In the mid-September this year, delegation of a group of companies “Penki kontinentai” visited an international IBC 2014 Exhibition and Conference dedicated to the electronic media and entertainment industry that took place in Amsterdam. The experts of the group learned more about new products in the field of IP Television (IPTV), video recording and other hardware, which would help to improve the quality of TV, live streaming and other services.

According to Stanislav Venckievič, IPTV Product Manager at “Penki kontinentai”, several trends can be distinguished in the global IPTV market: increasing popularity of TV broadcasts on different devices (Content Everywhere), growing software versatility and flexibility, and increasing use of the capabilities of cloud technology.

The slogan of the last year’s exhibition “Content Everywhere” sounded even louder this year. “Significant growth of the mobile device market encouraged more and more IPTV developers to offer solutions that enable users to watch TV not only on a TV screen. Similar solutions are already available in Lithuania; having purchased specialized software, you will be able to offer the viewers TV broadcasts not only on TV sets or computers, but also on tablet PCs or smart phones”, explained S. Venckievič.

The specialist who visited the exhibition claims to have noticed that the global IPTV market places more and more focus on software versatility and flexibility. “To satisfy individual needs of the operators, IPTV modular platforms are being developed. This gives an opportunity to purchase only those features that are most needed and in greatest demand, and to change the selection of these features depending on the circumstances at hand. Yet another objective is to make IPTV software as versatile as possible, so that it can be installed and used on devices of different manufacturers, while making it harder for hardware manufacturers to compete with each other”, said S. Venckievič.

Transferring TV functionalities to the solutions based on cloud technology is yet another trend observed in the IPTV market. The growing amount of retained data has lead to a proposal to transfer IPTV software to a cloud. This possibility seems highly attractive to minor TV operators, because it enables them to make do without costly hardware, its upgrades and maintenance.

Borisas Binevičius, TV Studio Manager at “Penki kontinentai”, who took a closer look at the filming and live streaming equipment presented at the exhibition, claims that the live streaming of IBC 2014 itself best reflected the global innovations. “A great number of IBC TV video projectors and TV screens were distributed throughout the exhibition center, offering the possibility to watch live streaming of speeches, presentations, seminars and other events. The screens had second view windows displaying additional information during the live streaming. Viewers could read the important information from several news tickers at the bottom of the screens. This is an excellent example of the interactivity of television, which confirms that viewers no longer find the video alone sufficient”, said B. Binevičius. 

This year’s IBC Exhibition brought together more than 55 thousand participants from 170 countries under a single roof. 280 speakers gave presentations on the current topics. IBC 2015 is to be held in Amsterdam on 10–15 September, next year.

For more information about the exhibition, visit www.ibc.org.

For more information about the IBC 2014, see “IT+” programs of September and October

More about IBC Exhibitions