Octoshape announces a strategic partnership with leading software development company Craftwork, which specializes in solutions for the Digital TV industry.

Over-the-top consumer offerings are rapidly evolving in the industry, bringing with them a host of challenges. Video quality, network capacity, profitable business models, and time to market concerns are each issues the industry faces everyday. Producing TV quality living room experiences on high-resolution devices is a clear milestone to reach in the industry.

Broadcasters can now stream HD LIVE and VOD content on Facebook using TikiLIVE, Eyepartner’s flagship HD broadcasting service that provides its users with a comprehensive set of tools for producing and managing live HD streaming content. Facebook users click on the thumbnail of a channel or VOD’s posted link that will immediately launch the player inside the Facebook page.

This free feature is included with all TikiLIVE white-label platforms. Broadcasting on Facebook is easy to do. The TikiLIVE broadcaster only has to create a channel, load a VOD, or create a Channel Manager lineup, and then paste the URL on their Facebook page. The Facebook user clicks the link which launches the embedded player. It’s that simple.

Sky announces plans to launch a new service allowing customers to watch some of its most popular content over the internet. Taking advantage of the rapid growth in broadband-connected devices, and building on Sky's experience in multi-platform TV, the new service will be an additional choice for people who don't currently subscribe to a pay TV service.

Launching in the first half of 2012, the new service will provide instant and simple access to a range of Sky content, including hundreds of films from Sky Movies. Giving consumers even more choice and flexibility, the service will be available to anyone in the UK with a broadband connection.

Espial will demonstrate its latest sophisticated and high-performance end-to-end solution at CSTB 2012 on Feb. 7-9 in Moscow. Visitors to the Espial booth will see a powerful TV Everywhere demonstration — showcasing the Espial Media Service Platform and Espial MediaBase solutions — for operators managing and increasing value-added services for subscribers.

The Espial Media Service Platform allows carriers to create, introduce, manage, and monetize a unified video experience easily across multiscreen devices. Enabling delivery of a wide range of compelling video applications from the cloud, the platform capabilities include system administration, unified authentication and authorization across devices, business model flexibility, and an application toolkit. Equipped with these features, the Espial Media Service Platform simplifies introduction of TV Everywhere services for video providers. Operators can use this solution to introduce live TV, time-shift TV services, and video-on-demand services across many consumer devices including tablets, mobile phones, desktops, and smart TVs.

Exterity announces the launch of an addition to its AvediaStream encoder family, the multi-codec e26xx and e36xx ranges, which are ideal for live streaming to mobile devices and digital signage integration. Exterity will be demonstrating the new encoders on its stand (11E72) at Integrated Systems Europe in Amsterdam from 31st January – 2nd February.

The new mid-range encoders will enable Exterity’s customers to stream video for a greater variety of uses and end user viewing platforms. Video can be streamed to computer desktops, TVs and digital signage systems using the IP network as well as over Wi-Fi and mobile networks to mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, using the Wowza Media Server. Wowza Media Server 3 is powerful multi-threaded software that delivers up to 10Gbps per-server video streaming performance for on-demand and live streaming.

Network Instruments announces that its Observer performance management platform now provides in-depth tracking and analysis of IPTV video applications. Further, features have been added to facilitate the sharing of Observer data and analysis between IT teams, provide in-depth NFS transaction monitoring, and enhance GigaStor's security investigation capabilities.

IPTV The Observer platform now fully supports the monitoring of multicast and unicast IPTV video streams in the context of overall network traffic. Teams can track critical performance metrics including Media Delivery Index, jitter, latency, and packet loss; alarm on specific IPTV errors, and they can also reconstruct and replay IPTV video transmissions.

Amino has selected Celeno to provide a range of wireless products that complement Amino’s range of award-winning IPTV STBs.

Celeno's OptimizAIR technology will help Amino offer whole home Wi-Fi networking robust enough for HD IPTV distribution, multi-room DVR and Over the Top video and Video on Demand consumption anywhere in the home.

Amino and Celeno will offer the following wireless solutions in the market place.

Opera Software and INTEK Digital announced that the two companies will work together to deliver a better web experience for connected TV viewers. Opera Software will provide licenses for the Opera Devices Software Development Tool Kit on its Android-based Hybrid STB including HbbTV. This new STB will be shipped in the first half of 2012.

The hybrid STB provides viewers with both broadcast television and Internet content on their TVs. With analogue broadcast TV to be switched off by the European Commission’s recommended date of 2012, the demand for hybrid STB is now on the rise. IMS Research recently pointed out that worldwide digital terrestrial STB shipments will reach 20.5 million in 2012. With more and more web applications available for TVs, a good Internet solution plays an important role to elevate the users’ experience.

Amino unveils the world’s first hybrid/OTT media gateway to be powered by Intel’s next generation 32nm Intel Atom SoC for CE at CES 2012 in Las Vegas this week.

The Amino Freedom Live media gateway will combine dual core processing power with a range of new enhanced transcoding and encoding capabilities with multi-screen distribution to deliver content seamlessly to TVs, smartphones and tablets around the home.

Visitors to the Intel booth at CES (#7253) will be able to watch the Amino Freedom handle a range of content sources – including broadcast, OTT, gaming and user generated content – delivered quickly and seamlessly via a newly-created user interface. Uniquely, Amino will also showcase a new feature that delivers high-definition video calling via the TV set.

MobiTV and Deutsche Telekom are partnering to develop a converged media platform that will enable the delivery of content across multiple platforms including mobile phones, tablets, PCs, Internet TVs and set-top boxes (STB). Deutsche Telekom will integrate MobiTV’s TV Everywhere solution to support the commercial release of its converged media services.

The first phase of the technology partnership began with a trial implementation of the converged multi-screen service that integrates MobiTV’s TV Everywhere solution into Deutsche Telekom existing IPTV service "Entertain." As a key component of the convergence service ecosystem, MobiTV’ s TV Everywhere solution will enable Deutsche Telekom’s IPTV subscribers to view both live and on demand video content on authorized PCs, tablets and smartphone devices.

Simple.TV released today their new DVR ($149) with high-definition TV tuner that converts broadcast television into streaming MPEG-4 for connected devices. Bringing live and recorded TV to connected devices both inside and outside the home, Simple.TV turns the iPad, Roku box, Google TV, Boxee Box, or any web browser into a full-featured DVR that is accessible anywhere. With the addition of a USB 2.0 hard drive or network-attached storage, Simple.TV users can store thousands of hours of TV shows and HDTV videos and watch them on their mobile devices or connected TVs.

At the heart of the Simple.TV DVR is the ViXS XCode 4210. With its ability to create adaptive AVC MPEG-4 video streams from a high definition video input, the XCode 4210 enables the Simple.TV DVR to convert broadcast television into highly compressed and flexible video streams that can be seamlessly accessed by the most popular consumer electronics devices, such as the iPad and Roku media streamer.