Thomson helps Russia’s Sistema squeeze 16 channels into DVB-H multiplex

Thomson has provided the satellite content distribution and headend technologies for a 16 channel DVB-H mobile multimedia service targeting Moscow and 16 other Russian cities. The equipment is being used by Sistema Mass Media (SMM), a branch of Russia’s AFK Sistema, which is set to launch mobile TV commercially early next year. The service will be available to all mobile network operators.

IPTV World Series Awards 2008 now open for nominations

With the run up to the IPTV World Forum 2008 in full swing, the event’s organiser, Junction Group, has announced that the IPTV World Series Awards 2008 are now open for nominations. The awards, hosted at the world’s leading event for the IPTV industry (www.iptv-forum.com), recognise the best solutions for television-over-IP, with independent judges selected from high profile industry publications and organisations.  The awards are completely free to enter.

AT&T will use IP-PRIME for international programming

US telecoms operator AT&T is going to use SES AMERICOM’s IP-PRIME satellite distribution platform to supply its U-verse IPTV service with international programming. SES AMERICOM will also provide international programming for AT&T broadband and wireless platforms.

GlobeCast named top Independent Teleport Operator for broadcast services

The World Teleport Association (WTA), in its Top Teleport rankings, has named GlobeCast the top Independent Teleport Operator for broadcast services (number two of all operators). This is the third consecutive year the company has achieved this status, the France Telecom subsidiary points out.

FastWeb to pilot predictive content recommendation

Italian IPTV provider FastWeb is beginning a pilot project to introduce video content recommendation to its subscribers. The company will use Neptuny’s ContentWise product to harness previous viewing behaviour and ratings given to content by other users in order to list content that could appeal to an individual. Recommendation is considered a crucial tool for the future of Pay TV platforms where more and more content is made available, especially as on-demand assets. In theory, recommendation could improve VOD buy rates and therefore operator ARPU.

Deutsche Telekom latest operator to harness Wi-Fi for video home networks

Ruckus Wireless has added another major IPTV provider to the list of customers for its Wi-Fi based in-home video distribution technology: Deutsche Telekom. The German triple-play provider joins Belgacom and PCCW, among others, using 802.11x  transmission enhanced by proprietary antenna and traffic engineering technology to ensure video is given priority over voice/data.

Hulu signifies the Internet fight-back for network TV owners

ABI Research believes the launch of Hulu - the NBC and News Corporation joint venture video content website - marks a new phase in Internet TV. The company predicts that while content aggregators will continue to play an important role online, control of premium TV content distribution will shift back to the networks as they create their own syndication networks for their shows on the Internet. However, ABI Research believes that much of the overall market will remain out of the control of traditional broadcast television stakeholders, thanks partly to user-generated content.

IPTV World Series Awards 2008 now open for nominations

With the run up to the IPTV World Forum 2008 in full swing, the event’s organiser, Junction Group, has announced that the IPTV World Series Awards 2008 are now open for nominations. The awards, hosted at the world’s leading event for the IPTV industry (www.iptv-forum.com), recognise the best solutions for television-over-IP, with independent judges selected from high profile industry publications and organisations.  The awards are completely free to enter.

Quadruple-play inevitable, despite uncertain prospects for success

While there is plenty of evidence that TV-based triple-play bundling works, there is far less certainty that quad-play packages will succeed. That is the conclusion of a report by research company Analysys. However, the Cambridge, UK based company notes: “Quadruple-play packages are inevitable despite the lack of certainty about their success, and residential broadband and Pay TV operators must plan now to be ready for their introduction.”

Viaccess adds home network mobility to expanding security portfolio

Viaccess has been outlining its product roadmap for supporting content mobility within the connected home, with the initial target application being Pay TV transferred onto the PC screen. During IBC in September the company demonstrated its PC-TV solution in the form of a USB ‘dongle’ that ensured the encryption of content to the PC media player. Complementing this ‘smartcard’ CA approach, the Paris-based company also demonstrated a bridging technology for linking CA protected set-tops to retail CE devices using DTCP-IP in a home network.

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Pixelmetrix helping telcos put more emphasis on video quality assurance

Danny Wilson, CEO of test and monitoring specialist Pixelmetrix, believes the next stage of IPTV evolution will be dominated by the challenges associated with scalability. He says the Singapore-headquartered company is seeing a big push among IPTV operators towards the management of quality, reliability and scalability within their networks, together with an increasing interest in standardisation of performance management and monitoring.

Harmonic is big enough to compete with telecoms/TV super-vendors, says CEO

Harmonic Inc. is ready for the converging and yet increasingly diversified, multi-platform television business of the future - and the company is confident it can compete with large telecoms/TV technology groups like Cisco/Scientific Atlanta and Ericsson/TANDBERG with its present size and structure. That was the message delivered by President and Chief Executive Officer Patrick Harshman at IBC in September as the company outlined the technology and marketing synergies from its latest acquisition, Rhozet Corporation.

ARRIS says C-COR acquisition will create leading cable-centric vendor

ARRIS and C-COR have agreed a $730 million deal in which ARRIS will acquire the cable infrastructure, on-demand and advertising solutions vendor. The companies claim the deal will create the leading pure-play cable solutions company and reflects the fact that the push towards triple-play and quad-play services is driving demand for bandwidth and the need for advanced video management solutions.

Pay TV wants the best of the Web

Internet TV and user-generated content threaten to diminish the control Pay TV operators enjoy in the video entertainment market. But as John Moulding reports, the television industry is ready to fight back. (This is an extended version of the feature that appeared in New Video Technology's Sept/Oct 'Video over IP' supplement).

Ericsson/TANDBERG targeting primary systems integrator market

Ericsson wants to become a primary systems integrator for broadband service providers expanding into the video market, covering their broadcast television, on-demand and interactive video requirements across multiple platforms and delivering that as part of the wider IT environment, including connections to billing, provisioning and advertising solutions, for example. Working through its multimedia solutions unit, the Stockholm headquartered company promises an open systems approach, with its recent acquisition - TANDBERG Television - providing much of the required video systems expertise.

DMB Pavilion offers a vision of mobile TV future

In a year when the mobile TV market ran into a reality check, and hyped expectations were quietly reduced, the DMB Pavilion at IBC provided a timely reminder of just what a compelling proposition multi-channel television to mobiles is. Dominated by South Korean technologies and services, the booth was a showground for how mobile TV could become part of our daily lives - assuming there are broadcast over-the-air networks available and a range of free-to-air services.

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GoBackTV announces second DOCSIS-bypass deployment

Marco Island Cable in Florida has completed a successful field-trial of cable IPTV using a CMTS-bypass solution (generally referred to as DOCSIS Bypass) provided by headend vendor GoBackTV. During the trial, Variable Bit Rate video was multicast on multiple QAM channels to off-the-shelf IP set-top boxes in cable homes, which were connected to standard DOCSIS 2.0 modems.

Satellite will drive market for hybrid set-top boxes

Satellite operators will drive the market for hybrid set-top boxes, accounting for 76 per cent of the market for hybrid set-tops worldwide by 2012, according to a recent study by IMS Research. Hybrid devices will make up one-quarter of all set-top box shipments worldwide that year, the UK headquartered market research and consultancy firm predicts. In revenue terms, that is a $2.9 billion hybrid market by 2012.

Grass Valley highlights Mustang; launches dense IPTV encoding platform

Grass Valley (Thomson) used IBC to highlight its three Mustang-based ViBE encoders, promising dramatic reductions in bit rates for MPEG-4 AVC services across terrestrial, satellite, cable and IPTV networks in HD and SD. The company also announced a major new customer for its ViBE EM3000 AVC HD encoder: Australia's largest Pay TV provider FOXTEL. Telefonica is another significant ViBE HD customer as the Spanish IPTV provider migrates services to AVC and the French vendor says in total it has sold 500 channels of encoding for its premium HD solution.

Half of Europeans not interested in mobile TV...but big spenders are

Results from a survey of 2,000 European consumers by analyst firm Canalys indicate that half have no interest in watching any kind of TV on a mobile phone, even if the service is free. Of those who are interested in mobile TV, the most promising target groups are existing Pay TV subscribers, heavy mobile phone users and fans of Web 2.0 type services like YouTube and MySpace.

Telefónica is launch customer for ADB’s new SD/HD hybrid DVR

Spanish telco and IPTV operator Telefónica has selected ADB's ADB-5810TWX high-definition, hybrid Digital Video Recorder. Telefónica - one of the world’s largest television-over-IP providers with its Imagenio offering - will be the first company to deploy the DVR platform in volume, the ADB-5810TWX having been launched at IBC in September.

Cisco/Scientific Atlanta makes its move into mobile

Cisco/Scientific Atlanta made its first significant push into the mobile TV market at IBC with a demonstration of an end-to-end DVB-H based solution that combines what they believe are best-of-breed third-party components, Scientific Atlanta’s ROSA monitoring and control system and various satellite, ATM and IP-based video distribution products, and IP network routers from Cisco.

DiviCom Ion AVC will help long-tail expansion in IPTV

Harmonic Inc. has introduced a new MPEG-4 AVC encoding solution for standard-definition TV in Constant Bit Rate (CBR), catering for both high and low resolution formats. The DiviCom Ion AVC encoder will deliver four simultaneous MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) channels in a 1RU form factor and also includes 12 audio channels. It is targeted primarily at the IPTV market and appears to provide a mid-level option to complement the company's premium Electra encoder family. Natural target markets are likely to be Tier-2/3 telcos and Tier-1's in search of 'long-tail' service expansion.

Informa figures confirm digital surge in Western Europe

New research published by Informa Telecoms & Media show that digital TV penetration of Western European households will break the 50 per cent mark by the end of this year and reach 86 per cent by 2012, or 135 million households. The growing influence of IPTV is also evident: this relatively new platform will account for seven per cent of all homes in Germany by 2012, just less than digital satellite, and 16 per cent of all homes in France (just more than digital cable).