It is just over a week after the DTV transition in the US and it seems that the transition has taken place with low levels of complaints. How much of this is down to the overall delay of the transition from February is hard to determine, but certainly the change-over will presage success in the UK and other major economies that are undertaking this transition. Roll on the full switch in the UK… if only the timescale for the UK could be speeded up.
Posted in DTT, DTV.
Tagged with DTV Transition.
The cooling of the IPTV set-top market as reported by Broadband TV News is an interesting development.
IPTV set-top market is ‘cooling down’ : Broadband TV News.
Much of the growth identified in the report was down to market launches which mop up the early adopters very easily. However, we have not seen the organic growth that comes about with getting the ordinary consumer into buying the products, something that may be implied now to be down to the down market of the world-wide recession. However, this may be covering up the bigger issue about IPTV - consumers are after content, not technology. Whether it is IPTV or standard Broadcast Cable, the customer generally will not notice the difference. What they will notice is whether they have access to premium sports or movie content… and that is something that most IPTV providers are struggling with compared to the incumbents.
Posted in Broadband, Cable, Consumer Device, Content, DTV, IPTV, STB.
Tagged with Content, IPTV, STB, TV.
It looks like after 10 years and much effort, that new server techniques and the massive dropping in server hardware costs may finally be making Microsoft TV an affordable solution for an operator.
Server virtualization slims Microsoft Mediaroom model - FierceIPTV
It used be said that the Microsoft solution needed football pitches of servers, but now it seems that they have finally got it down to the final target for hardware although the server power today is far more than the Pentium Pro based servers of 1999/2000. I will say though that one trick that Microsoft may have kept is that the total number of Windows licenses in the virtualized solution is probably the same as that football pitch worth 
Posted in Broadband, Cable, DTV, IPTV.
Tagged with Mediaroom, Microsoft, MSTV, Virtualization.
Network Neutrality has fallen at the first hurdle in the UK, and this is not about traffic management.
The BBC has raised concerns after it learned that BT’s Total Broadband traffic management platform was being used to throttle the speed at which customers view web based video sites, such as its own iPlayer service and YouTube. Customers that take BT’s cheaper Option 1 deal will find their speeds to streaming video sites reduced to less than 1Mbps between the hours of 1700 and midnight.
UK ISP BT Broadband Restricts iPlayer and YouTube Speeds − ISPreview UK.
On the face of it you would think this is purely a commercial issue on the cheaper service, but those who have been watching the situation in the UK will understand this to be a direct response to the impact that BBC iPlayer is having on the ISP’s business model of overselling their bandwidth to multiple customers. The next step in this game in my view, would be BT re-opening the discussion about the BBC, and others, paying them to ensure that the lowest common denominator customer has a minimum bandwidth capability to watch their service.
Posted in Broadband, DTV, IPTV.
Tagged with BT, iPlayer, ISP, Network Neutrality, YouTube.
It is interesting from the UK perspective, getting a view of the next generation - even more so than what Virgin Media can provide. It certainly puts the Digital Britain 2Mbps at the bottom of the hill, particularly when you look at the upstream speed capability available in the Netherlands…
I’m living in Almere. It’s one of the first towns in the Netherlands that gets both FTTH from KPN/Reggefiber as well as UPC’s Docsis 3.0 offer Fiber Power. I thought it would be good to compare the offers.
Internet Thought: UPC Fiber Power triumphant over KPN FTTH
Posted in Broadband, Networking.
Tagged with Cable, DOCSIS3.0, EuroDOCSIS, Fibre, KPN, UPC.
The BBC is testing the live streaming of its television and radio channels to wi-fi enabled mobile devices.
BBC launches live mobile TV tests | Broadband TV News
I have talked about this before, with the BT Movio service particularly. Video has not proven to be a huge draw for most people except those that undertake the long commutes, which is not a huge audience. Additionally, the other primary issue (as it was for Movio) is where is the business? How much can you charge. This is important particularly now when sideloading has actually grown quite well off the back of the iTunes store and ‘illegal’ ripping and downloading.
Here though with the BBC they have sidestepped this as they do not charge directly - the UK martket pays for this in the UK Licence fee. If you went to a subscription service (as Movio was) then I personally believe it flies as well as a brick.
Posted in Content, DTV, IPTV, Mobile.
Tagged with BBC, iPlayer, IPTV, Mobile TV, Movio.
Ofcom has revealed that only 65,000 homes claim to use Tiscali’s television-over-DSL IPTV service as their main means of receiving digital television.
Digital TV - News - 65,000 use Tiscali TV as main TV service - Digital Spy.
This news is very depressing for one of the trailblazers in the TV over ADSL world, which became the IPTV world of course. Over 10 years in existence in one form or another, which pretty much amounts to 6,500 homes per year in existence. This is a cottage industry which holds much promise but little in the way of delivery.
Is the lack of success down to the limitations of DSL? the perceived low quality of video? cost of the service? the product proposition? the limited footprint? Not certain really, but one of the big reasons for its lack of success I feel is because customers do not really care about the technology. They care about the content, something that BSkyB in the UK has in droves compare to the small fry of Tiscali. Virgin Media competes by having the same content with innovative and desired services like full content VoD. Freeview and Freesat compete on good enough primary content and being free (well apart from the TV licence of course). What does Tiscali actually offer?
A postscript is also the drop in Top Up TV’s viewers - not a positive for the relatively high priced but content limited platform, which is now even less competitive because of Setanta’s troubles and non-exclusivity.
Posted in DTT, DTV, IPTV.
Tagged with ADSL, DSL, DTV, IPTV, Tiscali TV, Top Up TV, TV.
Well, the US has begun its transition to digital terrestrial television. The transition has been messy in the corridors of power in the US simply because of concern about the disenfranchising of large numbers of the US population were simply not prepared. The mess is that now rather than the transition taking place on a coordinated basis (although in an incredibly short time span), we now have the slow and gradual transition where it is not clear from here in the stratosphere exactly what is transitioning when … other than knowing it finishes in June. The reason simply being that the exact timing is voluntary. This is a worse situation than they had to be honest but the reports coming back are painting a picture of little or no fuss.
The reported figures of the 421 out of 1800 stations that transitioned on the original date, is that things went smoothly and the call figures from the federal call centres is a little over a quarter of the expected figures.
So will this give an impetus in the UK, to a shortening of the transition period? Doubtful, but there have been some changes in the plan due to other factors – bringing in the Channel Islands to 2010 rather than 2013 and the announcement that there will be HD before the 2010 World Cup, although only in the London region.
Posted in DTT, DTV.
Tagged with Digital Britain, DTT, DTV, Transition, US.
It seems that BT Vision has grown in subscribers to levels that are respectable at last with 398,000 published today. However the detail in the press release behind the post by Broadband TV News is a little low. The understanding about whether these are 398,000 people with the box who may have subscribed once to a package or single video asset or actual real ongoing subscribers is not clear, particularly as the STB is a fully working Freeview free-to-air box. If these are real ongoing subscribers then this is great news for IPTV in the UK, but if as I suspect this is just the total number of boxes out there then the news is a lot darker.
Posted in DTT, IPTV.
Tagged with BT, DTT, Freeview, IPTV, Vision.
A couple of events are coming up in the calendar, so if you are going and want to meet just drop us a line.
Broadcast Video Expo, 17th Feb 2009 to 19 Feb 2009, Earls Court, London
IPTV World Forum 2009, 25th Mar 2009 to 27th Mar 2009, Olympia Exhibition Centre, London
I am really only going up for the exhibition and networking side of both, so the exact day is not as yet decided but hey maybe you can make my mind up.
Posted in DTV, IPTV.
Tagged with Broadcast, Conference, Exhibitions, IPTV, London, Networking.
It is just over a week after the DTV transition in the US and it seems that the transition has taken place with low levels of complaints. How much of this is down to the overall delay of the transition from February is hard to determine, but certainly the change-over will presage success in the UK and other major economies that are undertaking this transition. Roll on the full switch in the UK… if only the timescale for the UK could be speeded up.
News Headlines
