IPTV

Television delivered over Internet Protocol

BT Vision Buys From BT/Entriq
BT Media and Broadcast the business to business outfit within BT’s Global services division has announced an alliance with Entriq.
It’s a change for BT Media and Broadcast (BT M&B), who’ve in the past received coverage at Digital Lifestyles for their efforts to offload their satellite TV interests to have some positive news to announce.
The BT Media and Broadcast/Entriq combination has already landed an important customer in the shape of BT Vision, who as well as planning to roll out of a ipTV customer proposition to the home at the end of this year, have a live ‘download to own service’ at www.downloadstore.bt.com.
Barry Bonnett BT M&B’s CEO, aware that some cynics may think BT signing with BT rather convenient, noted that the tender was “highly competitive,” and that, “BT Vision recognised the quality of service and cost effectiveness of our overall network based capability.”
Entriq, who are in the business of developing and managing Pay Media infrastructure, is part of the South African publishing and media conglomerate Naspers. Naspers, as well as having the successful consumer TV platform Multichoice in South Africa, has technology interests that include the Conditional Access company Irdeto.
Headquartered in San Diego, California, Entriq have offices dotted around the world and have a host of existing big name broadcast customers that includes MTV Networks, NBC Universal and the UK’s Channel 4 television.
29 August, 2006
US Democratic Party Adopt Net Neutrality
The US Democratic party has adopted net-neutrality as a party-political issue following the rejection of a second pro-neutrality amendment in a vote late last week.
Previously we reported on the demise of the first pro-neutrality amendment as part of the ongoing review of US telecommunications law.
The Senate Commerce Committee were tied at 11 for and 11 against, with Republican members voting against the amendment and Democrats for it. A majority vote is necessary for a bill to pass. Afterwards, Republican Senator for Alaska, Ted Stevens, gave his reasons for voting against the bill as well as displaying his obviously comprehensive grasp of the technicalities of the Web, “It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.”
The Democratic party subsequently took up the issue with the slogan “Republicans: They sold the environment to Exxon, and sold the war to Halliburton. Now they want to sell the Internet to at&t.”
Former presidential candidate Senator John Kerry commented, “This vote was a gift to cable and telephone companies, and a slap in the face of every Internet user and consumer.” Another Democrat, Senator Ron Wyden, placed a ‘hold’ on the bill which temporarily stops further progress but a decision is inevitable and both sides are marshaling forces behind their cause.
Lawrence Lessig greeted news of Democratic support with caution, “Good for the Dems that they got it. Bad that the issue is now within the grips of party politics.” He acknowledged that, give the amount of money involved, political involvement was inevitable.
Many fear that the loss of net-neutrality will signal virtual civil war on the Internet and that commercial interests are having too much effect on the US Legislature. Jeannine Kenney, Senior Policy Analyst, Consumers Union offered a concise summary, “The network neutrality nondiscrimination principle, which protects competition, maximizes consumer choice, and guarantees fair market practices, is one step closer to being abandoned with the Senate Commerce Committee’s vote. This endangers the most important engine for economic growth and democratic communication in modern society. Nondiscrimination made possible the grand successes of the Internet. Its removal can take them away.”
6 July, 2006
CNN VoD On Homechoice In UK
Homechoice have just done a Video on Demand (VoD) deal with CNN to carry their content. It’s the first VoD deal that CNN International have done, meaning the first outside the US.
CNN’s popular feature programmes, Quest, Living Golf, CNN Business Traveller, Global Office and Art of Life, as well as CNN documentaries, will be available on the service, with new episodes added regularly.
CNN, like many other content creators are starting to ramp up their alternative channels for output, thinking beyond the POTV (Plain Old TeleVision). Last week they announced a deal with Telewest to deliver an interactive text-based version of the CNN news service.
We love Homechoice, they’re triers and they’re dogged with it too. They’ve been plugging away since well before people understood that TV could come via any other means than through the air. They’re been really ramping up their content selection since their new team came on board – like their recently announced super-niche African Movie Channel.
Homechoice
CNN Pipeline
16 May, 2006
African Movie Channel To HomeChoice – Niche Lives!
Proving Niche is alive and living on UK IPTV pioneer HomeChoice, they’ve today announced an African Movie Channel, self described as “the UK’s first channel dedicated to showing new and recent releases from the major African film production houses.”
The newly formed African Movie Channel tell us that that they are focused on Africans currently residing in the UK, as well as Britons and non-Britons of African and Afro-Caribbean descent, and anyone with historical connections to Africa.
Lola Onigbogi, African Movie Channel, said: “To launch the African Movie Channel on HomeChoice is a very important and exciting step for us. Demand for both classic and new release African movies is very high in the UK, where there is a large African population.”
We’ve got to admit that our knowledge of African cinema is pretty weak, but then again, we’re not the target niche. We hear from HomeChoice that they’ve got an initial stable of 100’s of film available though the on-demand section of the service. These include classic films such as Violated, Osofia in London and Madam Dearest and new and recent releases staring favorite African actors like Richard Mofe-Damijo, Genevieve Nnaji and Olu Jacobs.
On another side, we see that HomeChoicePR department have their own MySpace account, which we think is pretty enterprising, but it does make some of us at Digital-Lifestyles wonder, are we the only people without at least one MySpace? We also note the perversity of Nick S having a “huge DVD collection”, given he works for a VOD company!
HomeChoice
24 April, 2006
Movielink and CinemaNow Offer Hollywood Movie Downloads
Hollywood has finally embraced the online movie distribution business with the launch of two new digital services that will make films available to download on the same day of their DVD release.
In a move designed to stave off movie piracy – estimated to cost Tinseltown up to 3.5 billion dollars a year – the two competing download services, Movielink and CinemaNow, have announced that they will be making hit films available to download online.
Movielink
The Internet video-on-demand company Movielink was launched back in 2002, and is jointly owned by big name studios Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox.
The company will start offering more than 200 movies for sale online, with Universal’s Oscar-winning “Brokeback Mountain” set to be the first major Hollywood blockbuster to be simultaneously released as a DVD and digital download.
Other films due to made available from Movielink are Peter Jackson’s “King Kong,” George Clooney’s Oscar-nominated “Good Night, and Good Luck,” the Johnny Cash story “Walk the Line” and the kids’ favourite “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.”
Rival company CinemaNow has also announced that it will start making movie downloads available from Lions Gate Entertainment and Sony.
How it works
The system will let consumers shell out for a permanent digital film library of films, or rent downloaded movies for 24 hours.
Purchased movies can be permanently stored on a computer’s hard drive or saved to a DVD in Windows Media format for backup or playback on up to two additional tethered computers.
For road warriors, movies can also be downloaded to a laptop, with users also able to stream movies to a TV hooked up to a media centre extender or Xbox.
We take a look. And get annoyed
We thought we’d take a quick shufti at the two sites for more information but found Movielink’s site a real wind-up.
After wasting a few moments being forced to circumnavigate their irritating geographical filter (it won’t let you see the site unless your IP address is in the US) the company annoyed us further by insisting that we use ‘IE 5.0 or higher’ to access the site.
No thanks. We choose to use Firefox and resent being told what tools we should use. Oh, and their service is, apparently, Windows only. Grrrr..
Movielink
CinemaNow
4 April, 2006
BT Vision – IPTV Service Named. Registration Opens
You’ll probably remember that we broke the story back in September about the release date of BT’s then unnamed IPTV plus Freeview service. Today we learn that it’s to be called BT Vision – and that it’s release may have slipped slightly, from the ‘late summer 2006’ quoted by Andrew Burke to Autumn.
As we know … all new services like to claim a level of uniqueness, BT have latched on to it being the “world-first, combining access to digital-terrestrial channels through the aerial with broadband-powered video on demand” – translated? It’s got a Freeview tuner built in.
BT’s also confirming that the box that will do all of these things is to be call the BT Hub. Its will use a software platform powered by Microsoft and that the set-top box is to be made by Philips.
Those interested in the service also have a chance to register at the BT Vision site.
BTW – Straw poll around the office. They’d better turn out some better content on BT Vision than that horrible Flash vision that accompanies the site. Argh – not exactly inspiring.
20 March, 2006
KiT, UK IPTV Pioneer To Close
It is with great sadness that we hear that UK IPTV innovator KiT (Kingston interactive TV) is to close its doors on 3rd April. We’ve always been huge fans of their work.
KiT was delivering IPTV, before most people who are now getting excited about the potential of delivering content over a network cable, even understood what IP stood for. How long back? 1999.
Kingston Telecom (KT), who own KiT has always been a unique proposition in the UK which has always been dominated (some would say crushed), by BT. KT was the only independent telecoms company in the UK, originally owned by the local council, Kingston Upon Hull, until it was floated in 1999.
It’s always struggled to get sufficient subscribers to support the service. Hull is an area with much financial deprivation with the average family income around £14,000/year. It’s understood that the high point of subscriptions, 10,000 at the start of the service, has lead to the current low point of 4,000. The level of financial loses and the need for KiT to refresh its now 7 year old IPTV kit is understood to have lead to the decision. The parent company, Kingston Communications (KC), feel that they can no longer justify supporting the service
Much important work has been done at KiT with many benefits from the results.
One exceptionally inspirational example was the work they did helping to turn around a failing school, Kingswood School, by getting parents and therefore their children more involved with the education provided, through technology. We covered the story back in June 2004.
Unknown to many, Blockbuster Video have been running a VoD trial on KiT for a couple of years. Their first in the world.
The BBC also benefited, after putting what we understand to be millions of pounds, into understanding how ultra local content works on IPTV over the KiT service.
About six months ago a very senior KiT person got in touch with us to say that they were up for sale.
One of the hopes had been that they would take their extensive IPTV experience, and roll it out over the UK.
There has been some wondering around the Digital-Lifestyles office if the delay in closing KiT has been a considered position by the KC. By waiting until now to close KiT, the rest of the world now realise that they all need to be in IPTV, and the number of potential purchasers will have increased.
Always one to identify a good buy, some are saying that Sky is interested in buying the remains of KiT. We understand from source inside KiT that this is unlikely, but in our view if they were to take on key members of staff, the purchaser would be getting their hands on very valuable experience. Skills like this would steer purchasers around many of the pot holes that IPTV can provide, potentially saving them millions of pounds.
We all hope that KiT, or at least its employees, have every success in the future.
24 February, 2006
AJAX Alert: Opera Browser With AJAX To Sigma CE Chip Range
Web browser company Opera today announce they’re bring their Web browser with AJAX support to chips for use in Consumer Electronics (CE) applications.
It’s not long back that Opera made the decision to give their Web browser away after a long period of charging for it. A very brave and noble act many though – not a bad way to raise your profile we thought.
They’ve been putting their browsers on different platforms for a while, like the mini-browser for mobile phones they brought out back in August 05.
The reasoning behind the give-away move becomes clearer today as they announce that they’ve been working with US chip company Sigma Designs to bring their browser software to embedded hardware via Sigma’s SMP8630 family of chipsets.
Clearly looking to tread on Intel’s toes, Sigma say the SMP8630 family of chipsets can be used in digital media adapters, IPTV set-top boxes and networked DVD players that OEM’s may want to build.
To get to use the browser and the oh-so-desirable AJAX, OEM’s will need to get in touch with Opera to license their Software Development Kit (SDK). Once familiar with it they should be able to create some snazzy application.
So what’s so exciting about embedded Web browsing software? Their supports the darling of the hour buzzword – AJAX.
We’re sure you, dear reader, know what AJAX is, but just incase – it stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. This translates to being able to use a Web browser more like a computer-based application.
The most notable difference from a ‘normal’ Web app is information and updates can be carried out without needing reload the Web page each time. It’s an intergral part of the Web 2.0 landscape.
The most often cited example is Google’s Gmail.
We at Digital-Lifestyles see the rise of AJAX as the event that broke Microsoft’s domination of computers. So pretty significant really.
Expect this news to generate great excitement in the Blog-world.
Opera
Sigma
Opera-related stories on Digital-Lifestyles
5 January, 2006
BT’s IPTV Content Deals: Too Little Too Late?
In the week that BT and Sky both saw their triple play offerings potentially trumped by a possible NTL/Virgin ‘quadruple play’, BT chose to release details of its upcoming content deals with BBC Worldwide, Paramount and Warner Music Group.
Ian Livingston, chief executive of BT Retail, talked up the deals, “Whether you are a music fan, love films or hooked on drama you will get the best in entertainment when you want it. BT is defining next generation TV.”
Against a backdrop of whispered rumours of delays with Microsoft’s IPTV Edition, the BT service is slated for launch next year.
BT’s TV service will piggyback on-demand programming, delivered by a high speed Internet connection to a Philips terrestrial Freeview receiver, and the PVR component of the box will hold 80 hours of downloaded programming.
The service will not be a monthly subscription like that of NTL and Sky, instead it will follow a ‘pay-as-you-go’ model, where individual downloads and viewing can be charged.
An agreement with BBC Worldwide that covers on-demand rights for BBC programming and charges for viewing, will provoke controversy as the BBC is paid for by a universal levy on TV viewers in the UK.
Problems won’t be confined to BBC programmes if ITV programming is carried, advertisers are bound to be unhappy that time-shifting viewers will skip the paid for messages.
You might be able to tell that we’re not that excited about this deal. At least BT seems to recognise that viewers watch content rather than technology … or well negotiated deals.
With so many digital TV homes in the UK subscribed to Sky or cable, we’re just not sure if BT will be able to muscle into the Digital TV space.
A major question mark hanging over them is whether the content promised so far is enough to encourage current subscribers to switch or, even more difficult, if they can get the so called “digital refuseniks” to join BT’s TV.
13 December, 2005
SureWest And HDNet, 1st To Launch US HD Over IPTV Service
California based telecoms company, SureWest Communications, is set to become the first company in the USA to offer HDTV commercially over its Internet Protocol (IP)-based fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) network.
The company have announced that it will be including high-definition networks HDNet and HDNet Movies in their high-definition television (HDTV) service set to launch this year.
“We are pleased to offer viewers in the Sacramento region the great variety of live and original news, entertainment and sports programming that can only be seen on HDNet and HDNet Movies,” said Peter Drozdoff, SureWest’s vice president of marketing.
“Through our HDTV channel lineup and launch of HDTV over IP, we are showcasing our dedication to providing customers with the highest-quality programming, sharpest picture available and a variety of emerging video products,” he added.
Quick to join the self-promoting, backslapping party, Mark Cuban, co-founder and president of HDNet, was quick to pipe in, “We are happy to be partnering with SureWest to deliver the HDNet networks to their customers in the Sacramento region and to be providing them with great original high-definition programming and exclusive day-and-date premieres of theatrically released movies.”
HDNet and HDNet Movies currently broadcast news, sports, music and entertainment programming in 1080i high-definition format, with a widescreen 16×9 aspect ratio.
On HDNet, SureWest viewers can, err, thrill to original series like “HDNet World Report,” “Face 2 Face with Roy Firestone” and “HDNet Concert Series,” and if that lot doesn’t set you packing your bags for Sacramento, there’ll also be showing Warner’s “Smallville” series and a load of live sports productions include Major League Soccer games.
HDNet Movies is the “exclusive home of day and date movie releases” presenting a wide selection of major studio’s theatrical releases which are broadcast uncut, unedited and in their original aspect ratio.
To view HDNet and HDNet Movies, SureWest customers will need an HDTV set, a SureWest HDTV cable box and a subscription to the SureWest HD service tier.
And quite probably a SureWest HDTV t-shirt too.
SureWest
HD
8 December, 2005