IBC 2004 BECOMES NEW VENUE FOR TELCO IP VIDEO INNOVATION

For a trade show that has spent the better part of the past three decades serving as a more relaxed, European version of the rat-race-like National Association of Broadcasters convention, this week's International Broadcasting Convention 2004 at the RAI Convention Centre in Amsterdam, Netherlands, will have a decidedly telco feel to it.

Aside from hosting a broadband conference track aimed at non-cable and satellite providers, the show's exhibit floor will be filled with vendors targeting telcos trying to launch video services via their broadband networks.

Among the more aggressive technology advancements at the event will be Kasenna's unveiling of a new network-based personal video recorder (PVR) system that looks something like TiVo on steroids. The TimelessTV system, which runs on Kasenna's video servers along with middleware, lets operators offer a net-PVR system that gives users full control over their video streams and the same function as traditional PVRs such as TiVo.

However, the system also will allow carriers to record and store every one of their channels for days at a time, letting users view programs that were previously broadcast. Just how much content a provider wants to store would be a factor of how much storage they're willing to buy and maintain.

According to Mark Gray, president and CEO of Kasenna, the company's product introduction is designed to meet the needs of IP video providers around the world that want to create more choices for managing and accessing content. Indeed, with IP-based networks, it's not hard to make the conceptual jump from offering traditional broadcast and cable TV channels on demand over IP to serving up Internet-based video content on the same network.

“The digital home has traditionally been thought of as either bringing streams to the PC or to the TV,” Gray said. “To us, it has to be the same.”

That unified approach will be a big part of several other demonstrations at the IBC event. OpenTV and Ucentric will use the event to show whole home entertainment offerings including OpenTV's interactive TV, Ucentric's Whole Home DVR, Whole Home Music and Whole Home Photo applications.

Entone Technologies will be on the floor with Tandberg and N2 demonstrating its new video-on-demand system. Entone, which is beginning to target incumbent U.S. telcos, is pushing the openness of its system as a differentiator. The ability to offer multiple-choice content options over telco networks, which traditionally have less bandwidth than cable TV networks, appears to be a theme for vendors coming to IBC.

SkyStream Networks is another company building on that theme. The vendor will be exhibiting in Amsterdam with its newest partner, Alcatel. The two companies announced last week that they will jointly market a combination of SkyStream's Mediaplex-20 video headend and Alcatel's Open Media Suite to network operators. Though not specifically aimed at serving up on-demand content, the two companies have several other partnerships that could be leveraged to open up several content options for telco video providers. SkyStream, for instance, has a technology alliance with Kasenna, which is in partnership with access vendors Calix and Catena.

“The number of cable operators has actually dropped, but on the consumption side, a lot has happened around choice,” said Jim Olson, president and CEO of Skystream. “Giving people freedom to choose is happening more than ever and the unifying element here is IP.”

Also driving much of the effort is a recognition that PVRs have opened users' eyes to a new model of television. A reported deal between TiVo and Netflix that will allow users to download movies from the Netflix library to TiVo machines would give vendors even more incentive to come up with creative ways to use IP networks.

“I think we're going to see a tremendous opportunity for accessing vast libraries of content that are out there, and we'll be very much willing to pay for it,” said Sal D'Auria, president and CEO of Tut Systems. That company also announced earlier this month that Hong Kong's PCCW has purchased additional encoding and content processing equipment to expand the channel lineup of its existing Tut digital headend system.

PCCW, which is among the largest providers of IP-based video service with 316,000 subscribers, offers users channels on an è la carte basis. Users of the Broadband TV service select and pay for only the channels they want among a list of more than 50.

“The people at PCCW really listened to their customers and understood the reality of the Hong Kong marketplace,” D'Auria said. “They have an interesting cultural sub mix and they came up with an approach that allows people to choose the type of content that fits their household best. This is the tip of the iceberg. Our vision is that there will be some time in the future when we'll all be thinking of this as any content over any network at any time.”

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For additional coverage of IBC 2004 and the Broadband World Forum, go to the Access and Broadband department pages of our Web site.
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