S2 Data’s IPTV 2007 conference provided a global view of the IPTV market. The audience and the speakers consisted of an interesting mix of chip level companies, along with system integrators. There were some representatives from independent telcos, as well as at least one of their Engineering firms (Martin and Associates), and some international telcos. A much talked about topic was the convergence of broadcast and IP and could be indicative that this type of approach to IPTV may catch on here in the U.S. the way it has in Europe.
In England, Freeview has partnered with British Telecom to provide a combination an over-the-air service for delivering broadcast, while on-demand content is delivered via IP via landlines; similar to Verizon’s FIOS, except that the pipe for broadcast is free-space instead of fiber. Christine Heckart, General Manager, Marketing for Microsoft suggested that the use of this approach in the United States “is an interesting question.” This is probably a question that Microsoft is trying to answer (could be an interesting add-on service for the X-Box 360) in one form or another.
It was suggested by one of the speakers that the biggest challenges in merging broadcast and “over-the-top” video efforts is the integration of DTV middleware, the User Interface and the Digital Rights Management/Conditional Access. There is also the challenge of putting together the Broadcasters with the over the top providers.
Martjin Lopes Cardozo, Sr. VP of Corporate Development – Tandberg Television, gave an excellent presentation on iTV applications, because he provided real examples. He talked about the idea of branded portals, telescoping (link from short form to long form commercials on demand) and “hotspotting” (identifying objects on a screen and allowing for telescoping.
OSS Needs to govern the middleware, as opposed to the opposite was a key message from Frank Gine, Vice President Sales and Marketing for ETI Software. Gine talked about the importance of being to able decouple middleware from the OSS, such that it is possible to change middleware if needed. He gave an example of a couple of independent telcos that had to switch middleware, because a vendor had discontinued their middleware offering. Because these telcos had adopted this strategy of the OSS governing the middleware, they had no problem and the transition from one middleware to another was painless even though they had paying customers when they affected the transition.
This was just a sampling of the many fine presentations at this two-day IPTV conference.