TVover.net and Vital Training are giving away 1 free pass to the Broadcast, Interactive, Internet and Hybrid TV in Africa Conference, July 4-7, 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Enter to win by emailing us at media@tvover.net with subject line 'Broadcast, Interactive, Internet and Hybrid TV raffle', name, email, company, address and phone number by noon CST, May 23, 2011. The winner will be randomly drawn.

The “Broadcast, Interactive, Internet and Hybrid TV in Africa” Conference features International and local presentations on case studies, regulatory issues, regional initiatives, current and incumbent technologies being presented by industry experts and practitioners. The conference will also feature an impressive line up of national, regional and continental speakers from government, regulatory and the development arena covering critical issues on the continent. The conference will bring together professionals from the Broadcast, Telecommunications, Media, Regulatory and ITC sectors as we examine how the convergence of these sectors is and will continue to impact the growth in this area on the African continent.

The Schedule for the conference is as follows:

• 4th July 2011 – Pre-Conference Workshop - Evolution of TV Delivery: IPTV, Hybrid and OTT TV - Fuelled by predictions of exponential growth in the delivery of real-time and on-demand television services over IP networks and the availability of multi-play packages, IPTV is one of the most exciting topics in telecoms at present. Predictions are that IPTV subscribers will reach 46M by 2012. But even more interestingly, Hybrid TV (Broadcast and IPTV) opens up all of the 585M (2012) PayTV subscribers to interactive TV services. Many IPTV services such as Verizon FiOS and BT Vision are Hybrid TV deployments. But how can IPTV survive against OTT (Over The Top) video services such as Hulu? This 1-day IPTV Training programme explores the concepts of IPTV / Hybrid TV services and examines service offerings to analyse the business models being employed in this emerging market segment. The technology choices for the delivery of IPTV / Hybrid TV are also examined to explain the features and capabilities that can be supported and to allow comparison with other forms of entertainment service delivery.
• 5th – 6th July 2011 – 2 Day Broadcast, Interactive, Internet and Hybrid TV in Africa Conference - Africa is a unique and under-served market with respect to TV, with a population of over 1 billion people and most probably the fastest growing Digital TV market in the world for the next decade. In the previous decade Africa was the fastest growing mobile market, and recently reached 500M subscribers and no sign of slowing down. Digital TV is about to repeat this achievement as international investment, government stimulus, rising prosperity, the analogue to digital TV transition, and global demand for African resources maintain the region’s 5% annual growth. The time is now, to become part of the African TV ecosystem, or else; miss one of the last high growth markets in the world. The objectives of this event are to bring together the global TV and Telecom industries with a specific focus on the unique African market to understand how the digital and interactive TV revolution will create both growth and new opportunities. Just like mobile banking and telemedicine emerged from Africa, new and unique digital and interactive TV services will also emerge from this region given its unique situation. Without a specific focus and involvement in Africa, suppliers cannot be relevant nor harness the emergent opportunities. The conference is packed with International presentations, International and African case studies, regulatory and industry perspectives and analysis.
• 7th July 2011 – Post-Conference Workshop - Content Delivery Networks: Content delivery network (CDN) infrastructure delivers static web content, rich digital media such as Over The Top TV, and everything in between, to employees, vendors, partners, and customers worldwide. Subscription-based CDNs are attractive because they can increase a network's performance, scalability, and reliability. The CDN is a clear alternative to the costly solution of establishing multiple points of presence to address the performance problems inherent in delivering web-based content nationally, regionally or globally. The CDN is fundamental to the success of over the top TV services such as Netflix and Hulu. This course will enable attendees to describe the key methods used for Multimedia Content Delivery, specify the network requirements for successful Multimedia content delivery, identify key delivery parameters that affect quality of experience, size the CDN for quality delivery and engineer successful Content Delivery for new applications.

For further details about the conference in relation to attendance, sponsorship and exhibition opportunities please view the full conference program at http://www.vitaltraining.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=7.