BT announced content agreements with HBO and Universal Music Group this week for their IPTV service, BT Vision. The agreement with HBO will provide BT Vision viewers with a range of HBO’s programming, including series, mini-series, documentaries and comedy specials not shown in the UK before. The agreement with Universal Music Group will enable video-on-demand music videos on BT Vision and also on Windows-compatible listening devices via the BT Vision download store.

Belgacom has added DVR functionality, tagged "Comfort View", to their IPTV service. Belgacom TV's "Comfort View" will allow customers to pause or rewind programs they are watching. They can now also record their favorite programs very easily from their electronic TV guide.

These new features are available free of charge to all Belgacom TV customers from 16 February to the end of June. After that, "Comfort View" will be available for €1.95 per month.

According to Frost & Sullivan, the global set top box market has been experiencing significant growth, largely due to the emergence of IPTV, DVRs, and the growing popularity of HDTV. With consumers demanding increased control over the TV viewing experience, there has been a continuous rise in the use of set top box technology across the world.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, World Set Top Box Semiconductors Markets, reveals that this market earned revenues of $1.77 billion in 2006 and estimates it to reach $4.23 billion in 2010.

There are contrasting expectations between industry views on mobile TV and market forces, according to recent work undertaken by the reasearch firm Analysys. Analysys's research suggests that whilst there is growing evidence pointing to a latent consumer demand for mobile TV services, it is not clear that this will translate to the expected level of demand for broadcast mobile TV.

Legislation was introduced today in the Tennessee General Assembly that its sponsors say will provide for more consumer choice in the state's cable-TV market.

The bill, "The Competitive Cable and Video Services Act" (SB 1933 and HB 1421) provides for increased competition in the cable industry in Tennessee by granting a statewide franchise to companies willing to compete against monopoly cable-TV providers, who, over the 10-year period from 1995 to 2005, increased cable prices by 93 percent. In areas of the country where competition has been introduced, cable customers have saved an average of $22.30 per month.

Digital TX Limited has announced the soft launch of a new global business program for digital content management and distribution named "DMEX", or Digital Media Exchange.

The DMEX program aggregates content from a number of sources including live TV & radio channels, premium & independent movies, TV on-demand, music, games, editorial, interactive software and user-generated content from over 150 countries. According to the website, "The DMEX database is enormous, and currently growing at a rate of approximately 23% every month." Not only that but they'll also deliver it to you, in about every flavor of transport possible including private IP transit, satellite, fiber, FTP, Digibeta, Hard Drive, CD/DVD, or your own preferred method. That's some pretty lofty statements.

DMEX is designed to help content owners of all sizes find platform operators who would like to licence their material in different countries and on different devices, and help operators find content for their digital services. The service uniquely focuses on monetising so-called "Long Tail" archive content and also offers highly technical assistance for delivering it.

Alan Breznick writes at Light Reading that Time Warner has abandoned an 18-month trial of their broadband TV service. The service was available to 9,000 subscribers in San Diego and allowed them to watch 75 expanded basic channels via their computer. According to the article, Time Warner states that the service was utilized by less than 1% in any given day, which "...shows that viewers don't want their whole cable lineups on their PCs." Shocking! I don't even want to watch the entire cable lineup on television.

As I read this story, I couldn't help but get the feeling that Time Warner was more pleased than disappointed with the failure of this trial.

Honestly, what did Time Warner expect? If you have the option to watch the same content via your TV or computer, its clear which version you're going to watch. Time Warner perhaps missed the message that replay television, Internet-only channels, and user-generated content are leading the online TV craze.

One point left out of the article was whether users could watch the Internet TV while not on the Time Warner network.

Online video site, Veoh Networks announced its official launch today and revealed a slew of new features with it. There is no question that Veoh is It's clear that Veoh is wasting no time to catch up to its rivals and is branching out to share the wealth its publishers.

For video publishers, Veoh has expanded its syndication offerings that lets video publishers upload videos once to Veoh and automatically syndicate them to major video sites to include Facebook; the publishers' own blogs; RSS feed syndicators; iPod; and Windows Media players. Video could already be syndicated to many other large sites including YouTube, Google Video and MySpace.

Etex Telephone Cooperative, Inc., a local exchange carriers in Texas, has purchased multiple products of Occam Networks's Broadband Loop Carrier system to provide its customers with Triple Play.

Etex is planning a mixed copper and fiber triple play deployment.

Dan Rayburn at StreamingMedia.com has some good tips when shopping for a higher-end video hosting provider. The target audience for the article should be organizations that are looking to do some serious video streaming. Some of the potential providers include Akamai, Limelight Networks, and VitalStream, all of whom have developed significant content delivery networks.

If you're a smaller organization looking to put a few videos on the web, I would check out Brightcove.

Two points left out of the article that I would have mentioned (but are quite obvious):
1. Determine how much disk space you will need, is available and at what cost for expansion
2. Determine the costs associated with bandwidth usage

A new report from MRG, Inc., "IPTV Video Quality: QoS and QoE - 2006," addresses the issue of video quality by focusing on seven "domains of influence" in the video value chain, and by honing in on any one of them to expose the best practices for identifying and solving QoS (Quality of Service) problems. By using quantitative measurements for addressing QoS issues, and subjective/qualitative measurements for QoE, the report provides linkage between both dimensions of quality control.

Nokia and Siemens unveiled the proposed product portfolio plan of their future 50:50 joint venture Nokia Siemens Networks, strongly underlining their intent to create an industry leader that will meet the needs of customers in the converging telecommunications industry. The planned merger to create Nokia Siemens Networks is expected to close in the first quarter 2007.

The proposed portfolio plan covers the six future business units for Nokia Siemens Networks and includes a single, lead solution for: IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), mobile and fixed softswitches, Media Gateways (MGW), Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC), Intelligent Networks (IN), Packet Core, Mobile TV (DVB-H) and IPTV, and Converged Charging, among other solutions.

TV Guide Broadband will use Brightcove to publish and manage online video for syndication to Web site affiliates across the Internet. In addition, TV Guide Broadband's video channel on Brightcove.com offers users entertainment-focused video content, including: TV Guide's recommendations for the best shows, movies and music on TV; interviews with today's favorite stars; behind-the-scenes footage of the hottest TV shows; and highlights from TV Guide Channel's live programming such as Red Carpet interviews at the major Hollywood awards shows.

About.com has added 500 new videos to the site, significantly expanding its online video initiative. Consumers will have more choices in About.com's video content which spans several of the site's key channels including: Home, Autos, Computing & Gadgets, Food, Health and Parenting, in topics ranging from basic how-to's to more specialized themes. The expanded video offering has been created by About.com Guides and a team of carefully chosen experts.

IT Pro reports that while speaking at the Communications Management Association's annual conference, UK's Ofcom chairman, Lord Currie, said there is currently no case for regulating fibre to the home. "But the services are not yet defined, the technology is not yet stable, and so it is too early for a regulatory approach. The case for digging up the road is a rather weak one."