By Peter J. Brown
The rapid emergence of Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) solutions has created quite a stir in satellite circles. The timing is remarkable, as IPTV arrives just as the next generation of dazzling display technologies, rich media-enabled mobile and portable content delivery options and easily implemented interactive elements are becoming available. IPTV will propel this dynamic, on-demand-driven and highly personalized entertainment market to new heights.
IPTV encompasses an expansive lineup, unlike any-thing seen before, says Microsoft TV spokesman Ed Graczyk. Linear programming, video on demand, content recorded on a digital video recorder and even content like games are all treated the same. "What IPTV enables beyond rich media is a richer TV user experience when compared to today's digital broadcast TV services," says Graczyk, who points to next-generation interactive programming guides as excellent examples of this enhanced capability.
"Unlike traditional text-based program guides, our [interactive programming guide] shows live video thumbnails of the channels you are clicking on as you navigate the guide," says Graczyk. "And our [video-on-demand] storefront technology includes things like programmer-branded screen backgrounds and animated movie poster art instead of just a text- based user experience. ... IPTV as we have implemented it does not discriminate between the various media types. When you search for a show for example, search results include all the media types, not just the shows available on the broadcast channels as you have today in digital broadcast systems."
Fast Growth For IPTV
Scopus-Americas President Carlo Basile is well aware of the potential for IPTV to provide a richer end-user experience, but he doubts that the technology will threaten the significant advantages enjoyed by the satellite industry in this realm. Basile expects that the role of satellite technology as the most cost-effective way to distribute content in a broadcast mode will not change substantially with the rollout of IPTV services. "The amount of bandwidth currently required to distribute hundreds of video programs is very big and lends itself well to a point-to-multipoint distribution over satellite," he says. "A central content receive site or headend will aggregate content from satellite downlinks and then distribute it onto a local access network over IP all the way to the subscriber."
The end-to-end distribution of IP content is an attractive option which serves the interests of multiple players. Telcos large and small in North America, Asia and Europe are eagerly launching IPTV services, with Canadian telcos such as Telus, Sasktel and Aliant standing out in particular. In addition to its Telus TV distribution centre in Edmonton, Alberta, for example, Telus is spending an estimated $15 million on a second facility in British Columbia equipped with eight satellite downlinks. This pair of IPTV facilities provides total redundancy as service centers in the event that one headend goes down. Satellite-driven models offer these telcos a wide range of options, and service providers like Auroras Entertainment, which has teamed up with Telesat, and Skyway Connect, which has partnered with Panamsat, make it is possible for any startup to purchase a turnkey IPTV solution.
Iowa Network Services (INS) operates an IPTV network for its owners, a group of 127 independent telcos serving 500,000 rural Iowans. A single headend outside of Des Moines is shared by 17 video service providers throughout the state on a 4,500-mile core fiber ring that the owners fund collectively. INS downlinks the majority of the content in its 177- channel lineup from existing satellite transponders which source content in MPEG-2, says Andy Cote, director, systems engineering and integration, at Lake Oswego, Ore.-based Tut Systems Inc. The IPTV headend includes an ATCI Simulsat dish, off-air antennas for local content and receivers from Motorola and others, along with content processing equipment and the standard cabling required to build a headend. The Tut Systems processor provides "additional compression and grooming of the content for transport over bandwidth constrained networks, but the video remains in the MPEG-2 standard," says Cote. "While INS will soon be encoding or transcoding the content to the MPEG-4/AVC compression standard in order to save up to 50 percent of the bandwidth, INS will continue to keep the MPEG-2 headend for the cable companies that it serves." INS also plans to make 20 channels of high-definition TV (HDTV) available when compatible set-top boxes become available.
"As seen from the Bellsouth tests recently, IPTV via satellite could play a highly significant role if the major carriers see compelling propositions in terms of costs structures and the speed by which satellites can provision IPTV services compared to their current plans to lay fiber infrastructure to the curb or the premise," says Jose del Rosario, senior analyst and regional director for the Asia Pacific at Northern Sky Research. Bellsouth signed an agreement with SES Americom to test a satellite-based video distribution service for Bellsouth's IP Prime offering for telcos distributing TV programming along with voice and broadband services. SES Americom will provide Bellsouth with video aggregation, encoding, monitoring, and transport over the IP Prime platform, which is based at the SES Americom IPTV Broadcast Center in Vernon Valley, N.J.
The challenge in serving this new IPTV market is making sure that the implementation of the supporting technologies such as middleware, set-top boxes and MPEG-4 encoding evolves on the same timelines as the distribution channels, says Jonathan Feldman, senior vice president, strategic development at Globecast. In North America and Europe, IPTV is a key component of Globecast's content management service strategy and the company's IPTV services will include its WorldTV services in 2006. "In America, we entered the IPTV market in early 2005, and we built out and offered an IPTV super headend in Miami to accommodate IPTVComplete, an IPTV service with Eagle Broadband targeting small and medium telcos and multiple dwelling units -- clusters or communities such as apartment complexes," says Feldman. "We provide content aggregation, encryption and encoding services, and satellite and fiber distribution transport to the remote headends where the program streams are handed off to the customer's network headend."
In France, Globecast has been providing services since 2003 for Maligne TV, the IPTV arm of France Telecom. Maligne serves about 200,000 subscribers via asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL). "We most recently began providing aggregation and contribution for a new 30-channel Maligne TV service called Le Bouquet TV. Globecast is providing downlink, aggregation, IP encapsulation, MPEG-4 encoding and contribution to Maligne TV's headend," says Feldman. "As for video to mobile, we are supplying mobile operator Orange (also owned by France Telecom) with aggregation and contribution of more than 50 channels."
IPTV also is advancing in Asia. In late 2005, Hong Kong-based PCCW's Broadband TV announced that it had chosen Tandberg Television to implement an IPTV-based HD-over digital- subscriber-line (DSL) service using MPEG4/AVC. The strong demand for IPTV systems that has developed throughout the last year has been reinforced by a stringent requirement when it comes to reliability. "All forecasts suggest that this market is due to continue growing quickly during 2006," says Jonathan Symonds, vice president of product and distribution at Goldpocket, a Tandberg Television company. "In addition, because telco customers are focused on reliability, most are building out two super headends for redundancy purposes. This will drive the growth rate as well,"
Email
Comments
Print
Reuse
