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By Robert Briel
September 12, 2009 16.38 UK


Western Europe and North America represented 68% of total worldwide IPTV STB shipments in 2008, according to IMS Research.
Rebecca Kurlak, research analyst and author of the study, stated, “A few of the prime markets for IP STBs will continue to be in the US, France, Italy, Spain, and China. The US alone will experience a 42% increase in subscriber uptake by the end of 2009, mainly driven by AT&T’s U-Verse service. US Tier 2 & Tier 3 telcos are expected to contribute almost 16% to total subscriber growth by the end of the year.”
Kurlak continued, “Not only will the market see uptake of IP STBs, but will see an increasing amount of hybrid IP+DTT STBs. France, Italy, and Spain are forecast to comprise 65% of Western Europe’s IP+DTT shipments by 2014. France Telecom, Telecom Italia, and Telefonica are using DTT to further complement their service offerings.”
Additionally she noted, “China continues to be the gold mine that every supplier wants to get their hands on. Both China Telecom and China Unicom are growing rapidly, with close to a 33% subscriber uptake by the end of 2009. In terms of IPTV households, we are expecting a CAGR growth of 25%.”

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By Robert Briel
September 12, 2009 16.39 UK


IBC 2009 – Amsterdam. Patent owners have already agreed that there will be no use fee for DVB-T2 broadcasting. Also, the royalty rate for TV sets and STBs will not exceed €1.
The announcement was made by Sisvel, a company handling intellectual property and patents rights. The news comes as the ETSI has approved the DVB-T2 standard.
With the two principles agreed on by the patent owners, early adoption and volume-based were being considered. If in the future the DVB-T2 standard is implemented in additional product categories, the patent owners will discuss and decide an appropriate royalty schedule, said Sisvel.

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By Robert Briel
September 12, 2009 16.42 UK


IBC 2009 – Amsterdam. “It is the EBU job to try and harmonise the initiatives for internet to the TV services,” said Peter MacAvock of the EBU. Over-the-top delivery of content on hybrid devices is one of the hot issues at this year’s IBC. But, as MacAvock pointed, out over-the-top delivery has been around for many years, citing Teletext as the prime – and very successful – example.
At the moment there are many initiatives on the market, varying by country. The new HbbTV consortium, based upon open ITV standards, brings together broadcasters from France and Germany. “They are Greenfield sites with no middleware on the free-to-air services.”
In the UK, free-to-air broadcasters already use MHEG5 for broadcast text services, and Canvas is in development for video delivery over the web, while in Italy and Austria MHP is to some extent employed on the digital terrestrial services.
“All markets are different, so there are different market scenarios. There are common elements to all of these developments and it is the EBU job to try and harmonise the initiatives.”
With the current OTT services, a number of killer applications have clearly come to the surface. With teletext news, weather and holiday; with online video services to the PC, catch-up TV services have become spectacularly successful, so who knows what will be a success with over-the-top delivery via broadband.
With OTT over broadband, there are two distinct developments. One is HbbTV, which offers a service synchronized with video content with mainstream broadcast services. This is obviously very attractive to broadcasters, who can offer a wide range of additional services. When tuned to a particular channel, viewers have only access to the OTT content from that particular broadcaster.
The other method is the widget concept, with Yahoo and Intel as protagonists, with little or no integration with the broadcast environment. Although visually attractive with the dock-like overlay over the broadcast stream, it seems unlikely that broadcaster will tolerate an overlay with content from other sources and competitors.
In MacAvock’s view for the short term, OTT will be relying on application signaling in the broadcast channel. And the internet is not yet adapted to mainstream long-form high res content in a mainstream manner. Of course, the iPlayer is great news; but is still touching a relative small portion of the population.
In the medium to long term, broadband application signaling will follow enriching the media experience. But: “Broadcast distribution will always be there – it’s too efficient; cheap and will always do its job. Broadband will never – at least in our view – surplant broadcast. Content will drive the mix between broadcast and broadband.”
In the new world, broadcast will never be the same again with hybrid being the new OTT environment that can be very successful.
Professor Ulrich Reimers, chairman of the DVB technical module confirmed the DVB had been approached by a number of parties with a view to fostering a harmonisation of the emerging techniques. He said it was not in the best interests of the public if viewers were restricted to a handful of internet outlets controlled by TV manufacturers.

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By Julian Clover
September 13, 2009 08.08 UK


IBC 2009 – Amsterdam. Ioko, the technology aggregator behind the Sky Player online video platform, is to make the service available to other broadcasters within the News Corp group.
Sky Player combines catch-up TV with a selection of channels from the Sky programming packages. Available channels include Sky Sports, Sky Movies, Sky News, History, National Geographic, GOLD, Eden, MTV, Sky1, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.
The news comes just days after Erik Huggers, the BBC’s director of future media and technology, told IBC delegates that the BBC would make its iPlayer technology available to broadcasters overseas, in the wake of James Murdoch’s criticisms that the BBC too often acted to distort the broadcasting marketplace.
“The offerings are very different. The iPlayer is for public service broadcasters that don’t have concerns about monetising their content,” John Griffin, chief sales and marketing officer, Ioko, told Broadband TV News. “This is a proposition for pay-TV platforms”.
Ioko will shortly upgrade the existing Sky Player platform to allow subscribers to set recordings for their Sky+ receiver. Although the facility is already available through the web, Sky Players brings the additional functionality of being able to view shows online. The long-awaited Xbox service, also powered by Ioko, is expected to go live within the next few weeks and is being demonstrated on Stand 1.D26.

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By Julian Clover
September 13, 2009 09.07 UK


IBC 2009 – Amsterdam. In a new twist on pester power, Brian Sullivan, MD, customer group, BSkyB, explained how his 8-year old son had forced him to delay the rollout of the satcaster’s new EPG.
Sullivan told a press event hosted by NDS that he had found his son, Ray, crying in front of the television because he was no longer able to find his favourite channel.
“It was at that point we went back into the office and cancelled the launch, not because of 3,000 customers testing it for six months, not because of hard core testing in a scientific environment, we cancelled the launch because my kid was crying. That’s absolutely the right reason to do it because if we failed one person that was going to have such a bad experience that it would bring them to tears then it was wrong and we had to figure out why.” With the problem resolved the new EPG was released three months later and Sullivan said it had been a spectacular success.
Sky’s new EPG was introduced nine months ago to owners of the Sky+ HD receiver, replacing a guide that on the face of it had remained unchanged for the first ten years of Sky Digital’s existence. In reality, Sullivan told his audience, the EPG had constantly evolved through the introduction of additional services such as the PVR and interactive content. “If you were somebody sitting in the home it never changed from day to day over 30,000 days across ten years. The main reason we did that was that the single aspect of our service when we were no longer in the home is how they accessed the content they wanted. We had success and we held onto it for a decade while everyone else including these guys [NDS] kept pushing us to change it.”
Sullivan said he hoped the new guide would last for another decade, adding customisation, but in a dynamic environment that keeps it simple to assist customer understanding.

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By Julian Clover
September 13, 2009 09.23 UK


IBC 2009 – Amsterdam. Conax is proposing a new model for conditional access that it believes will help smaller operators make the transition to digital TV.
The Oslo-based security company says Conax Content Security Hosting enables costs to be reduced be centralising headed components and sharing core services.
Conax’s Hans Kwaaitaal told Broadband TV News that the system had already been used by the Karneval network in the Czech Republic. Hosting partner LICA had entered the market as a supplier of set-top boxes and subsequently took on the hosting business.
Up to five operators are said to be interested in adopting the model that Kwaaitaal believes will be particularly popular in Eastern Europe, Latin America and the United States.

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By Julian Clover
September 13, 2009 11.13 UK


IBC 2009 – Amsterdam. The use of the 790 to 862MHz frequency range for mobile services risks causing severe interference to DTT reception, according to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
Returning to a reoccurring theme at recent IBC conferences, senior EBU engineer Darko Ratkaj issued a plea to manufacturers to tighten up their specifications to prevent picture loss. “All existing DTT receivers are vulnerable, it’s not to say that new receivers won’t be better, but those being sold now face problems.” He added that there were also issues for cable reception.
Ratkaj ran a video that showed while in analogue a picture would experience snow-type interference, when a mobile device was used in close proximity a digital picture was lost altogether.
DTT reception could also be damaged by a mobile transmission that would effectively ‘punch holes’ into the DTT coverage area. A proposed solution are low power repeaters that would share masts with a mobile operator, but these bring problems both in terms of regulation and funding.
The European Commission will make a decision on the use of the 790 to 862MHz range after the acceptance of a report being compiled by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT).

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By Robert Briel
September 13, 2009 21.15 UK


Mezzoforte will be the name of the new dedicated HD channel from the French music broadcaster Mezzo, part of Lagardere Active.
The new channel will launch before the end of the year and will only broadcast native HD programming, including concert and opera recordings from around the world.
The existing Mezzo channel will introduce a new on-air identity in November at the same time as the channel will start broadcasting in 16:9 widescreen.
Also on the cards is a further expansion of the Mezzo VOD service, which is now available on platforms in Spain and Israel, but will now in addition be launched on the French cabler Numericable with other platform to follow. Mezzo VOD offers a selection of over 500 programmes.

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By Chris Dziadul
September 14, 2009 07.53 UK


Raluca Milin has left the position of VP of marketing and sales at UPC Romania.
Although ZF says sources at the company have confirmed her departure, no official statement has as yet been issued.
Milin had been with UPC Romania since 2001 and will have become the last of the management team to depart following a restructuring process that began with the appointment of Jack Mikaloff as the new CEO.
UPC is currently preparing to introduce HD into Romania, launching up to 10 channels in the format at the beginning of October.

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By Chris Dziadul
September 14, 2009 08.12 UK


The Ukrainian president Viktor Yuschenko has said that the country must complete the transition to digital broadcasting by 2012.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting and quoted by the news agency Ukinform, he added that neighbouring Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Russia (partially) will have all completed the transition by that date and that there is no choice but for Ukraine to do the same.
He also cited the example of Germany, which has previously prevaricated about a transition date on several occasions.
The joint hosting of Euro 2012 with Poland is also putting pressure on Ukraine to complete the transition within the next three years.

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