Deck the halls

Julian Clover returns from a busy IBC where financial worries were left behind.

It was almost as if IBC 2008 was conducted in a bubble, while the financial markets turned somersaults, it was business as usual in the Amsterdam RAI. The aisles were crowded, maybe not all the time, but the organisers still put out the obligatory notice of increased numbers.

There was also increased floorspace, two new halls appearing in the parts of the car park that weren’t being dug up to make room for the expansion of Amsterdam’s metro system.

Prior to the show the buzzword coming from Hall 1 was that of targeted advertising and it was there in various flavours. Whether the advertising community is aware of how technology is preparing to once more disrupt their business models is debatable.

3D television was also there to be seen, accompanying a live transatlantic 3D interview with Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, shown in the conference rooms. While Katzenberg clearly has something to say, I couldn’t help thinking that the satellite special was a hi-tech equivalent of going to the pub to watch Chelsea play Manchester United, when instead you could be having Sunday lunch with your own family.

The 3D demos I saw from International Datacasting and Philips, with and without silly glasses, genuinely brought a new dimension to the small screen. Nothing however compared to the NHK Super Hi-Vision demo, making a return to IBC, this time with a live transmission from London and Turin. Not sure I can fit a 100 inch screen into my house though; presumably it’s called Very Full HD.

While targeted advertising is really still an aspiration, the networked home is becoming a trend, helped along by protocols set out by the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA). The ability to locate, display and hear content from the home network on the set-top box was in evidence at Pace, ADB and Human amongst others. Canal+ CTO Joseph Guegan was even talking about a mini photoframe to accompany the set-top. Some of the people I spoke to dismissed the idea aggregating content in this way, suggesting it was technology for technology’s sake, and in the final analysis it will be the platform operators that decide what goes into their boxes.

The IPTV Zone was introduced to give a showcase to companies in this developing sector. It achieved this objective, but in between the applications and the technologies it has also become a cheap way to show your wares. One exhibitor I spoke to said while the cost of the floorspace was not that different to the main halls, it did not require as much expenditure on the stand, while also getting a better quality delegate. It was also noticeable that some exhibitors had come into the IPTV Zone having previously occupied the main halls.

Pay-TV has historically been immune to financial downturns, whether it would have survived the Wall Street Crash is another matter, and maybe infrastructure projects will begin to be challenged. On the strength of IBC 2008 there is little sign of this while the industry continues to innovate.