The conventional types of television – satellite, cable and landline TV – are still popular, yet they are soon to be replaced by the interactive IP television. That was one of the key ideas at the international expo conference IBC 2008.
The conventional types of television – satellite, cable and landline TV – are still popular, yet they are soon to be replaced by the interactive IP television. That was one of the key ideas at the international expo conference
IBC 2008.
At the annual event that took place in Amsterdam, 1,300 companies from 120 countries worldwide presented their latest hardware and software for TV producers and broadcasters. Covering an area of over 45,000 sq.m, the expo is one of the main events of the global telecommunications market. It both presents technological innovations and discusses trends of market development.
This year’s conference hosted discussions on the direction of IP, web, mobile television, the future of traditional television, TV content management, the protection of intellectual property, and the latest TV business models.
According to the market research company Point Topic, there were 15.4 million IP TV users around the globe in the 1st quarter of 2008. That is twice the figure for the same period of 2007. Europe currently commands the largest number of IP television users, which is slightly lower in Asia and North America.
In the view of Point Topic’s chief analyst John Bosnell, such market development has to do with the increasing number of fibre-optic internet users, growing at 33 per cent year-on-year. The specialist expects the number of IP television users to be doubling or even tripling by the year until 2015.
With users growing in numbers, they are also taking an increasing interest in new IP television services and video-on-demand in particular. The IBC 2008 discussions arrived at an opinion that this service may substantially replace conventional video rentals in the long run.
Among the several Lithuanian companies that attended the expo this year, was the Penki Kontinentai group. It introduced middleware for Penki TV IP television as well as related solutions: e-voting, e-commerce, virtual video rent and cinema, an intelligent home management module, e-guide for programs, etc.
“We are glad that our solutions both earned acclaim and attracted the attention of such global companies as IBM, Motorola, and Widevine. They were immensely interested in the possibilities of intelligent home management systems, e-voting and trade over IP television. We did not notice any manufacturers of IP TV software from other countries offering similar solutions,” said Saulius Paukštys, the director of the Strategic Planning and Programming Department at Penki Kontinentai.
In his words, during the expo their Lithuanian colleagues were particularly interested in the possibility of the e-voting application. “We also met our long-standing partners, and made contact with companies from Italy, Romania, and Ukraine that are interested in the possibilities of applying our solutions on the local markets. Also, we learned about technical novelties that we are planning to present to Penki TV viewers in Lithuania shortly,” Paukštys said.
Soon the Penki TV team will be visiting an international fair for TV products in Cannes, where they expect to negotiate broadcast rights agreements for some latest films and TV shows.
For more information please visit www.ibc.org