Espial announces its Head of Browser Products, Dilshan De Silva, and Espial TV Browser Product Marketer, Peter Hutchins, will present and moderate a panel discussion, respectively, at the 2012 Smart TV Summit June 6-7 in San Francisco. Organized by the Smart TV Insider, the Smart TV Summit helps leading industry groups including content owners, broadcasters, consumer manufacturers, and regulators explore new business models and partnerships to maximize viewer engagement across connected TV platforms.

During the forum entitled “Survive the Battlefield with a Winning Business Model as Technology and Content Collide,” scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on June 6, Hutchins will oversee a panel of industry experts as they discuss effective business models for delivering multiplatform video content.

The Open IPTV Forum is pleased to welcome four new members – Broadpeak, Digisoft.tv, 3 Screen Solutions, and Zenterio – who have taken advantage of the new OIPF tiered fee structure which reduces annual membership costs by 80 percent to make Forum participation viable for smaller enterprises. Interest in the initiative so far has shown that this supports the aspirations of many innovative app developers, technology component developers and digital entertainment businesses with a valuable contribution to shaping the future of Internet Connected TV.

Broadcast International and aioTV jointly announced their alliance from the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. The agreement calls for joint services to be offered to mutual customers and partners who deliver next-generation OTT content. aioTV’s solution was showcased at NAB in the Broadcast International booth, #SU8523.

“Our customers are moving quickly to deliver TV Anywhere content to their subscriber bases. Broadcast International’s award winning CodecSys encoding, transcoding and media publishing platform coupled with aioTV’s consumer interface and back-end services creates a compelling and quickly deployed end-to-end OTT solution,” commented Steve Jones, General Manager of the CodecSys Division.

The rise of Smart TV poses tough questions around audience engagement. TV broadcasters, such as Endemol, today compete with video content available on the internet, tablets and mobile phones. But internet-enabled TVs – or the Smart TV – take’s the battle for viewers direct to the living room.

The traditional lean-back TV experience is being shaken-up by interactive services, such as Netflix and Shazam, available on Smart TVs. With the Smart TV global market predicted to grow to $49bln, over the next three years, the battle is set to intensify.

Shazam capture viewers’ attention with more interactive experiences. David Jones, Executive VP, Shazam says: “Shazam extends programmes and adverts to the second screen – the mobile device. So, you can take a TV ad for a film and give people the option of buying a ticket, and even having a calendar-reminder placed on their phone.”

Digital Rapids announces powerful new enhancements to the Digital Rapids Stream software for the company's StreamZ, StreamZHD and Flux encoding solutions. The same new capabilities are also available as applicable in the StreamZ Live family of live streaming encoders and the Digital Rapids Transcode Manager automated, high-volume file transcoding software. Recently-released or soon-to-ship new features include enhanced Closed Caption support for adaptive bit rate streaming and support for automated advertising insertion when streaming live with Adobe Flash technologies.

Recently released new software updates add support for Closed Captions with Microsoft IIS Smooth Streaming technology and with HTTP Live Streaming through the optional iPhone/iPad encoding module. Existing Closed Captions from live and file-based sources are preserved and reformatted as necessary for delivery in the chosen output format. These expanded Closed Caption preservation capabilities enable greater accessibility to online content for hearing impaired viewers, while allowing content providers to comply with new regulatory requirements -- such as the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act in the United States -- that mandate Closed Caption support in online video.

The Open IPTV Forum has created a tiered membership fee structure to encourage the participation of small and medium sized businesses. In addition to the current membership fee, one new fee level set at €2,400 is available to businesses with annual revenues of less than €10M, while another fee level of €6000 targets medium-size companies with annual revenues of less than €100M.

This tiered fee structure supports the aspirations of many innovative app developers, technology component developers and digital entertainment businesses with a valuable and vested interest in shaping the future of Internet Connected TV.

The Open IPTV Forum and MPEG Industry Forum announce they have reached agreement to merge the assets of MPEGIF into the OIPF.

The activities of the MPEG Industry Forum have reached a natural and successful conclusion with the emergence of MPEG-4 Part 10, alternatively known as H.264, as the dominant codec in next generation video technology and the proven successor to MPEG-2.

As in 2011, when the Broadcast Mobile Convergence Forum merged into OIPF, which followed the Internet Streaming Media Alliance merging with the MPEGIF, these asset mergers represent natural consolidation in a maturing industry - the positive result of cross-industry consensus on fundamental technologies. Now, in an ever converging, cross-media, global market, the challenge going forward is to enable interoperability across increasingly complex connected consumer devices and services on a global scale. This is the mandate of the specifications developed by OIPF and the clear logic behind the consolidation of MPEGIF’s efforts and assets into the OIPF.

Exterity announces that True Colours has been appointed as a distributor for Exterity’s product portfolio in the UK.

Following the success of the StreamForce partner program throughout 2011, which includes nearly 100 partners, Exterity needed to ensure it had the right distributor in place to service customers effectively. As part of the agreement, True Colours will use its scale, expertise and knowledge of the AV market to provide channel partners with the complete range of Exterity products. This includes Exterity’s AvediaStream Encoder, Transcoder and TVgateway families, the newly launched AvediaServer 4 and the complete range of AvediaPlayer Receivers and desktop clients.

This new distribution relationship enables partners to fully benefit from the high growth IPTV market. Continuing to defy the economic pressures being faced by other industries, Exterity’s IPTV solutions will help maintain strong revenue streams for channel partners.

Ooyala announces the release of its first-ever VideoIndex report in conjunction with the launch of VideoMind, a new website dedicated to sharing insights, articles, videos and research related to online video. The VideoMind Video Index is based on Ooyala’s analysis of more than 1 billion daily analytics pings, which reflect the anonymized viewing behavior of over 100 million unique monthly users in more than 100 countries. The VideoMind Video Index will be issued quarterly and will be available on VideoMind.

Findings from the VideoMind Video Index report suggest that tablets and mobile devices are changing the way people engage with video online and device types strongly influence viewer behavior. The report found that, on average, tablet viewers watched videos nearly 30 percent longer than when watching on their desktop — and were more than twice as likely to complete an entire video.

Exterity announces a new version of its market leading AvediaPlayer receiver range. The upgrade offers an enhanced core browser that improves visual functionality for organisations who want to provide live or on-demand access to TV, video and AV content over an IP Network. The receivers will be demonstrated for the first time at xSolutions in Excel London on Exterity’s stand - C9.

This latest version of the AvediaPlayer receiver harnesses the power of the Ant Galio 3.1 browser, improving visual performance and supporting dynamic graphics, including screen fades and transitions, ideal for digital signage and for creating innovative and bespoke interfaces. The updated receiver also provides an enhanced platform for third party and bespoke development using Exterity’s Receiver Development Kit. The receivers support both SD and HD up to 1080p.

Verimatrix will be featuring Chief Technology Officer Petr Peterka as a speaker at Digital Hollywood Fall 2011, Oct.17-20 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Marina del Rey, CA. At the conference, he will share recent trends in digital rights management and revenue security for dramatically expanding multi-network, multi-screen services.

Peterka's panel, "Protecting the Product: Content Rights and Technology Solutions in Media and Entertainment: Implementation of Technology Strategies" will be held on Wed., Oct.19 from 3:50 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. During the session, he will address the entertainment and media industries ability to manage its content and control its distribution, while simultaneously making it available to an ever larger customer and device base. Specifically, he and his co-panelists will explore, from the point of view of the technology companies, the possibilities and potential of DRM in the evolving content landscape.

EXFO announces the launch of its EXpert IPTV Test Tools, the latest addition to EXFO's FTB-platform-based EXpert testing software series. Combined with the EXpert IP and EXpert VoIP applications, as well as EXFO's FTB-1 Ethernet and OTDR test modules, EXpert IPTV brings to the industry the most comprehensive and powerful triple-play solution in a portable device designed for growing FTTH deployments worldwide.

Eyepartner has released the newest version of their high definition software broadcast encoder, The HD Wave, version 2.1.0. The version incorporates RTMP broadcasting, which opens the broadcaster for use with other sites and allows users to broadcast to many platforms, including Livestream, Ustream, Justin.tv, and many more.

Built on patent-pending technology, the HD Wave v2.1.0 Broadcaster is a real-time H.264 live broadcast encoder, which delivers high definition broadcasts at the lowest bitrates possible. This flexibility enables the HD Wave to be used by all content producers, including IPTV providers, sports networks, entertainment channels, healthcare networks, and faith-based broadcasting organizations.

KIT digital announces a broad ranging partnership with LG Electronics to provide IP video platform technology, content and professional services to the company's Home Entertainment Division for its Smart TV platform.

Under the terms of the agreement, KIT digital and LG will work together to develop and deploy a joint multiscreen over-the-top video solution to provide viewers with anytime access to live and on-demand premium 2D and 3D content on LG Smart TVs globally.

ACCESS and Ocean Blue Software announce that they will work together to provide cutting edge middleware solutions supporting IP Connected Home and Connected TV.

ACCESS has extensive experience offering innovative and market leading products for the Connected TV and IP Connected Home, including its NetFront Living Connect market-leading Digital Living Network Alliance Technology Component solution and its NetFront Browser DTV Profile HbbTV Edition, which supports all major Internet-browsing standards for digital television.