The last we heard was that military to transmitters company Harris was still trying to get its own range of NetVX encoders to work, because it was using Envivio encoders in almost all of its Mobile TV platforms, and as recently as the NAB show this year signed Envivio up as part of its infrastructure offering for ATSC M/H, rather than risk its entire US Mobile TV effort on its own untried encoder.
But now Microsoft has signed up the NetVX encoders into its own Mediaroom eco-system, despite the fact that we have yet to come across a single installation of the Harris technology in the world of IPTV. The system completed encoder conformance testing at the Microsoft Mediaroom Interoperability and Qualification Lab program. Funny that Mediaroom has ever asked Envivio to apply.
Microsoft used the opportunity to slide a few more partners into the mix, and in the process claimed that it had leapt from 1 million subscriber homes with Mediaroom in the first quarter of 2008, to over 2 million TV sets now (which presumably includes multiple sets per home).
Microsoft also added Agilent Technologies and IneoQuest Technologies to the Mediaroom ecosystem as Internet Protocol television (IPTV) quality of service (QoS) solution providers. Ironically Ineoquest doesn’t really offer a QoS system. Instead it monitors the integrity of IP encapsulated MPEG from when it is first ingested at the head end, and at every stage in its journey to the consumer using a huge server which can sample 10 Gbps, built using parallel FPGA chips, carrying out deep packet inspection. Agilent does much the same with its QoS Analyzer, so really they are network tuning aids better described as service assurance to reduce packet loss. Ineoquest is known to have been working with AT&T on packet loss.
Meanwhile Microsoft this week acquired Navic Networks a provider of TV advertising campaign management tools which optimize targeted advertising. It seems that every other week Microsoft or Yahoo or AOL buys someone in the advertising business, and a war is building with these and Google to provide a comprehensive advertising platform for the future. Interestingly the Tru2way MHP technology now being adopted by cable and terrestrial TV operators, envisages this type of interactivity in advertising and has suddenly become all the rage.
Microsoft said that with Navic it would consult with the key constituents in TV advertising industry to better understand how its campaign management and advertising platforms can help advertisers, content owners and distributors maximize their yield.