Exterity was selected to equip Spiegel’s new production facility in Hamburg with their market leading IP-based TV and video distribution technology. Installed by German specialist Perfect Media Solutions, the IPTV solution supplies a combination of 47 SD and HD TV channels simultaneously to 600 members of staff throughout the new facility. All of this was achieve by PMS in less than 1 week.

The channels distributed are a mixture of live broadcast TV captured using an Exterity DVB-S2 TVgateway (taking channels from Astra and Hotbird) and in-house TV channels using HD-SDI encoders from the SpiegleTV playout/post-production centres and via WAN from outside broadcast studios. All the channels can be view at staff computers using AvediaPlayer Desktop or on screens attached to the 160 AvediaPlayer receivers situated throughout the building.

BroadcastAsia2012 International Conference returns with an impressive line-up of over 80 reputed industry speakers to deliberate on the most critical issues facing broadcasters today. Running from 19th to 22nd June 2012 at the Suntec Convention Centre, the conference agenda foretells the ‘reinvention’ of the broadcast industry as content is re-purposed towards viewers who have become increasingly more mobile and who view content on various devices. Broadcasters are forced to reckon with this fact and gear up to cater to this growing trend.

With this in mind, the BroadcastAsia2012 International Conference will address the multitude of challenges and opportunities broadcasters face today. Speakers representing the various members of the broadcast ecosystem will touch on many inflection points that are occurring as the industry grapples with shifting content as well as moves towards digitisation in terrestrial broadcasting.

Digital Rapids announces that sports media specialist PERFORM has deployed over 150 StreamZ Live encoders and the Digital Rapids Broadcast Manager multi-encoder automation software to power live streaming of thousands of premium sports events to viewers on an expanding range of devices and platforms.

The StreamZ Live encoders are distributed across PERFORM facilities in the UK, Singapore, Australia, Korea, Abu Dhabi, Sweden, Doha and Italy. Each encoder generates 25 output profiles per input source for target viewing platforms including Apple iOS devices, Android-based devices and desktops. Streams are delivered across Akamai's Intelligent Platform and Mirror Image Internet's Dynamic Delivery Network. HTTP Live Streaming and Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming technologies are used for adaptive bit rate HD and mobile delivery, along with the RTMP protocol for low-latency streaming with Adobe Flash. The enterprise-class Broadcast Manager software is critical to PERFORM's operations, enabling them to efficiently manage and automate the large-scale deployment.

IP&TV World Forum 2012 has been hailed a success, with more than 7,163 visitors filling the halls at London’s Olympia last week. The event, which has been rebranded to TV Connect for 2013, saw a ten per cent increase on last year’s attendee numbers and fuelled the debate on the converging TV market, further strengthening its position as the global platform for this dynamic market.

With over 300 speakers at the show, delegates and attendees had the opportunity to listen to huge industry players, including Jesse Redniss, Vice President of Digital Strategy and Development at NBC Universal; Shawn Layden, Chief Operating Officer at Sony Network Entertainment; and Kristin Frank, General Manager of Digital Media at MTV, who gave the opening keynote speech on day one (keynotes are viewable on the event website).

General Manager of Twitter UK Tony Wang also delivered a keynote at the show, which focussed on the need for content sharing, as did Omid Ashtari, Business Development Director at foursquare, who provided insight on how brands can engage with their consumers.

The Mercedes-Benz Arena, home of VfB Stuttgart, is currently turning into one of the most modern and imposing sports facilities in Germany, with space for 60,000 spectators. As part of its modernisation, VfB Stuttgart is now using a combination of IPTV and digital signage as a flexible information system.

Over 105 LCD flatscreens have been installed in the 21 business boxes, in the event boxes, in the Fan-Treff meeting point and in the large SoccerLounge. Initially, a pure IPTV television system was required to transmit the stadium’s internal live broadcast signals and also external television programmes in HD and SD on the displays. In addition, the screens needed to be able to show digital signage, i.e. advertising, information and sponsorship content, as the demands placed on the screen output vary greatly depending on the event.

Locatel has launched a new Set-Top Box at IP&TV World Forum. STB10 is a revolutionary new IPTV set-top box specifically designed by Locatel for the hospitality market. This very high performance device, powered by the Intel® Atom™ Processor CE 4150 SoC, embeds outstanding features and functionalities.

The power and capacity delivered by this new STB10 with an Intel chipset enables Locatel to offer a new generation of services in hotel rooms. The hospitality sector faces growing expectations from clients in terms of the quality of services and choice that they expect from their in-room entertainment system.

Sky announces that its new internet TV service, offering access to Sky content on a wide range of broadband-connected devices, will be called NOW TV. The new brand was revealed this morning by Sky’s Chief Executive, Jeremy Darroch, as he delivered the opening keynote at the Media Guardian Changing Media Summit in London.

Launching later this year, NOW TV will provide instant access to some of Sky’s most popular content, including hundreds of films from Sky Movies. With a distinctive look and identity, it will stand out from the existing Sky TV service and offer even more choice and flexibility to customers.

The Open IPTV Forum has created a tiered membership fee structure to encourage the participation of small and medium sized businesses. In addition to the current membership fee, one new fee level set at €2,400 is available to businesses with annual revenues of less than €10M, while another fee level of €6000 targets medium-size companies with annual revenues of less than €100M.

This tiered fee structure supports the aspirations of many innovative app developers, technology component developers and digital entertainment businesses with a valuable and vested interest in shaping the future of Internet Connected TV.

Orange launches "la nouvelle TV d'Orange", a next-generation subscription TV service which allows Orange to upgrade its IPTV service with a state-of-the-art user-experience and prepare the infrastructure for the new challenges of Over-the-Top video, multiple screens and unlimited content. "la nouvelle TV d'Orange" boasts a new user interface, which includes VOD, CatchUp TV, content discovery and recommendations, EPG, PVR, self-developed applications and more.

Viaccess a leader in content security solutions, and its fully-owned subsidiary Orca Interactive, a pioneer and leader in IPTV middleware, provide a unified service platform which includes the Service Delivery Platform, Content Discovery platform, Conditional Access System and native multi-screen solution. It is adapted for IPTV, OTT delivery and Hybrid, combining different delivery modes.

Verimatrix announces that Serbia Broadband and Telemach have deployed the Verimatrix Video Content Authority System for Internet TV platform, to fuel new over-the-top video services and provide enhanced revenue security.

SBB and Telemach's expanded OTT services are based on the HTTP Live Streaming standard delivery protocol, and features streaming over SBB and Telemach networks. HLS has been integrated on three different client platforms to date, including Android, PC/Mac and iOS with set-top boxes expected to be ready in the near future to support the launch of 60 live channels, 40 catch-up TV channels, and video-on-demand content. The service is currently available to the customers of SBB and Telemach, but this integrated solution will also enable these operators to offer their programming to communities outside their traditional cable footprint.

IP&TV World Forum announces that the event will be rebranded as TV Connect, to echo the evolving industry and rapidly converging TV market.

The event, which is now in its eighth year, has been a global platform leading the debate, the development and the deployment of IP delivered TV, and embodies a vibrant and dynamic marketplace. With cablecos, satellite, terrestrial broadcasters, content providers and telcos all providing enhancements to their services through Internet connectivity, the rebrand represents the growing and diverse nature of IP & Connected TV, and recognises the shift in industry players that now offer TV and personalised media services.

TV Connect is an inclusive brand that recognises the business and technical challenges that the community faces, and those within it, including telcos, cable providers, broadcasters and ISPs, consumer electronics and Smart TV companies, content providers, application developers, and other connected entertainment providers, such as gaming and music.

ViXS Systems is showing off the latest version of the Opera TV browser on Android, and the Opera TV Store on Linux, optimized for the ViXS XCode 4210 platform, at the China Content Broadcasting Network in Beijing.

The Opera TV Store is a complete HTML5-based store solution optimized for HD Ready TVs and a standard remote control, offering a selection of high quality TV apps. The Opera TV browser, optimized for ease of use and long-tail content on Linux and Android based TVs, set-top boxes and media-players, is built on Opera’s experience of bringing web browsing to 250 million mobile and PC-users.

ViXS is showcasing Opera TV browser and the Opera TV Store running on VIXS-based devices at the CCBN, from March 21st — 23rd in Beijing. Visit ViXS’ booth in Hall 3, Booth #3602 in the China International Exhibition Center of Beijing for advanced demos. million mobile and PC-users.

aioTV announces the availability of its OTT video platform optimized for Amino’sAmino’s Aminet A140 IPTV/OTT set-top box.

The Amino A140 is a cost effective device that brings together traditional multi-channel functionality with next-generation over-the-top services. aioTV enables operators worldwide to curate multiple sources of OTT video content into a TV-like experience for customers to enjoy on multiple devices -including the iPad, Android tablets, PC, Mac, GoogleTV, iPhone, Android phones and now the Amino Aminet A140.

Espial announces KDDI’s launch of a new generation on-demand TV user experience powered by the Espial TV Browser and its HTML5 capabilities. KDDI will use the Mitsubishi Electric ST1100R and Espial TV Browser to provide its subscribers with a world-leading user experience for a wide range of video-on-demand and IPTV services. KDDI is one of the largest operators in Japan.

Imagine Communications announces a system upgrade to their award-winning ICE® Video Platform. The new platform upgrade provides system operators with a single unified appliance for processing HD and SD IPTV streams as well as Adaptive Bit Rate streams for multiscreen delivery.

Built with Imagine's industry-leading ICE-Q Advanced Video Compression, the high density platform doesn't sacrifice on picture quality or reliability features. Full decode/encode with metadata pull-through on all channels enables optimized scene change detection while making full utilization of original encode parameters. Also introduced are granular PID-level redundancy mechanisms, enabling new levels of service protection, both upstream and downstream, from the ICE Video Platform transcoder.