In the week that IPTV World Forum became TV Connect, IP had much to say, writes Julian Clover.
It turns out that I’ve attended the last IPTV World Fourm. As of next year the bustling event (London Olympia, March 20-22) will be known as TV Connect.
For the past couple of years the event has been branded as the IP&TV World Forum, broadening out an already abused industry term to encompass the perhaps more exciting world of apps, on demand and second screens.
Indeed the first two keynote sessions took social networking as their theme.
As it happened two significant events in IPTV happened outside of the Forum. Over at the Media Guardian Changing Media Summit, Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch was taking the wraps off the broadcaster’s over-the-top TV service. Now TV will act both as a defence against Netflix and Lovefilm, perhaps even the Competition Commission, as well as providing a barker for Sky’s existing satellite platform.
Meanwhile, UKTV’s announcement that it will become the first linear broadcaster to be streamed by BT Vision rather than be taken from Freeview. The announcement – quietly signaling the arrival of multicast on the BT network – was made as part of a wider announcement of a VOD supply deal rather than a declaration of new technology. It was notable nonetheless.
But I will probably remember the IPTV World Forum for something that didn’t happen. A few weeks back I received an invite from Microsoft Mediaroom. I had to do a double-take to ensure that my Inbox hadn’t decided to deliver me the best of emails past.
There was nothing to worry about, particularly as the event was subsequently cancelled, but what exactly was it about.
The answer came not from Microsoft directly, but its occasional partner in IPTV, Alcatel-Lucent.
Between them the two companies offer an integrated solution for the new Microsoft Mediaroom 2.0. The middleware now supports OTT content and integrated multi-screen content, extending itself across multiple screens.
It renews an existing contract that goes back to the deployment of Mediaroom on the AT&T network in 2005.
BT Vision, it is believed, is turning its attentions elsewhere and in any case implemented few of the features that had been demoed at previous Microsoft events.
Upgrading to an alternate supplier is not an everyday occurence, at least not on the consumer side, but the move by France Telecom to Viaccess and Orca’s Unified Platform is worth recording.
The move to TV Connect is logical; IPTV is no longer about just a managed service that the consumer would tell you is cable, but the total piece.
