Beginning today, PR tech blogger, Alan Weinkrantz, is making daily posts at his blog, http://www.3screens.net, documenting his experience and comments in having HD (High Definition) broadcast television service from AT&T (NYSE:T) being installed and deployed at his home in San Antonio, Texas.

Weinkrantz was an early trial user of the AT&T U-verse service offering and began documenting his experiences and observations starting in May of this year when he was one of the first users of the U-verse IPTV service offering.

PCCW announced that now TV has won the exclusive Hong Kong rights to broadcast Europe's most important footballing event - UEFA EURO 2008.

This major football tournament will take place in June 2008 in Austria and Switzerland, with sixteen prominent European national teams participating in 31 matches. PCCW will broadcast the exciting UEFA EURO 2008 matches through multiple platforms. PCCW has exclusive television broadcasting and VOD (Video-on-demand) rights, internet simulcast and mobile video rights.

There's no doubt that the right to broadcast the NFL Network is an advantage for any television provider. Personally, it's hard to recall the number of people who have credited their switch to a satellite network due to the NFL package.

So why aren't Time Warner and Comcast, two of the largest cable companies in the U.S., going deep for the rights to broadcast the NFL Network? According to Time Warner and other cable operators, the monthly fees the NFL Network would charge are too high.

Really? Apparently they aren't too high for Verizon and their FiOS IPTV service. Verizon released a press release yesterday rubbing in the fact that they've negotiated rights to offer the NFL Network, which also has rights to broadcast the Texas Bowl this year.

AT&T Inc. and TotalVid announced a distribution agreement to deliver TotalVid's special-interest video content as part of the AT&T U-verse TV video-on-demand programming lineup. The deal makes AT&T U-verse TV the first service to bring TotalVid's video library to television VOD programming.

Alcatel-Lucent (see their newly branded logo to right) has been selected by Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) for its IPTV trial, which began in October 2006. Based on a combination of Alcatel-Lucent's services integration solution and Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software platform, the project will include broadcast TV and video on demand, with content featuring HD-quality picture resolution.

Dreampark, a provider of IPTV Middleware in the European market, together with its project collaborators, was awarded the Healthcare IT Prize for "Best Idea." The prize was presented at the Annual General Meeting and national conference of the Swedish Society of Medicine. In collaboration with other participants in the project, Dreampark has developed an IPTV solution that enables patients to communicate with their local care center via the "Nurse (Syster) Gudrun" interactive television channel.

The idea behind the solution is to free patients from the need to travel to the care center for a personal consultation. Via an IPTV set top box equipped with a web camera, people receiving care can see both themselves and the person to whom they are talking. Care center personnel can also see the patient and control and zoom in with the camera to get an impression of the patient's condition.

Now that's our idea of an innovative use for IPTV.

Richmond, Virginia has launched a lawsuit against Cavalier Telephone for providing IPTV service without a franchise agreement. Cavalier Telephone has been offering their new IPTV service since June and it goes without saying that city is not happy that Cavalier has been avoiding the taxes and associated fees.

According to an article in the Richmond Times Dispatch, the mayor of Richmond informed Cavalier on Oct. 27th that they must obtain a franchise agreement to offer television service. If this is accurate, my question is why did Richmond wait five months before communicating or putting the heat on Cavalier? Clearly, they were aware prior to June that Cavalier was launching a television service.

Richmond officials are in talks with Cavalier but that Cavalier must halt their service until an agreement is reached. The city is also asking that Cavalier retro-pays for all IPTV services offered dating back to the launch.

Annual U.S. revenues from Internet video services – spanning user-generated content to television shows and movies – will exceed $7 billion by 2010, according to Parks Associates' Internet Video: Direct-to-Consumer Services. The report also notes this growth will accompany an ongoing shift toward greater parity between the revenue sources. In 2007, approximately 85% of revenue will be from advertisements attached to user-generated content and television and news streams. By 2010, services for renting and downloading TV shows and movies will account for nearly 40% of total revenues.

Research and Markets has announced the addition of 2006 Australia Digital Media, Convergence, Triple Play and IPTV Report to their offering.

Annual report on the Digital Media, Convergence, Triple Play and IPTV market in Australia includes: in-depth analyses of the market and the various trends and developments, market overview and statistics for the Digital TV market, Broadband TV, Triple Play business models, convergence, media centres for the digital home, content and media markets, personal/digital video recorders (PVR/DVR), datacasting and Set Top Boxes.

By Alexander Cameron, Managing Director, Digital TX Ltd.

Even 10 seconds of the ridiculously over-valued X-Factor and American Idol make me want to vomit. They are so frighteningly mediocre, vacuous and repetitive that I invariably find myself staring into a worrying abyss of creative bankruptcy that's pumped into millions of people's homes every night through their TV screen. On the side of the road gossip magazines are flourishing, all with the same look, formula and material.

Recently when I was mid-rant, complaining about how Simon Cowell, the man who gave us the TeleTubbies single, was able to accurately judge talent at a karaoke popularity contest on its artistic merit, I screamed out that what I wanted was another Jimi Hendrix. That guy blew everyone away and was a revolution. People's hair stood on end when they saw him play on their black and white TVs. Nobody had seen anything like it, even having seen Elvis. The Sex Pistols followed.

I have a confession to make. BT Vision doesn't excite me. Neither do any of the fancy new IPTV services that are rolling out all over the world. I'm thoroughly underwhelmed, and I'm sure I'm not supposed to be feeling that way, working in the IPTV industry. But honesty is usually more important than diplomacy from an advocate. I hope more than anything that they take off as it will be a springboard to more interesting ideas.

ZIM Corporation, a mobile entertainment and Internet TV service provider, today announced it has signed an agreement with G4techTV Canada for content broadcasting on Internet TV. Through ZIM's Internet TV (IPTV) network called "ZIMTV", consumers will now be able to watch past and upcoming episodes of the popular technology call-in show "Call for Help, with tech guru Leo Laporte".

Our apologies for the recent lack of articles. Unfortunately, an ice storm hit our office here in Missouri and we were without power for 5 days. Needless to say, we are back in business.

Here's a few articles to check out:
AT&T says won't need fiber-to-the-home network
IPTV: Risky now, but lucrative in the long term
Analysts give verdicts on BT's Vision

CodeBaby, a global leader in interactive virtual agent solutions, and Accedo Broadband, a leading aggregator of TV-centric interactive applications, today announced a partner agreement that will see Accedo Broadband marketing CodeBaby's on-device Interactive Customer Care solution to IPTV operators globally.

Verizon introduced FiOS TV in dozens of communities in the greater Philadelphia area, the first such rollout in the tri-state area. In southeastern Pennsylvania, Verizon FiOS TV is available now to 80,000 households in parts of 35 communities in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties. The company expects that number to increase to 100,000 households by the end of the year.

In Delaware, Verizon plans to offer FiOS TV to 13,000 households in the southern New Castle County area by the end of the year.

Research and Markets has announced the addition of "Television 2.0: A Comprehensive Analysis of Emerging IP-Based Video Services" to their offering. This report delivers a comprehensive overview and analysis of the biggest trend to hit television since the advent of the medium: IP-based video delivery. "Television 2.0: A Comprehensive Analysis of Emerging IP-Based Video Services" provides a detailed look into the latest developments changing the face of television, with an examination of the rise of video content on the web, evolving business models of traditional media companies and the upsurge in new and diverse sources of video content.