INTERVIEW. The emergence of Over the Top Television (OTT) technologies is not widely viewed as a threat to the existence of telcos in their quest to transform IPTV services, an official has said.
Victor Dominguez, vice president of DS2, a leading provider of semiconductors for high-speed communications over existing wires, said fears doing the rounds in the information communication technology sector had no substance at the moment.
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PayTV operator Sky has selected Pace’s HD technology for its set-top box deployments in Germany and Austria, which will begin rolling out in August.
Pace has been a set-top box technology partner of Sky, formerly Premiere, for a number of years.
The number of people watching video-on-demand (VOD) programming in the US surged in June – fuelled by rises in the popularity of pay-per-view content and more children taking advantage of free programming, according to Rentrak.
The increases made June the most-viewed month for video-on-demand this year, delivering more than 589 million transactions.
LG is introducing the first HDTVs capable of streaming Netflix movies without the need for an external device such as game console or set-top box.
The online movie rental service will be available in North America on LG’s new 47-inch LCD HDTV LH50 and 50-inch plasma HDTV PS80.
Shipments of set-top boxes are expected to peak this year, at least in mature markets, and then commence a gradual decline.
However the rolling series of analog TV shutoffs in countries around the world, combined with the strong uptake of HDTV sets, mean that HD STBs will form a growing fraction of the total market, according to ABI Research.
VUDU has agreed a partnership with online video platform Brightcove that will allow its customers to distribute their content directly to the living room television via VUDU.
The first feature available in the VUDU Labs area of the VUDU service will be the MyPlay application, which offers current Sony Music videos through Sony Music’s MyPlay Video Network affiliate program.
Vudu is to make its 14,000-plus movie library available on Entone set-top boxes and DVRs.
The deal is the first time Vudu’s content, including around 1,500 HD movies, has been made available on third-party hardware.
High-definition Digital Terrestrial TV (DTT) set top boxes (STBs) offer semiconductor makers a short term spike in opportunity.
However, standard definition (SD) DTT STBs will be a more sustainable market for manufacturers, according to In-Stat.
INTERVIEW: Mike Harris, CEO of AnySource Media, talks to hdtv.biz-news about his company’s Internet-enabled TV platform that will start appearing in HDTV sets in the second half of 2009. The Internet Video Navigator (IVN) allows users to view Internet video on their HDTVs alongside traditional TV networks – without requiring a separate box or complicated wiring.
As HD becomes the global video standard shipments of high-definition set-top boxes (STBs), camcorders, DVD players and video-game consoles are expected to triple from 2008 to 2012, according to iSuppli.
Shipments of HD-capable equipment in these categories will rise to 202 million units by 2012, up from 68.9 million in 2008.