to an IPTV-based video solution occurs.”

connectedhome2go.com

IMS Research says IPTV service numbers will grow 52.2% annually

An estimated 13.2 million households received IPTV service last year with nearly 8.4 million IP-enabled boxes shipping worldwide, according to an IMS Research Study.

“IPTV: A Global Market Analysis - 2008 Edition” says the number of households using IPTV will grow 52.2% annually through 2012.

The increasingly competitive pay-TV landscape with proliferation of new content, triple/quadruple play offerings, and new Internet-based TV services is one of the main factors behind IPTV household growth,” explains Shane Walker, research analyst and author of the study.

“Another important factor is the rapid uptake of IPTV services in China and South Korea as governments relax regulations restricting deployment and as telcos become more involved with expanding IPTV services.”

Click here for more information on the report.

interesting point of view from

With Shane Walker, industry analyst, IMS Research. Walker wrote a report, "The IMS Research study IPTV: A Global Market Analysis - 2008 Edition," which the firm released earlier this month.

Question: What did the research look at regarding IPTV?
Walker: We covered 60 countries in depth. We looked at what operators are doing. They could be telcos that had been deploying for three or four years or are in trials. It was interesting to see what was happening in the emerging markets such as Eastern Europe and established countries in Western Europe, which also have interesting growth. IMS historically has been conservative in its view and forecasting of IPTV. We've been proven correct. This research is definitely more optimistic than it's been in past. We see close to 65 million IPTV households by the end of 2012. The current market at the end of 2007 was 13 million. This report is a change in our view of where the market is going.

Question: So you folks see it shaping up positively.
Walker: The future for IPTV is brighter than it was in the last couple of years. Our last report was in 2005. At that point, from 2005 to 2007, we were more conservative. We were proven right. From 2007, we are seeing a lot of growth, significant uptake. Set-top box shipments are going to reflect that. Some companies are growing, there will be alliances and convergence between vendors. There will be an annual growth rate year to year of a bit over 50 percent. There are a lot of vendors coming into the market.

Question: Where is the growth?
Walker: We are seeing rampant uptake in China and South Korea as governments relax the rules. The U.S. has the AT&T and Verizon deployments. Those will be driving growth through 2012. That growth was very speculative before. China and South Korea was restricted to push VOD, which limits the uptake. China is a little more complicated. It was not necessarily restricted to push, but IPTV is heavily regulated. The situation had been that digital television must be available in an area before IPTV. They’ve now become a bit more relaxed.

Question: What about the Americas?
Walker: We saw increased rollout in the Americas for tier-1 telcos like AT&T and Verizon. The acceleration in North America in the 2010 time frame will be to IPTV. Because Verizon is not all IP, we do not classify them as IPTV today. We have to cover them in our report. But in the numbers, we do not count them as IPTV households before 2010. They are part of the 65 million at the end of 2012 but, prior to 2010, they are not in the household numbers.

Question: Why is the momentum changing?
Walker: The technology is definitely more solidified, tested and proven. That includes Microsoft's Media Room. Major telcos worldwide have adopted Media Room and can continue pushing the service with confidence. That is one of the factors. Microsoft is one of the major players when it comes to IPTV software platforms. I also see content acquisition as a factor. There are more agreements between telcos and content providers. It is becoming more of a mature relationship. The content being offered is pretty much what consumers can get elsewhere. There is competitive parity. In places like the U.S., we see alliances of SES Americom, a satellite service, the NRTC, the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative's IP-Prime service, which provides IPTV to tier-2 and tier-3 telcos. The market still is small compared to total television households. We do expect to see rapid growth in the next few years. There is also significant investment in Western Europe. The infrastructure is going to ADSL 2+ and VDSL. So those upgrades are delivering better service, obviously.

Question: Did IMS see this coming — but not definitely enough to change your predictions — or is all this really a big surprise?
Walker: We definitely saw some of this coming. I think among the things that could be predicted in 2005 were some of the regulatory changes in China and South Korea. We couldn’t predict when they would happen. We had a good idea they were going to happen, but not when. [For instance, interview subjects in] South Korea say that there will be true broadcast IPTV, but nobody is certain when. They are still waiting for the final word. It looks like it will be fairly soon and will lead to significant uptakes of subscribers by carriers such as KT and Hanaro.

Question: Does the interest in IPTV have a synergistic effect on infrastructure creation?
Walker: It is encouraging investment in the infrastructure, clearly. In Western and Eastern Europe as well, there are operators investing more and more in infrastructure. That is going to happen globally, AT&T is doing it in the U.S.; Verizon is doing it. Operators in Canada are doing it as well.

Question: Is it pushing fiber to the home and similar initiatives?
Walker: In Western Europe, it is ADSL 2+ and VDSL; in the U.S., Verizon is using fiber and AT&T is as well. It's more expensive. It's definitely going to continue. I don’t have a number off the top of my head as to when and how fast it will replace ADSL or VDSL. In the U.S., we looked at AT&T, SureWest in Northern California and the Pioneer Telephone cooperative. AT&T is using fiber, SureWest is using fiber, Pioneer is using fiber. AT&T is also using ADSL 2+ and MPEG 4, SureWest is using MPEG 2 and MPEG 4, and Pioneer is using MPEG 2.

Question: What does that tell you?
Walker: This primarily is for equipment suppliers, but it does give you an idea of what level of service consumers can expect from the operators. The standards as far as MPEG 4 and MPEG 2 matter because there is a significant bandwidth improvement when you go to MPEG 4 and it determines whether you will be able to deliver HDTV services. AT&T delivers IPTV, HDTV, DVR, mobile Internet service, VoIP, fixed line and premises security. They cover a lot of ground and can offer a lot of bundles, which is a very important factor when looking at whether an operator has competitive parity or an advantage against cable or satellite. Premises security is beginning to be an issue.

Question: So the bundle is where the action is.
Walker: The proliferation of triple and quadruple and even five play offerings. These are coming from cable satellite and telcos. It is a key behind telcos adding digital TV. Another driver of the numbers is the entry of more telcos. We're talking tier-2 and 3 telcos. This is happening in South America [for instance] and not just tier 2 and 3. Spain's Telefonica is making significant moves in South America to establish a foothold there. If a telco wants to remain competitive, it has virtually no choice but to enter a market with a bundle that must include video. No telco I talk to today doesn’t feel that video is a necessity. It is pretty essential at this point.

itbusinessedge.com

Why watch porn on your little computer monitor when you can watch it on a 150-inch HDTV in your living room?

Instantly Access DVD-Quality Content

FyreTV does not download anything to your television or box. Instead, it uses streaming technology across a DSL connection to offer immediate access to the movie of your choice. Avoid delays from buffering and instantly play high-quality adult videos on your television screen.

FyreTV, the guys who are releasing a nondescript set-top-box that streams IPTV adult video straight into your living room just gave us a hands-on demo with their machine. Here's what we think: it's the best thing we've seen yet to bring you on-demand porn over the internet into your living room.

The FyreTV streams you DVD-quality adult IPTV from major studios, letting you enjoy content without having to store it locally. You've got three packages to subscribe with beyond the mandatory $US9.99 monthly fee that gives you a certain bucket of minutes.

• Buying more on-demand minutes to use as you watch, which will be somewhere between $US0.17 to $US0.24 a minute.
• Buying a specific movie to get unlimited viewing.
• Buying a monthly pass to get unlimited access (for that month) to a specific studio's content, which gives you all the movies in their catalog. This will be somewhere around $26-ish, depending on the studio.

The box performance was great. DVD quality video was good on the cheap Vizio set they were demoing it on. The remote control was super responsive, and when you queue up a video it streams incredibly fast (probably because of their setup on the floor, so we'll have to see how it performs in the real world when we do a hands-on at home).

Other great functionality include bookmarking, favourites, playback history, playlists, scene ranking (1 to 5 stars), combination tag searches (Blondes, Boobs, Blondes + Big Boobs were the ones we used) and easy fast forward/rewinding through scenes.

FyreTV's best news is that their box will have no stickers (as shown in the pictures) or markings on it, so you can hide it in plain sight next to your DVR and have your in-laws be none the wiser. Why watch porn on your little computer monitor when you can watch it on a 150-inch HDTV in your living room? Oh and if you've read this far, it means you're definitely interested in this thing. We're going to have a special code soon for Gizmodo readers that will get you into the expanded beta (they went from 5,000 to 10,000 beta units) ahead of everyone else. [FyreTV]

Photo credit: FyreTV
by gizmodo.com.au

London IPTV Event

The World’s Leading IPTV Event

Online Conference Registration

Event Catalogue - click here to download

• Over 400 speakers from telecoms, cable, satellite and mobile operators and leading content owners
• The conference will feature over 30 telcos and ISPs discussing IPTV service deployment issues
• Over 150 exhibitors, and over 5000 pre-registered attendees already
• Free exhibition only passes available (online registration necessary, please click here to register)
• Combined networking opportunities within the joined exhibition area including IP Cable, The Connected Home, TVOverNet, Interactive TV Advertising Show and the Mobile TV Summit
• Hosting the IPTV World Series Awards 2008, judged by a panel of independent experts from the IPTV sector - shortlisted nominees NOW ANNOUNCED - please click here for more details
• To download a copy of the Guardian IPTV Supplement click here

Exhibition Hours

12th March 9am - 7pm
13th March 9am - 6pm
14th March 9am - 6pm

The Top IPTV Developments of 2007 and IPTV headend solution from Cisco

The Top IPTV Developments of 2007

The year started with a prediction from Bill Gates and ended with major milestones. A look back at the year in IPTV.

At the January 2007 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bill Gates made a stunning prediction: In five years, people will laugh at the TV they've had up until now. While the statement was met with obvious skepticism, it hinted at things to come. Since digital-video pioneer TiVo brought interactive features to the living room on a mass scale for the first time, consumers have taken control of their viewing experience, and TV will never be the same again. The long-held promise of interactive TV is finally becoming a reality in the U.S., except now it’s the telcos that are in charge rather than the cable companies. Major telcos have been busy rolling out new fiber-optic lines for high-speed, two-way data transmission, taking aim at cable and satellite companies’ entrenched services. Aside from faster speeds and better picture quality, interactive features promise new innovations in advertising and viewing habits.

Take, for example, one of the top stories of 2007 that emerged from January’s Consumer Electronics Show: an IPTV-capable Xbox 360 gaming console, combining interactive DVR (digital-video recorder) and chat functions with Microsoft’s game platform. While the device has yet to emerge, it hints at what’s possible in a future where convergence awaits. The Internet has added a new dimension in which consumers can get their IPTV content, often for free, but it too has struggled. Services such as Joost and Apple TV have been plagued with problems, and the outcome remains to be seen. Nevertheless, the Internet will no doubt play an important role in the years to come.

As noted in Daily IPTV's article on the state of the IPTV market, adoption has taken longer than expected. However, the global market could reach more than 50 million subscribers by 2010, and worldwide IPTV revenues from subscriptions and VOD (video on demand) could reach $12.2 billion by 2011. U.S. market leader Verizon had signed up 500,000 customers for its FiOS IPTV service as of October 2007, with laggard AT&T having signed up 126,000 customers for its U-verse service. These numbers are expected to reach 855,000 and 200,000 by end of Q4 2007, respectively. There has been some struggle over how to name or classify these services, particularly with FiOS’s similarity to cable (although it is an FTTH, or fiber-to-the-home, offering), but their IPTV status is unlikely to change.

What Drives Success

Richard Broughton, an analyst at Screen Digest, explained at length what drives IPTV success around the world. “It really differs from market to market,” he said. “The French services [Freebox, Orange TV and Neuf Box] are primarily free-TV offers. The lack of a high price point is one contributing factor to their success. This, coupled with the marketing from France's extremely competitive and aggressive broadband players, means that services have received maximum exposure to the public. Content is actually fairly evenly distributed across the services here — premium TV is really restricted to the Canal Plus and CanalSat programming packages, which are available on all of the top IPTV operations."

Broughton continued, “Free Telecom [the world’s largest IPTV provider] has managed to muscle its way to the top just through sheer brute investment. The company has taken the unprecedented step of supplying every broadband customer with a TV set-top box [with the latest generation models as HD PVRs (high-definition portable video recorders)] — a massive cost for any company. For Free, this is especially problematic, as customers may not take any further TV packages, making the whole operation work at incredibly low margins. For the time being though, the company is content to continue with this level of investment and as a result will stay on top of the pack for the foreseeable future."

Broughton went on, saying, “For other countries, different strategies have been adopted — Verizon is aimed more at the premium end of the market. Although its TV packages are slightly inferior in [the] number of channels to those of the big cable companies, its VOD library is enormous, and its pricing is aimed slightly lower — partly a consequence of the reduced channel range, but also as a result of the bundling reductions from customers taking fiber-optic, high-speed broadband. Thus far, of course, FiOS TV has been extremely successful, and there is no doubt that its offer will continue to expand. Few days go by when I don't get an email regarding Verizon adding more HD or local channels to its offer."

“South Korean service HanaTV has taken a different approach again," said Broughton. "Regulations in South Korea prohibit it from offering broadcast content over its broadband/telephone lines, so it offers a range of subscription, on-demand packages. Price is again a key factor, with the company taking in ARPUs [average revenue per user] of around 12 euros (about $17) from the product. This is on the low side for IPTV services — the offer is really a complementary one to the company's broadband segment. Rumors have been flying around recently regarding the relaxation of the laws [that] govern IPTV services in South Korea, so it is likely that in the near future, Hanaro Telecom will begin offering linear content as well as subscription, on-demand material.”

Top Market Developments

Broughton noted the following top market developments for 2007:

• Fastweb (in Europe) has begun to offer its TV package as a stand-alone product that doesn't require a broadband subscription. This is a first for a telco offering IPTV — broadband for most operators is still the core business, with IPTV a nice extra. The fact that Fastweb is now able to offer the service on its own means that the TV is profitable. This provides an indication as to where IPTV may end up in years to come. It also acts as a target for other operators — if Fastweb can make a profit out of its TV business, so can they.
• Advertising-funded VOD trials have begun in Europe. While commonplace in the U.S., ad-funded VOD is not really available in Europe. Belgacom is looking to buck this trend by offering on-demand films free, on an ad-supported basis. Other operators, including BT Vision, have expressed interest in funding content through ads, and there is no doubt that the reduction in costs would attract consumers.
• It's the best year yet for net additions for IPTV, although in Europe, it is likely that the peak has been reached and additions will decline from 2008 onward. More than 2.6 million new IPTV customers were registered in 2007 — 20 percent higher than in 2006. Additions were largely as a result of the Tier-1 operators that launched recently, which had a full year to conduct extensive marketing and benefited from a whole year of subscriber additions.
• PlayStation 3 activated for IPTV in South Korea: MegaTV, the service run by Korea Telecom, announced that Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 could be used as a set-top box for the TV service. MegaTV had 150,000 subscribers as of September, despite stiff competition from old hand HanaTV. Whether the PlayStation 3 will make much of a difference remains to be seen in South Korea's PC-dominated environment, but as the first console to be used as a true set-top box, it marks a significant point in convergence strategies in the media industry.
• Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is capable of acting as a set-top box. Considering Microsoft's hefty number of Mediaroom IPTV platform clients and its rapidly climbing installed base, this puts the Xbox 360 at a major advantage over the other consoles. However, with Microsoft yet to announce a single actual customer who is able to use the Xbox as a set-top box, this advantage has yet to be exploited.
• France's Iliad Group successfully equipped every broadband customer of Free Telecom with a Freebox IPTV set-top box, making Freebox TV the largest IPTV service in the world. Whether anyone is watching TV using the boxes is a bone of contention — indications from previous years suggested that subscriptions to further packages were as low as 10 percent — but at least as far as deployed boxes go, Freebox is streaks ahead.
• France Telecom hit 1 million customers for its IPTV services across Europe. Its French operations accounted for most of this at the end of Q3 2007, with 975,000 customers, but rapid growth in Poland in particular boosted this number to more than 1 million. Orange TV in France is now likely to claim more than 1 million customers on its own.
• IPTV reached more than 10 million subscribers globally this year. The majority are still in Europe, with perhaps 50 percent of the world's IPTV customers in France, but this is still a major checkpoint for IPTV.

More Developments

The analyst team at MRG Multimedia Research Group Inc., including Jose Alvear, Len Feldman, Steve Hawley and Gary Schultz, provided its own list of top IPTV developments of 2007 as follows:

• Free Telecom (Freebox) reached 1 million IPTV subscribers. This counts actual IPTV users, not customers who are just entitled to use IPTV but either can't, because their xDSL connection is too slow, or who choose not to.
• IPTV vendor consolidation really began in earnest:
  

• The Alcatel/Lucent merger closed this year, as did the formation of Nokia Siemens Networks.
• Motorola became No.1 player in live encoders, thanks to its acquisitions of Tut Systems Inc. and Modulus Video.
• Ericsson acquired Tandberg Television, and Cavalier Telephone and TV acquired SecureMedia Inc.
  

• Microsoft's service providers started deploying IPTV to their customers in quantity. While there are still concerns about the mass deployability of the Microsoft Mediaroom solution, it's clear that systems built on Microsoft's middleware have commercial viability.
• The first IPTV deployments (albeit small) began in India. Meanwhile, Korea’s on-demand (VOD) IPTV service is skyrocketing, partially due to Korea being the most broadband-equipped country in the world (with virtually 100 percent broadband penetration), with the majority of homes receiving speeds of up to 100 Mbps.
• For the first time, major cable operators such as Comcast are publicly expressing concern that the telcos' IPTV efforts are starting to eat away at their subscriber bases — and that is impacting shareholders.
• Providers are getting serious about advertising and content. When IPTV was an "early-adopter phenomenon," making it work was an exercise in creative engineering, and the operator's engineers were driving the train. Now, more than ever, concerns over cost containment, breakeven and profitability have engaged the business side of the house.
• IPTV turned a corner this year from an infrastructure perspective. Operators no longer question whether IPTV can be made to work as a business. Instead, the attention has moved toward refining the experience, and therefore, toward investing in testing, measurement and monitoring.
• The U.S. is being seen as finally starting to catch up with the rest of the IPTV world now that U.S. Tier-1 operators (such as Verizon and AT&T) are starting to scale. Yet, the perception of the U.S. and Canada as being "behind" has been a bit inaccurate, because smaller North American operators have been doing IPTV for as long as a decade.
• MPEG-4 AVC set-top boxes are shipping in volume, making it the first time that the true promises of MPEG-4 AVC could be realized after many years of promises. (MPEG-4 is considered the next- generation, highly efficient encoding standard.)

While much progress has been made in the IPTV market, there is plenty of room for growth and improvement. Despite the many challenges that remain, one thing is for certain: IPTV is here to stay. Today’s TV may not be gone in five years, but market dynamics are slowly changing the entertainment landscape. Those solutions that can deliver IPTV anywhere, anytime (TV, PC and mobile) are most likely to succeed in the long run. Although true convergence may not be here yet, it’s on the way, thanks in no small part to IPTV.

by David Cotriss/ dailyiptv.com

Transmission Products

Advanced IPTV Headend

If IPTV is part of your triple play plans, you know how important it is to implement a powerful, flexible, headend solution. Your solution must be able to transmit the greatest number of channels and best image quality with the best possible bandwidth efficiency. Whether your networks are xDSL, FTTx and/or HFC, Scientific Atlanta's IPTV headend solution has everything necessary to deliver:

Click on diagram for larger view

Meet your IPTV challenges:

Other Links Read more about the IPTV headend solution IPTV Set-Tops IPTV Platform SciCare Integration Services for Telecom Operator SciCare IPTV Training Services Build the right headend system for your business, whether your networks are xDSL, FTTx and/or HFC, whether you need a complete modular IPTV headend or individual open standards-based components that will integrate with third party middleware and other systems. Deliver more content and better quality images over less bandwidth with best-in-class MPEG4-10 (H.264) encoding, IntelliRate™ transrating and MPEG-2 encoding. Ensure greater flexibility and cost-effectiveness with dense signal reception and descrambling module, as well as intelligent Gigabit Ethernet IP streaming. Maintain optimized performance with the ROSA™ monitoring and management system including easy integration to third party middleware systems.

Key components in the IPTV headend solution:

D9655™ IP Streamer and Processor with IntelliRate transrating loop D9034 Encoder D9054 HDTV Encoder D9032™ MPEG-2 Encoder, upgradeable to MPEG4-10 Galaxy™ Rack System with multiple receivers and descramblers

D9034 Encoder

MPEG-4 part 10 or optionally MPEG-2 Pre-analysis with 3:2 pull-down inversion Adaptive motion compensated temporal filtering with PreSightPlus noise reduction ASI and IP streaming outputs Web-based GUI and SNMP management interface for interfacing to any Management System 1 RU, low power consumption, stackable Redundant power supply ensures uninterrupted operation if one power supply should fail Four audio channels as either embedded, analog or digital audio input Dolby®-Digital encoding, Dolby Digital pass-through or MPEG-1 Layer II audio Integrated Frame synchronizer with internal reference DVB VBI support Read more

[key components]

D9054 HDTV Encoder

Up to 20 Mbit/s MGEG-4part 10 MP@L4 vi compression rate PreSightPlus Pre-analysis Single slice JD AVC encoder Closed Captioning support via SMPTE 334M HD-SDI embedded audio support 1080i and 720p support Dual power supply Four MPEG audio channels Dolby Digital passthrough support ASI and Dual IP outputs (10/100 Base-T) Multi service streaming IP output Dedicated Ethernet 10/100 Base-T interface for management and maintenance WEB based GUI SNMP management interface for interfacing to any SNMP-based Management System including ROSA Network Management System Two rack units high, space-efficient, stackable Read more

[key components]

D9655 IP Streamer and Processor with IntelliRate transrating loop

Up to 20 ASI inputs Processing and SPTS de-multiplexing – up to 600Mbit/s IntelliRate transrating (with looped Transis RateCompressor) Transport Stream Monitoring DVB simulcrypt Scrambling Gigabit Ethernet IP output Open interfaces for easy interfacing to 3rd party systems Read more

[key components]

Digital Content Manager (DCM)

Stand-alone device, dedicated to high-performance transrating and rate limiting High processing power guarantees that every service gets attention it needs Read more

[key components]

D9032 MPEG-2 Encoder, upgradeable to MPEG4-10

Advanced MPEG-2 Encoder IP streaming and ASI output DPI (Digital Program Insertion) SDI and Composite input incl. Built-in Frame-synchronizer PreSigthPlus™ architecture with adaptive pre-.filtering and pre-Analysis (”dual-pass”) MPEG4-10 and HE-AAC through field-upgradeable HW Board Read more

[key components]

Galaxy Rack System with multiple receivers and descramblers:

Titan MKII™ Satellite Receiver (QPSK) Atlas MKII™ Terrestrial Receiver (DVB-T) Spectra™ Cable Receiver (QAM) Neon™ Network Adapter (34/45Mbit/s) Axis™ Network Adapter (STM-1/SONET, ATM, PDH) Indus MKII™ DVB Multi-channel descrambler

[key components]

scientificatlanta

Taking Television to the Next Level - The Combination of HD and IPTV

Early adopters are showing considerable interest in High Definition Television (HDTV), largely because of the dramatic increase in picture quality which supports these consumers’ demand for ever larger screen sizes. In order to appeal to the wider consumer audience, many of whom will not be persuaded by screen size arguments, HDTV will need to demonstrate considerable additional value over that of the standard definition incumbent.

Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) offers a foundation for the delivery of such incremental value. IPTV provides the capability to offer truly tailored television services in either a lone viewer or community viewer based environment. The additional resolution afforded by HDTV, enables the compelling visual presentation of the information and controls which will form a vital part.

Taking Television to the Next Level - The Combination of HD and IPTV

connected-home-news.com

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ABOUT ANT

ANT is the leading provider of software solutions and services enabling broadcasters, telco operators and cable and satellite companies to deliver compelling digital media content to consumers. ANT enables these companies to quickly create and roll-out innovative and successful TV applications and services, such as games, music, video on demand, betting, competitions, to any consumer device, across any platform.

ANT gives the media operators the flexibility to develop value added innovative services quickly and easily, enabling them to grow their subscriber base, reduce churn and increase average revenue per user.
ANT puts the operator in control of the media presentation and its brand.

Upcoming Events

IPTV World Forum 08, Olympia London, 12-14 March 2008
www.iptv-forum.com

BBC says IPTV hot for 2008

The BBC has named IPTV as one of the hot technologies in the UK for 2008.
More than half of homes in the UK now have sufficiently speedy broadband connection for IPTV services according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
BT and Virgin Media have both established services but O2, Orange and Tiscali UK are expected to follow according to the BBC.
For its part the BBC will continue to push its over the top iPlayer service which allows users to view to catch up TV programmes over the web.
The UK now has the potential to catch up with successful high-profile European deployments such as France Telecom and Telecom Italia.

Ant blog post

If something goes wrong with HDTV by $100+, Comcast starting up WebTV

WILL TV CONSUMERS ABANDON CABLE systems for Internet-capable TV sets? This all seems like a big jump; but remember, entertainment consumers saunter.

Cable operators used to fear that the satellite distributors would be their biggest threat. To a lesser extent, the immediate threat comes from phone companies-backed IPTV and IPTV-like programming services.

Now, for some cable customers there are too many programming choices that aren't used often enough, and high monthly prices -- $100 and more. All this has forced some angry people to consider options like leaving the traditional TV distribution system behind.

At the CES, many companies indicated they would like to take up the slack. SlingMedia talked up technology that would take content from the Internet and send it to any TV screen. Sony, Sharp and Panasonic are making televisions where you can directly plug in an Internet connection.

What does this sound like? A revolution? No, just some swirling and turning.

Cable operators aren't rolling their eyes. Instead they are beefing up set-top boxes. Some, like Comcast, are going high quality, saying it'll have 1,000 HD on-demand options soon. But just in case all this doesn't work, Comcast is starting up a broad-reaching entertainment Web site offering movies, TV shows, and other content -- covering all bases.

While high quality is desired, quantity seems to win the day at the moment, something the Internet has in abundance.

Right now a specific price/pleasure/useful factor exists. If a consumer is only watching nine of 600 cable channels, and there's a budget crunch in the household, out come the wire cutters. I haven't even mentioned a possible recession.

Now all those cash-crunched customers need to buy is that new $2,000 42-inch Internet-enabled Plasma screen.

Cable Customers Leaving For Internet TVs? If Price Is Right

Switched Digital Video Solutions

Switched Video, also called Switched Digital Video or SDV, is a telecommunications industry term for a network scheme for distributing digital video via a cable with limited capacity. Switched video sends the digital video in a more efficient manner so that additional uses may be made of the freed up bandwidth. The scheme applies to digital video distribution both on typical cable TV systems using QAM channels, or on IPTV systems.

However, the advantages of SDV enabled networks come with a significant increase in network and video delivery complexity including:

• Increase in required network compute resources
• Increased communication overhead
• Real-time association and switching of video flows to the home

Cable MSOs across North America and Europe are already aware of the potential benefits and rewards of implementing Switched Digital Video (SDV) networks. By implementing SDV, cable MSOs will be better positioned to compete against the telcos and their promise of advanced services which will be delivered to the home at bandwidths greater than 50Mbs. But these forward-thinking MSOs also realize that quality—of subscriber features, customer service and picture—are going to be the true differentiators in this increasingly competitive market. How will cable MSOs roll out SDV networks and all the features that go with them while reducing the OPEX associated with a new delivery model?

Figure 2. Example SDV test setup with Singulus G1-T, G10 and Singulus Lite Crickets

Figure 2 outlines an example SDV test setup. In this scenario the Singulus™ G1-T is being used to generate up to 2Gb/s of video test traffic emulating hundreds of switched video and VOD streams for the Edge-QAM devices under test. Another SingulusTM G1-T can also be used to either monitor the performance of the Edge-QAM device or optionally replace up to 6 Edge-QAMs for testing of the video content IP network. The SingulusTM Lite Crickets can also be used to optionally replace STBs for SDV transport tests.

Example use cases of the Singulus™ G1-T and Singulus™ Lite Crickets:

• Generate hundreds of SDV and VOD test streams
• Emulate SDV server requests to the Edge-QAM
• Emulate IGMP requests to the edge router
• Emulate STB channel-change requests to SDV server
• Monitor Edge-QAM stream performance

IQPinPoint™ Supports SDV from the Test Lab to Network Deployment

IneoQuest’s IQPinPoint™ is a quality and service assurance solution for SDV networks. IQPinPoint, is comprised of the powerful Singulus Lite family of network probes and the award-winning IP Video Management System (iVMS), and is the only quality and service assurance system on the market today with the purpose-built capability to provide continuous testing, monitoring, reporting and troubleshooting for providers using SDV technology anywhere in the network. With IQPinPoint the service assurance model can finally reduce OPEX.

Figure 3: IQPinPoint™ Solution

IQPinPoint for the SDV Network: From the Test Lab to the Field

Since there is not a standard methodology for deploying an SDV network, it is important that there exists a testing and management solution that is cost effective and flexible enough to be adaptive for each MSOs needs. IQPinPointTM is such a solution that incorporates early SDV features that customers have specifically requested such as:

• Mini Data Carousel Monitoring and Analysis with the presentation of such information as the carousel’s status, bit rate, service group assignment, multicast address, and more.
• QAM Band Census displaying QAM utilization based on fixed, switched-static, and switched-dynamic types for services such as VOD and broadcast
• Complete SDV Performance and Trending Analysis of SDV solution across the entire network allowing for analysis based on individual programs, service groups, and more
• SDV QAM and Services Configuration allowing for the association/aliasing of QAM frequencies to channel types such as switched-static, switched-dynamic, fixed, for application of alarm thresholds and settings; and the configuration of services such as SD-MPEG2, HD-MPEG2, HD-MPEG4, etc., to specific programming channels.

IQPinPoint™ was designed with the mechanisms to allow for the quick integration of new features and will continue to evolve with the traditional and SDV needs of the MSOs.

IQ Technology Webinar

"Understanding Switched Digital Video and the Challenges of QoS"

Click here to view the Webinar

IPTV World Forum Asia - 3rd Annual

IPTV World Forum Asia

December 5-7, 2007

Singapore - The IPTV World Forum Asia conference and exhibition will reflect the marked progress of IPTV deployment in the region, gathering together companies who are driving its advance across Asia.

Asia's Leading IPTV Event

Please click here for the 2007 brochure

Online Conference Registration

Over 1500 attendees pre-registered
.

• Over 300 speakers from telecoms, cable and mobile operators and leading content owners
• Asia's leading IPTV event - with over 2000 visitors anticipated to attend and over 80 exhibitors
• Operators speaking at the show include: MTNL, Singtel, PCCW, KT, Chunghwa Telecom, Shanghai Media Group, Pakistan Telecom (PTCL), NTT, Telecom New Zealand, True Internet Thailand, City Telecom, Bharti Airtel, TT&T etc
• Leading content owners and broadcasters invited: Warner Brothers, Turner Broadcasting, Discovery Channel, HBO, ESPN, BBC, Disney, Sony Pictures
• Cohosting and coexhibiting three leading conferences: The Connected Home Asia, TV over Net Asia and IP Cable Asia
• Industry party in one of Singapore's leading venues - Forbidden City, Clarke Quay

Get ready for phase two of IPTV

Governments, regulators, telecoms and media companies across Asia look ready to develop television-over-IP because it offers greater reach than cable, more interactivity than satellite and draws upon economies of scale taken from the IP-centric information/communications industry. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that IP-based multimedia is the future of entertainment delivery in the region.

Asia already boasts some of the world's most notable IPTV deployments - most of them represented at last year's IPTV World Forum Asia. Held in China, that conference/exhibition uncovered some notable issues including the impact of video on voice/broadband churn and the potential divergence of the media market between mass-market family viewing and an online youth entertainment culture. It highlighted the extent to which IPTV is an engine for change, providing the catalyst for great telecoms companies to transform themselves from bandwidth suppliers to service providers.

This year, Asia's premier IPTV conference/exhibition will be in Singapore and will gather together the companies and people who are driving IPTV across the region. As usual, the big issues concerning go-to-market strategies, business models and technology will be addressed by executives who have been at the heart of their company's roll-outs. But the dominant themes for 2007 will be transformation, IPTV evolution and the entry into a new phase in IPTV's development, when telcos and alternative broadband providers will stop playing 'catch-up' and start setting the media/communications agenda.

IPTV is evolving and the demand for triple-play and quad-play bundles, for integrated telecoms/media services like voicemail and instant messaging on the TV, and for content portability across multiple networks, is a common theme. The competitive pressures vary from market-to-market but all telcos will have to exploit these trends before their rivals do.

The emergence of Internet TV is a threat that unites all last-mile network owner/operators, and also an opportunity for IPTV and content owners to exploit. Telecoms operators are entering the media business at a time of great disruption and can make sure they are beneficiaries by harnessing online service innovations within their video and communications offer.

The demand for peer-to-peer video sharing, user-generated content and video sharing websites, and for Internet-aggregated premium television and VOD represents a significant new market, dominated by the under-25 age group.

Satellite and cable are starting to understand the potential for cooperation with online brands and IPTV providers, often still defining their services, can work Internet media into their consumer offer from the start.

For those operators who are ready to acquire 'classic' premium television rights, the mass-market awaits and the way content is served to customers is changing. Linear schedules are still important but the real differentiator for IPTV is on-demand video, interactive TV, interactive advertising, on-demand advertising, time-shifting and the way service providers can help content owners target their advertiser audience in an age of media fragmentation and niche audience groups.

All of these themes are being addressed at IPTV World Forum Asia 2007. This conference will share experiences from multiple IPTV roll-outs and like last year, it will provide the insights that help media professionals trying to define their role in this marketplace. It will also help delegates prepare for phase two of IPTV, which is when broadband service providers have the chance to turn their telecoms heritage from a disadvantage in the content/media world to a compelling benefit in an era that will be dominated by convergence and network intelligence.

In phase two, we will see the emergence of the quad-play, playing into the hands of telecoms groups with mobile phone operations. The opportunities for upselling and cross-selling to mobile, broadband, voice and video subscribers is obvious and as mobile TV develops, the ownership of mobile networks will help companies to build unified, multi-platform television experiences.

The growing importance of IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) is also good news for IP-centric network operators. IMS separates services from networks so that 'follow-me' scenarios can be created. Networks can become aware of where a customer is according to their connection and the device they are using to access services. So a subscriber could watch television at home, then switch the video session to their mobile device when they go to the shops and continue their viewing via mobile TV, for example.

IMS enables convergence of media and telecoms services on the TV and portability of content from the IPTV network onto mobile devices. It is the foundation for network PVR services that record content off classic TV but make it available for streaming to handheld devices.

Content portability, integrated cross-platform services and the quad-play will start to alter the balance of power between telecoms companies and cable and satellite. The influences of these trends will be felt across Asia just as they will in Europe and North America. All these themes will be central to IPTV World Forum Asia 2007 as we explore the boundaries of what IPTV is, and what it can become, across Asia.

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IPTV World Series

IPTV World Forum

IPTV - Eastern Europe

IPTV - Latin America

iTV Advertising Show

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