Broadcast Engineering tells us that Virgin Media, the main cable operator in the UK, will migrate all pay-TV services, not just internet delivered TV, to its custom built TiVo box. It will also move outside of its cable footprint to offer TV on other broadband systems including British Telecom and Sky TV. Advertising for the service will start to appear later in 2011. One of the biggest problems is the time it takes to train consumers on using the box. Deployments are running at 1,000 a day and will reach 300,000 by the end of 2011, broadcast engineering writes.
Cablevision, the cableco operating in and around New York, has always been strong on its triple play pricing being the first to offer a $99 triple play in the US. Now it is offering a new triple play called Ultimate with faster internet speeds at 50 Mbps, 275 TV channels, VoD and an advanced wireless N router bundled in. It’s Optimum Link software will let customers to display PC images and sounds on their TV sets without any additional equipment. The price is still close to $99 a month at $99.80.
At Anga Cable this week SeaChange International was showing its Andrenalin multi-screen back office for operators including a new tablet TV experience. Andrenalin includes social media integrated with on-demand services running on Apple iPad, the idea seems to be to watch the same VoD program at the same time and talk to each other over social networks while you’re doing, to create a ‘watching party.’ All this links into the web-based SeaChange Business Management Suite, which helps the operator to manage offers and catalogs. The system comes with HbbTV capabilities for multi-screen VoD services.
NDS at Anga Cable this week in Germany was showing VoD over HbbTV using its Service Delivery Platform (SDP), which marries OTT with traditional TV. NDS draws video off the internet for companion devices like Tablets, but does it from a unified server so that the system knows what you are watching on the TV and on the tablet and can tie the two up and offer extra features. NDS also showed off its InfiniteTV Exchange (ITXG), an impressive B2B internet content marketplace that ties content owners up with platform operators and offers them (so far) 150,000 hours of content, some of it from mainstream studios, and facilitates EDI style business deals online. NDS was also showing a Unified Home Gateway built by acquisition Jungo.
Four major new partners have considerably beefed up the Advanced Advertising Media Project (AAMP) with new members joining including Disney owned national broadcaster ABC, Comcast’s recently acquired studio NBC, CTAM, the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing and Intel. The association was created in March to measure the effect of advanced interactive advertising on viewing in free VOD streams. AAMP now has 14 members that all have a vested interest in accelerating the monetization of VOD content. The other heavyweights are A&E TV, CBS, Comcast, Digitas, Discovery, NDS and Rainbow Media. First research findings are due out soon.
Mediapool Content Services, which offers foreign language TV in Germany, will use the new hybrid TV standard HbbTV from this summer. It has signed a content partnership for its new international portal with Star TV, the News Corp subsidiary strong in India, and will offer four popular Hindi channels on the HbbTV platform. Already Mediapool distributes 50 TV programs via cable TV networks and DSL and this is its first move into HbbTV. The technology has been provided by local supplier Teveo Interactive.
In fact Anga Cable had tons of HbbTV announcements. Another was from Japan’s Access signing its DLNA compliant HbbTV system with CreNova Technology, a German set-top box specialist. Access has won a lot of DLNA deals on the back of its Living Connect 2.0 which it claims it is the only DLNA system with advanced features like Remote User Interface and Scheduled Recording Service which anticipate the next-generation DLNA guidelines. The Access system also offers iPlayer capability for the UK market, because that doesn’t use HbbTV. Access also announced that HDI Dune, a Blu-ray player and set-top box manufacturer, has also selected its HbbTV, BBC iPlayer, DLNA and widgets software to power its connected TV devices.
We’re not sure this is actually anything new, but the HomeGrid Forum has officially endorsed the Draft ITU-T MIMO specification which will extend the G.hn home networking standard. We think this is just HomeGrid making a noise to make sure everyone can see that MIMO is getting closer to being a part of the standard. The new draft standard is the ITU-T G.9963 and is referred to as G.hn-mimo, which inventor Sigma says will triple the throughput of the system.
BigBand Networks said at Anga Cable that its long-time customer Beijing Gehua Cable TV Network has chosen its BEQ Edge QAM platform for VoD. This is a new project following on from BigBand selling its BEQ platform for Gehua’s interactive HDTV and broadband Internet services. BigBand says that 60 customers have deployed 900,000 QAM channels with BigBand.
Swiss gadget specialist Logitech has come out with a TV camera to work with Skype which offers 720p HD video conferencing quality video over Skype. It is a plug-and-play TV camera which works with select Panasonic Viera Connect TVs. Calls can now be made straight from the TV, with no computer or software downloads needed. A 1Mbps upload line is needed and the camera costs $150 on Panasonic’s Viera Connect Market.
GoBackTV which offers encoder head ends has been acquired by Aurora Networks, to target the cable IPTV market. Financial details were not disclosed. Aurora will integrate GoBackTV employees into its Santa Clara campus. GoBackTV builds IPTV video head ends and aims them at cable operators looking to move to IPTV delivery. It also offers cable modem termination systems and edge QAM.
US conditional access specialist Verimatrix, has deployed its VCAS for IPTV product on the NTV-PLUS wholesale network. NTV-PLUS is a Russian satellite broadcaster covering all of European Russia, Siberia and the Ukraine and has 2 million subscribers. It will use Verimatrix’s cardless security system to support a wider range of hybrid set-tops to provide a wider choice for local resellers.
RIM this week has chosen to make Microsoft’s Bing its default BlackBerry search engine. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer joined RIM executives on stage at the BlackBerry World conference in Florida this week to announce it. The deal will bring Bing search and maps which will soon use Nokia’s Navteq data, into BlackBerry phones at the operating system level.
Conditional access player NDS says that its VideoGuard conditional access system has been chosen to protect HD+ content to Sky Deutschland subscribers. NDS is already the incumbent there for all other forms of TV delivery.
Polish satellite TV player Cyfrowy Polsat wil issue a bond for €350 million through a wholly owned Swedish subsidiary named Cyfrowy Polsat Finance AB.
The money raised will be used to repay debts incurred in buying Telewizja Polsat the leading Polish Broadcaster.