Blackarrow Consulting

The number of digital TV households in Germany continues to grow with 23.1 million (62%) of TV households making the transition over the last year, an increase of 6.7%.

WESTMINSTER eFORUM: The FUTURE OF DTT. Freeview HD is now watched in 160,000 homes, according to Isle Howling, MD Freeview. What is more, Freeview has had 1.5 million unique visitors to its website checking the coverage of its HD services.

Ericsson is planning the IBC launch of a commercial multiscreen TV offering that combines the featuresets of IPTV, mobile TV and web TV with a common look and feel of the user interface.

Kabel Deutschland has successfully performed DVB-C2 transmission tests in its Berlin cable network. The second-generation DVB transmission standard DVB-C2 was published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) five months ago.

If the AppleTV announcement didn't satiate your need for a Google TV set-top box battle royal, then new details about Amino's Freedom box might do the trick.

In May, Google announced a new Internet TV product called Google TV. As we noted at the time, the most interesting aspect of the announcement was the developer ecosystem that Google is introducing to television. Google TV will not just allow you to view television programs and online video content, it'll also give you access to Internet TV applications built using Google's mobile operating system Android.

Google has confirmed that it will be integrating mobile phone control for forthcoming GoogleTV, and not just using Android phones.

STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) is painting a picture of a future media-rich consumer life with the demonstration of a broad range of set-top box (STB) solutions under the theme ‘The Future of Entertainment’ at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC 2010).

Google TV will be introduced in the US before the end of the year, but the service will not hit Europe until 2011, we learned during the closing session of this year’s IFA.

Cable’s years-long goodbye to MPEG-2 is far from over, but the shift toward MPEG-4 — the newer, more-efficient video format — has passed the halfway mark on the satellite-delivery front.

Transmission tests on the second generation cable system DVB-C2 have been successfully completed by Kabel Deutschland in Berlin, just five months after its publication by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).

Sony said it will launch its first Google TV before the end of the year as the exclusive launch partner for the project. On the IFA showfloor, the company was showing an early version of a TV set running on the Android operating system.

New Strategy Analytics consumer research has found that adopters and intending adopters of connected TV services are looking for controllers that are simple, yet capable of controlling multiple devices and executing complex use cases. At the same time, they want controllers that are small, stylish and comfortable to use.

The MPEG Industry Forum (MPEGIF), the world’s largest advocacy group for standard’s based digital television technologies is presenting its latest MPEGIF Master Class titled “An Expert Glimpse of TV in 2011 and Beyond”, to be held at IBC 2010 on Monday, September 13th between 11:30am and 1:00pm at the RAI Convention Centre in Amsterdam. MPEGIF which recently merged with the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) is proud to continue the long running, successful Master Class series well known from NAB, IBC and CES in previous years, bringing together an exceptional mélange of industry experts and leaders engaged in next generation digital television, multimedia and video entertainment.

A survey of European television viewers has revealed the dominant TV content discovery methods and influences among consumers. Data for the ResearchNow survey, sponsored by UK-based TV Genius, was collected from 3000 viewers across the UK, France, Germany, Poland and Sweden. The results of the study, announced today ahead of IBC, show that although consumers are largely using the electronic programme guide (EPG) when watching television, it has comparatively little influence over the content they choose. The research reveals that traditional media such as newspapers and magazines are more effective in the content discovery process, as well as online sources or on-screen trailers.