NOW TV is now available on Roku streaming players. NOW TV offers instant access to Sky Movies – the UK’s most popular subscription movies service – with no contract, set-up costs or installation. New customers can take advantage of a free 30 day trial of the service, plus also benefit from a three-month introductory offer of £8.99 a month.

Roku users will, from today, be able to find NOW TV within the Roku Channel Store and once registered for NOW TV online will be able to access the movies they choose instantly. Once they have connected their Roku box to their TV and home WiFi network, NOW TV customers will be able to watch their favourite movies on their main TV, as well as continue to watch them out and about through their smartphone, tablet or laptop. NOW TV is already available on PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, selected Android smartphones, and other connected devices.

The Digital Development Group foresees dynamic growth in its industry. “On Nov. 21st we launched our first channel. We are excited to announce 5 more channels coming before year-end. On the heels of those developments we believe it is important to continue to define our mission.”

DigiDev is targeting the revolutionary “OTT” technology arena. “OTT” or Over The Top devices piggyback on existing network services in consumers’ homes or offices; pull content from the Internet and deliver it to their TV or Internet enabled device. DigiDev uses OTT technology to deliver programming to billions of desktops, mobile and smart/Internet enabled TV devices around the world.

“The market for digital distribution to 'smart' (Internet enabled) devices (smart-TV, tablet, smart-phones) continues to grow at an astonishing rate,” states Martin W. Greenwald, Chairman and CEO of DigiDev. “AppleTV, GoogleTV, and Roku sales this Holiday season are running considerably ahead of last year’s tally.”

Several factors were key in this northeastern Kansas telephone company's decision to choose APMAX IPTV middleware from Innovative Systems. However, according to Tri-County Telephone Association's General Manager, Dale Jones, putting the customer experience first above everything else was their main goal in making the decision.

Jones stated, "The capabilities that the Innovative solution gives us to reach out and touch the customer from our back office to help them over the phone is critical in the customer experience. Without having to send out a service technician, which takes time and costs more, we are helping our customers in a timely manner and reducing our own operating costs."

Jones likes the fact that Innovative Systems is continually growing their products with new features to help the rural telco market stay on top of a very competitive market. Jones advises other telcos to look to companies that are thinking outside the box especially when it comes to video. Jones says, "Today's business is nothing like it was in the past, if you are going to attract and retain video customers you have to give them the technology that is going to drive that experience."

MRG is excited to release its highly comprehensive annual study IPTV Market Leader Report by Product and Region — Fall 2012.

MRG’s IPTV Market Leader Reports identify which IPTV systems and software companies are leading each of the six IPTV market segments: access systems, video headend systems, video-on-demand server software, set-top boxes, middleware, and content protection/digital rights management. The data is further segmented by geographic region as follows: North America, Latin America/Caribbean, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East/Africa.

“IPTV is continuing its rapid growth worldwide but some of the more exciting opportunities are only just beginning in the Middle East/Africa and Latin America/Caribbean regions,” said Jose Alvear, Senior Research Analyst at MRG. “While the growth in the number of new IPTV service providers has been slowing down because telcos around the world have already deployed IPTV services for a number of years, there are still plenty of new opportunities available to vendors in emerging markets. In addition, vendors are now supplying multi-screen, content delivery and OTT services, as the global pay-TV industry continues to evolve into new screens and devices.”

Envivio announces that Atyaf Telecommunications and Infrastructure International has selected Envivio Muse software-based encoding solutions to power its live and on-demand TV Everywhere services. Atyaf is a leading IPTV service provider for the Middle East region, based in Bahrain.

The recently launched over-the-top multi-screen service delivers more than 130 channels in multiple adaptive bit-rate profiles for delivery to connected TV sets, PCs, Android and Apple iOS devices. In the new multi-screen headend, Atyaf is using Envivio Muse Live and Muse On-Demand on the Envivio 4Caster appliances, as well as Envivio 4Manager for headend control and monitoring.

Netgem has joined the Wireless Broadband Alliance in October 2012. Founded in 2003, one of the aims of the WBA is to enable seamless data Offload for operators. The WBA and its industry leading members are dedicated to delivering high quality user experiences through technology innovation, interoperability and robust security.

Netgem strengthens its commitment to the WBA by announcing the launch of QUATTUOR, the first LTE mobile router with embedded Wi-Fi Offload. Netgem's next generation mobile router will be available in 2013 and has been developed for mobile operators that wish to differentiate their service offering and to maintain full control over their wireless connectivity manager. QUATTUOR will automatically choose the best available connection from 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi networks, placing the device firmly in line with the WBA's objectives. Based on a fully customised platform, QUATTUOR is designed to improve operators' data service profitability.

Qatar Telecom has selected Mariner's IP video service oriented monitoring solution, Mariner xVu. The latest version of Mariner xVu is specifically designed for integration with IPTV probes. Qtel will use Mariner xVu for the Mozaic TV service, making this the first Mariner xVu deployment in the Middle East.

Alfalak Electronic Equipment & Supplies Co., partnered with Mariner to deploy xVu. Through easy integration with network probes — at the head-end and/or individual network element — Mariner xVu offers Qtel additional insights into the IPTV network by extending video service monitoring reach to each subscriber, allowing the operator to maintain the highest possible video quality while simultaneously reducing operating expenses. Statistics collected by external data sources such as probes are compiled and configured as status indicators on Mariner NetworkVu to enable a deeper understanding of IPTV traffic and customer experience issues. The probe enhancement is now a configurable option of NetworkVu, rather than a custom development, and was created based on service provider requests for integration with external data sources.

Dune HD announces a new partnership with Qarva designed to enhance the IPTV experience. The integration of Qarva’s FastSwitch technology into Dune HD’s digital media players and set-top boxes will give IPTV subscribers improved interaction and higher quality through faster channel changing and the elimination of packet loss. The joint solution will be demonstrated by Dune HD on stand 17 at TV Connect MENA 2012.

An enhanced, high quality experience is proven to increase subscriber loyalty and is central to operators reducing churn and growing revenues. FastSwitch improves the viewing experience by dramatically reducing the lag associated with controlling IPTV services, bringing response times down from 5 seconds to less than half a second - in line with the speeds achieved through traditional TV broadcast channels. Through its integral Packet Loss Recovery technology, FastSwitch also eliminates IPTV issues such as picture freezing and blocking, delivering an improved viewing performance.

Octoshape announced a partnership with INVISO to deliver Internet TV contribution services throughout Latin America.

"At INVISO, we seek the most innovative and high quality products to serve our customers through the brands we represent,” said Jose Luis Reyes, Vice President for Sales and Operations, INVISO. “In the case of Octoshape, we found a company and a product that bring these qualities to our supply chain, sales and service.”

Octoshape offers an innovative cloud-based solution that provides instant infrastructure for the distribution of both linear and video on demand content. The Octoshape Infinite Uplink service provides point-to-point distribution of TV signals over the Internet for source signal acquisition to traditional IPTV and cable headends as an alternative to traditional methods like satellite and video fiber.

Operators looking to deploy IPTV and Video on Demand will benefit from faster, lower-risk implementations that enable them to offer more services to users through a major partnership between Dune HD and Beenius announced today at TelcoTV2012. This will be demonstrated on the Beenius booth (number 105) at TelcoTV.

As part of the partnership, Dune HD’s advanced set-top boxes have been certified by Beenius and are now integrated with Beenius’ Beesmart open, flexible, and feature-rich interactive TV middleware platform. Together this provides an adaptable, integrated and best of breed solution to operators and system integrators, backed by the engineering expertise of both partners.

TelcoTV released a preview of results from the annual Heavy Reading State of the Video Consumer Survey. Complete findings from the 2012 survey will be presented at the TelcoTV Conference and Expo taking place October 24 to 26, 2012 at the Las Vegas Hotel, Nevada. Aditya Kishore, Senior Analyst, Heavy Reading will present the findings during his keynote address on Wednesday, October 24, 2012.

Heavy Reading’s highly anticipated State of the Video Consumer Survey, now in its fifth year, is an annual report that reveals consumer opinions about video consumption across device platforms, provider perceptions and satisfaction levels with video services. In years past, it has proven to be a valuable planning tool for any organization serving the video distribution marketplace.