IPTV remains the hottest of hot topics at this year’s giant IBC show. However, despite much talk of a “maturing” industry, the consensus from a Rapid TV News Round Table is that for vendors and operators IPTV is still in “land grab” mode. [Click here for Rapid’s coverage of the IPTV Round Table]
Simon Cotliff, new business development manager at Switzerland-based
set-top box supplier ADB, says there have been some dramatic changes
over the past year or so in the IPTV sector. “A few years ago cable
companies were not taking IPTV very seriously. During that time the
market has matured. The middleware has matured, the boxes have matured.
It is fair to say that the sector as a whole is still in the 1.0 phase
and is very much in land grab mode and about winning subscribers, but
if we characterise IPTV’s growth with our own in sales, it took us
quite a long time to reach one million boxes deployed. We know it’s not
going to take the same length of time to reach two million, that’s for
sure.”
Simon McGrath, CMO at VOD and interactive specialists SeaChange
International, also agrees that changes are afoot. “I see IPTV as a
product that is becoming fully mature. It is a product that every telco
worldwide is looking to deploying. We’ve seen great success in Spain,
in France. We are seeing hybrid IPTV and DVB deployments in the United
States with Verizon and other operators and new services are rapidly
taking off.”
Sebastian Kramer, founder and CEO at Quative, part of the Kudelski
Group, argues that IPTV is now some 10 years old, and in its earlier
days was frequently written off by its rivals and perhaps the industry
generally. “This is not wise. It must be taken seriously because there
are now plenty of deployments topping one million and many that are
approaching that number. These are significant milestones and show us
that IPTV is going to grow but I agree that we are still at the 1.0
stage offering only ‘me too’ services. I look forward to showing how
IPTV can really differentiate itself by offering exciting new services.”
The three experts also concurred on another key aspect in IPTV’s
lifespan. Kramer. “It isn’t so easy to design an IPTV multicast system,
but today the IPTV operators are mastering the hard side and not yet
fully utilising the system’s full strength which is interactivity.”
ADB’s Cothliff explained that many operators are asking ADB to respond
to requests about integrating higher bandwidth volumes and asking how
they can monetise these opportunities. “From the set top box provider
point of view, we can do much more than just handle MPEG2 or MPEG4. So
perhaps one solution is to take relatively low bandwidth video, say at
1Mb, and upscale it, which would allow YouTube content to be viewed on
the TV set. This is one appealing option. The other topic that is very
real is Home Networking. We have customers rolling out standard-based
systems within the home with a very high degree of functionality.”
Asked whether interactivity just meant VOD, Simon McGrath response was
an instant “Yes, and no!” He explains: “The key word for us is the On
Demand element more than the VOD portion. VOD puts people in a very
specific box and we work and focus on very personalised services. This
means an ability for operators to gauge and interact much more
effectively and intimately with their customers.”
“Think about when we walk into our favourite bookstore or record shop.
We understand the environment and we might have a loyalty card and the
enjoyment insists that we go back and visit the store again and again.
So our focus is very much on how we merge television in a two-way, high
quality environment and other high quality consumer-orientated content
in a personal manner to consumers,” adds McGrath.
