Organisers of the Cannes Film Festival are making fundamental changes to the way daily content from the event is being distributed to attending broadcast media by switching to IPTV technology from Exterity, the Building IPTV specialist. For the first time the event’s IT management has decided to transmit Festival TV in digital form to each attending journalist as well as selected broadcasters such as CanalSat, the Canal Plus channels, Orange TV, orange.fr, the Orange World mobile portal as well as on cable in the town of Cannes itself.

TVover.net and Informa Telecoms & Media are giving away 1 free pass to the 5th Annual Digital TV Central & Eastern Europe conference, June 21-22, 2011, Budapest, Hungary. Enter to win by emailing us at media@tvover.net with subject line '5th Annual Digital TV Central & Eastern Europe raffle', name, email, company, address and phone number by noon CST, May 24, 2011. The winner will be randomly drawn.

CleanSlate 2011

July 19, 2011
The Westin New York at Times Square, New York, NY, USA



Sponsored by The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), CleanSlate 2011 is a 1-day, groundbreaking and thought provoking BtoB conference designed to explore the rapidly changing world of media consumption and advertising in the NEW tablet economy.

Espial announces that RomTelecom has now surpassed 35,000 IPTV subscribers with access to on-demand TV services powered by Espial MediaBase. These include timeshift-TV and video-on-demand services. RomTelecom is the incumbent telecom provider in Romania with more than 2,7 million landlines.

• Since officially launching its IPTV service in 2010, Romtelecom has rapidly grown subscribers.
• With Espial MediaBase, Romtelecom achieves industry leading performance for its on-demand TV services using COTS hardware from HP. Espial MediaBase can deliver up to 32 Gbps from a single server.
• more after the jump

KIT digital announces that its KIT Platform, a multi-screen IP video software solution, will power the new China United Television project.

CUTV is a new media platform developed by a consortium of 19 leading television stations and newspapers throughout the People's Republic of China, led by the Shenzhen Media Group. The new platform was unveiled on May 13 at the China International Cultural Industries Fair in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

The KIT Platform provides CUTV with a scalable platform that hundreds of provincial and municipal TV stations across China can join over time. With just one click, viewers can watch live TV programs, video-on-demand or catch-up video on computers and popular mobile devices including Apple i-devices and Android handsets.

ActiveVideo Networks announced that an order has been issued invalidating asserted claims of two key Verizon Communications patents in the year-long litigation initially filed by ActiveVideo in May, 2010.

In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the Honorable Raymond A. Jackson invalidated all asserted claims of the two patents: United States Patent No. 5,682,325, which was included in a suit against ActiveVideo Networks, and United States Patent No. 6,381,748, which was included in suits against both ActiveVideo Networks and Cablevision Systems Corporation.

"The decision is important to ActiveVideo and to our customers," said Jeff Miller, president and CEO of ActiveVideo Networks. "Obviously we're pleased at the elimination of Verizon's claims against our company, but it is equally important that the ruling removes claims by Verizon against our customer, Cablevision."

AT&T continues to expand the ways U-verse TV customers can control and watch their TV shows. AT&T today announced the launch of new AT&T U-verse TV Total Home DVR features which give U-verse customers the ability to pause and rewind live TV on any U-verse receiver in the home.

Most DVRs today control only the TV they're connected to, and other multi-room DVRs only allow you to record and play back shows on other TVs. However, with AT&T U-verse Total Home DVR's latest enhancements, customers can control, record and play back shows on non-DVR TVs and pause or rewind live TV shows from any room in their home, even when the DVR is connected to a different TV. The new features are currently available in Mobile, Ala., and Grand Rapids, Mich., and are rolling out on a market-by-market basis to all U-verse TV customers over the next few months.

Market research firm Infonetics Research released excerpts from its Set-Top Box Features and Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey, which captures service providers' requirements for IP-based set-top boxes to deliver video services.

ANALYST NOTE

"Although low-cost set-top boxes designed to deliver basic video services over broadband infrastructure were the hallmark of IPTV services, strong competition and the need to increase ARPU have led to significant changes in STB design over the years. The STB remains the most visible point of interaction between subscribers and IPTV providers and is a key component to an operator's success. In our recent STB survey, service providers rated STB features most important to them, which include support for HDMI inputs for 1080p picture quality, integrated hard drive for PVR support, USB inputs for external memory, the use of SoCs in the design, and environmentally friendly features," notes Teresa Mastrangelo, directing analyst for video at Infonetics Research.

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.

Bundled services provision has become one of the most successful ways to prevent customers from churning in telecoms world in Central and Eastern Europe. One of their main components is often IPTV. Although the IPTV market is in the early stage of development, changes in media consumption are likely to ensure the market stable growth.

New study from Frost & Sullivan entitled: "Analysis of the IPTV Markets in Central and Eastern Europe", finds that the market earned revenues of €90 million in 2010 and estimates this to reach €270 million in 2017.

Pace is pleased to announce that research company, IHS Screen Digest, has confirmed Pace as global leader in the set-top box market. Findings released by industry analysts IHS Screen Digest yesterday, reveal that Pace shipped more set-top boxes in 2010 than any other set-top box developer.

IHS Screen Digest figures show that a major increase in its set-top box sales propelled Pace to number one in the global market in 2010, surpassing previous leader Motorola.

Pace has delivered incredible development over the past three years, securing a leadership position by creating and delivering set-top box technology - particularly HD, PVR and hybrid devices - for over 160 of the world's payTV operators. No other set-top box developer has such a broad product and broadcast platform expertise.

At the upcoming BroadcastAsia2011 International Conference this June, 80 of the world’s leading broadcast professionals will converge and lead discussions on seven broad topics shaping the future of television. Taking place at Suntec Singapore from 21 – 24 June, the four-day event will see industry players sharing their in-depth analysis and predictions around the latest business and technology developments, with a focus on Hybrid and 3D TV in particular.

“Just as technological advancements and changing end-user preferences are leading to paradigm shifts in the way media is consumed, we have also worked to continually evolve the focus BroadcastAsia2011 International Conference. With a laser focus on convening experts with a strong point of view on the most relevant topics to industry professionals today, we are confident that delegates will gain invaluable knowledge to advance their personal and organisation’s success in a competitive broadcast industry,” said Lindy Wee, Director of PR and Conferences from show organiser, Singapore Exhibition Services.

Mariner announces they are teaming with Border States Electric to jointly market xVu, Mariner’s award winning service quality monitoring solution. The strategic partnership will expand xVu’s market penetration throughout the United States and provide BSE with an industry leading monitoring solution product.

TR-069 provides a standard for remote management of end-user devices. By leveraging this technical standard, xVu is able to proactively monitor the performance of IPTV set top boxes incorporating TR-069.

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Chinese IPTV Market Analysis" report to their offering.

IPTV has turned into an increasingly well-liked service in China, either as a standalone service or, more in general, as part of a bundled offer. IPTV started to take off in the country, when network upgrades in both the cable and DSL sectors permitted high-bandwidth applications to arrive at a good proportion of the population, and as providers started to provide various channels to attract and retain customer interest.

YouTube is doubling the size of its online video store in an expansion that will make more movies available for Internet streaming at the same time they're released on DVD.

The move announced Monday escalates the competition in a still-developing market that already includes some of technology's most powerful companies.

YouTube is hoping to lure business away from Apple Inc.'s iTunes store and Amazon.com Inc.'s website, which also rent online video on a pay-per-view business. All three services are trying to undercut Netflix Inc., whose subscription video service has added more than 13 million customers during the past two years to underscore the growing popularity of watching movies over high-speed Internet connections instead of on DVDs.