KT has selected a TANDBERG Television IPTV head end to support the continued growth of its Mega TV IPTV service. Mega TV has over 700,000 subscribers and provides interactive and pay per view services, including movies on-demand. KT will use TANDBERG Television’s market leading EN8090 HD MPEG-4 AVC and EN8030 SD MPEG-4 AVC encoders to expand its linear broadcast TV services.

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global and China Digital STB Market Report, 2008" report to their offering. This report outlined the global and China STB industry focus on technologies and application markets, as well as the chip manufacturers, CA manufacturers, middleware manufacturers, ODM and STB manufacturers.

Along with the fast deployment of Digital TV, the sales of STB also achieved a rapid growth. Standard-definition STBs with single receiving function cannot meet the demand as the constant development of various digital broadcasting technologies, such as IPTV, bi-directional wired DTV, ground DTV, and satellite TV. The sales of STB with multiple receiving modes and high-definition STB are growing rapidly.

Parks Associates announces the preliminary agenda for CONNECTIONS Europe Summit, taking place March 31, 2009, in Nice, France. This executive event focuses on the roles of service and technology providers, media companies, and manufacturers in creating new entertainment, communications, and lifestyle applications for consumers.

TV-Desi and JumpTV launch a new IPTV service delivering the largest selection of live South Asian television content to viewers in the United States and Canada. TV-Desi is the first IPTV service dedicated to the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in North America delivering a television viewing experience. This subscription-based service provides live content in superior video quality using a broadband Internet connection and unique set top box technology.

Although the US is still by far the largest market for DVRs, with nearly 12 million units shipped in 2007, uptake in Europe is gaining momentum. IMS Research estimates that in 2007, the DVR market in Europe grew by 87%, reaching 6 million units shipped in 2007. Asia Pacific accounted for an estimated 1.4 million units in 2007 and is forecast to see the strongest compounded annual growth over the next five years.

As more content becomes available for free online, carriers are increasingly investing in Video On Demand and time-shifting services. This trend towards time-shifted television viewing has helped produce a shift from schedule-based TV broadcasting to on-demand distribution. Time-shifting has created a new opportunity for operators to acquire and retain new customers, and has enabled several applications such as “catch up TV,” “pause live TV,” and nPVR (network personal video recording) capabilities

MySpace announces that MySpace Mobile users across the globe will now be able to enjoy MySpace video content from their video enabled mobile devices. The first social portal to launch video streaming for mobile, MySpace’s beta mobile video initiative is committed to ensuring the best user experience by providing the highest quality video for mobile viewing. Users will now be able to view videos they’ve uploaded or have marked as a favorite.

The MySpace Mobile site receives approximately three billion worldwide page views per month from more than 10 million monthly unique users. Combining the popularity of the MySpace mobile site with its vast online video library creates a compelling and dynamic mobile environment.

BT Vision customers can now enjoy, on demand, Twentieth Century Fox’s new release hit movies including The Happening, Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears A Who and Shine A Light. In addition, the deal also brings to BT Vision a vast selection of Fox catalogue titles spanning Alien Resurrection, The Beach and Die Hard to Fantastic Four, I,Robot and Ice Age.

All Twentieth Century Fox movies on BT Vision will be available on a pay-per-view basis without the need for an up-front or mandatory subscription, so customers only pay for what they want to watch.

Sling Media announces the public launch of Sling.com, an online video entertainment destination. Users can go to Sling.com to watch a huge selection of clips, TV shows, films, news and sports in high quality, for free, anytime they want. This includes video programming from over 90 content providers spanning 150 content brands. "Sling.com is a wonderful combination of premium video content, television viewing, robust editorial and consumer-friendly access and socialization features," said Jason Hirschhorn, President, Sling Media Entertainment Group. "Users will have a blast watching great clips, full length shows and movies while customizing the viewing experience to their liking."

The National Hockey League has expanded its network services commitment with Level 3 to include content storage, caching and downloading, and HD video streaming. These services complement the existing high-speed IP and video broadcast services already provided by Level 3.

Level 3's services provide a key component of the technology solution to enable the NHL to offer live and on-demand access to hockey games, highlight reels and other online video content. Online video will be available in HD, optimized for video quality and download speed, to provide a premium end-user experience at http://www.NHL.com.

Verimatrix is expanding its presence in Asia-Pacific with the opening of its new regional headquarters in Singapore. The new office forms the hub of Verimatrix's regional footprint, which is complemented with a series of additions to its Asia-Pacific sales and support team based throughout the region. Verimatrix addresses the content security needs of the growing IPTV operators in the region, and has extended its focus to the needs of broadcast and cable pay-TV providers as they undergo the conversion to digital format.

Asia-Pacific accounted for about a third of the global IPTV subscriber base last year with over four million IPTV subscribers (as of end-2007). With only eight Asia-Pacific nations presently having commercial IPTV services and many more service providers in trials for expected deployments from 2009 onwards, the IPTV revolution is expected to hit Asia. Even so, operators are still grappling with finding a profitable business model for IPTV offerings.