At IBC 2008 in Amsterdam (RAI Exhibition Centre, September 12-16) NDS is showing a lineup of technologies and solutions that are focused on delivering truly converged entertainment and information services for consumers.

NDS delivers on the promise of four screen convergence, enabling operators, broadcasters and content providers to deliver a seamless TV and entertainment experience to set-top boxes (STBs), PCs, Personal Media Players and mobile phones.

At IBC 2008 NDS will launch NDS Dynamic™ a suite of TV advertising tools for targeted ad placements, an interactive advertising platform, and a sophisticated audience measurement system, all designed to help operators, broadcasters and advertisers generate revenues. Using this new set of capabilities, pay-TV operators can offer advertisers and content providers more measurable, targeted, and engaging TV advertising. The suite provides operators with comprehensive information about subscriber viewing habits, enabling them to create campaigns that target and personalise advertising to specific audience groups.

NDS will also be unveiling the latest version of VideoGuard Key™, the PC hardware plug-in that allows operators to send content to PCs equipped with any off-the-shelf tuner. VideoGuard Key is part of the VideoGuard PC™ suite of solutions. With VideoGuard Key’s built-in security, operators can deliver the same pay-TV and premium content to consumers’ PCs as to their set-top boxes (STBs). Subscribers can also easily move content between their PC and Digital Video Recorder (DVR), giving them the flexibility to watch content when and where they choose.

In addition to these new technologies, NDS will be demonstrating its success in delivering convergence to its pay-TV platform customers around the world, highlighting the company’s experience in building and integrating new end-to-end solutions.

On display will be examples of deployments where NDS seamlessly upgraded the capabilities of existing pay-TV systems, ensuring the smooth introduction of new services for subscribers regardless of the network’s technology, scale, or complexity.

Over the course of the last year NDS has again led the way in delivering innovative solutions to operators in the emerging markets of Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, and in other markets. At IBC, NDS will show an unprecedented collection of the resulting real-world applications that help operators offer engaging new services to their subscribers.

Other leading-edge advances that keep NDS at the forefront of TV innovation to be demonstrated at IBC include:

MediaHighway®: NDS will showcase some of the latest MediaHighway STB software capabilities. Middleware from NDS is now deployed in over 92.5 million devices worldwide. On display will be hybrid STBs featuring advanced DVR functionality such as Content Recommendation, and IP applications such as Push VOD with progressive download capability for enhanced quality of service.
NDS will also demonstrate its media extender solution that enables PC to TV connectivity using residential gateway software solutions from Jungo, part of the NDS Group.

Electronic Program Guides: NDS will demonstrate the latest Flash™-based HD interfaces offering advanced animation and a consistent look-and-feel across devices. IBC visitors will be able to test drive the new NDS EPG Designer™ tool and discover how easy it is to create customised EPGs for a branded TV service.

Interactive TV (iTV): NDS will showcase a selection of advanced iTV applications that help differentiate a pay-TV operator’s service. These applications include delivery of Internet video content over IP to hybrid STBs and next generation interactive games, multiplayer games, and cross-platform games.

VideoGuard PC™: NDS provides the security and enabling technology to turn the PC into a true entertainment platform. At IBC, NDS will feature both versions of VideoGuard PC: The NDS PC Show™ solution for Web-based content delivery over the open Internet and the NDS PC Plex™ solution that enables live SD and HD content with full EPG and DVR capabilities on a PC. 

At the centre of NDS’ industry leading solutions portfolio is NDS VideoGuard® conditional access and DRM. NDS content security technology currently protects over $35 billion in pay-TV service revenues in more than 90.3 million active devices worldwide.

The NDS Converged Home: This simulated home of the future will demonstrate how pay-TV operators can generate more revenue from four screens. At its heart is NDS Unified Headend™, which manages content delivery across multiple networks to devices including the TV, mobile phone, PC and PMP. NDS Unified Headend enables operators to create compelling new applications and promotions with multiple cross-platform business models.

Other NDS technology previews will show how broadcasters can enhance their businesses by delivering ever more content and advertising over the Internet to Hybrid STBs, PCs and mobile handsets, all from a single headend. Using demographic and location-based geographic information, operators can even target content to specific devices for a truly personalised service.

“Convergence may be complex but at IBC we will show how NDS makes it simple,” said Nigel Smith, NDS Chief Marketing Officer. “Last year we talked about how to make convergence a reality. This year we are showing the progress we have made with real customer deployments around the world. This ties into our core strategy of developing and delivering innovative digital TV solutions that help pay-TV operators attract new customers to become -- and remain -- market leaders.”

IBC - http://www.ibc.org

To support and build on the significant growth of its digital pay-TV customer base in Germany and Austria, NDS opened its latest facility in Munich in late July.

“NDS GmbH will serve as the central hub for NDS’ support operations for customers in the region,” says Yves Padrines, Vice President, Business Development and General Manager NDS GmbH. “In addition to support for all NDS customers in Germany, the new office will have its own R&D team that will focus on the requirements of the German pay-TV market,” he says.`

“NDS is honoured to be the partner of choice of the leading pay-TV providers and platform operators in this important market,” he says. “The opening of our new office will allow us to enhance our reach and our local support capabilities to serve existing and future customers.”

NDS currently has five customers in Germany and Austria: Premiere (satellite and cable), Kabel BW (cable), Arcor (telco/IPTV), Tele Columbus (cable) and Telekom Austria (telco/IPTV).

Premiere: German pay-TV leader

Premiere is the leading pay-TV operator in Germany and Austria. Its satellite and cable platform reaches an estimated 11 million viewers in more than four million subscriber homes. Premiere‘s system relies on NDS MediaHighway® middleware and VideoGuard® conditional access.

“Premiere began the switch to NDS encryption earlier in the summer,” Padrines says. “Many of the already deployed set-top boxes have been downloaded with NDS conditional access. Legacy smart cards have also been swapped with NDS cards,” he says. “In addition, all new satellite set-top boxes will be integrated with VideoGuard.”

“Like other NDS customers, Premiere selected VideoGuard because of its success in securing digital pay-TV platforms around the world,” Padrines explains. NDS CA and DRM technology currently protects over 90.3 million digital devices worldwide.

“Our customers understand that effective security is a prerequisite if they want to achieve sustainable high growth for their operations,” Padrines says.

“Platforms like Premiere are also attracted by the potential for developing new services based on NDS’ end-to-end digital TV solution including NDS MediaHighway middleware and NDS DVR,” he says.

Premiere is also deploying MediaHighway-equipped hybrid STBs, enabling them to benefit from the flexible delivery of value-added interactive services using their broadband network.

KabelBW: First to introduce triple play

With 2.3 million subscribers, Kabel BW is one of Germany’s largest digital cable TV operators. Located in Baden-Württemberg in the southwest of the country, it is one of the first major cable providers to introduce triple play services (digital cable TV, broadband Internet access and telephony services) and was NDS' first CA deployment in Germany.

“KBW switched off its incumbent CA system in May and swapped all existing smart cards for NDS VideoGuard. The main reasons they chose VideoGuard are the flexibility and the strong product roadmap we offer,” Padrines says.

“KBW indicated that having an independent technology platform based on VideoGuard enables them to react quickly and successfully in terms of meeting customer demands and market challenges,” Padrines says.

Arcor: IPTV with advanced services

At the beginning of 2008, Arcor, Germany’s second largest telco, chose NDS VideoGuard to secure its new IPTV service. Arcor-Digital TV. Initially it launched in 51 cities and communities. It offers digital TV including advanced services such as VOD.

Arcor operates a nationwide broadband network with a DSL subscriber base in excess of two million connections. It is owned by Vodafone, the global cellular provider.

Arcor chose the NDS VideoGuard Server™ solution for its new IPTV platform because the server-based content protection solution is designed for always-on two-way networks such as DSL and digital cable.

“In developing a new IPTV platform, customers like Arcor stress the need for flexibility, security and cost-effectiveness,” Padrines says. “The VideoGuard suite meets all these requirements.”

“As partner to Arcor, NDS can help them develop their IPTV service, bringing new information and entertainment services to the German market,” he says.

Tele Columbus: Networks with VideoGuard protection

With an estimated 3.7 million subscriber households, the Tele Columbus Group is Germany’s third largest cable provider. Its services include digital TV, Internet and telephone via broadband. Customers can subscribe to individual services or to their triple play all-in-one package.

The Tele Columbus Group operates a large number of independent networks with headends that receive signals directly from its own digital platform. The group recently began using NDS VideoGuard to protect its networks.

“VideoGuard enables Tele Columbus to protect their digital content while encouraging development of a new generation of both digital free-to-air and pay-TV channels,” Padrines says. All new subscribers to the Tele Columbus service receive equipment based on NDS VideoGuard.

“By deploying VideoGuard, Tele Columbus has the flexibility to support the future launch of integrated services such as DVRs, pay-per-view (PPV), video-on-demand (VOD) and a variety of other added-value services,” Padrines says.

“What is unique about this deployment is that their existing subscribers will not have to buy new set-top boxes because Tele Columbus will deploy a customer-friendly Simulcrypt solution,” Padrines says. Many of these boxes will also feature an Ethernet connection for transporting content via IP.

Telekom Austria: Multichannel pay-TV, VOD services

Telekom Austria is the country’s leading telco. It has international operations in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia and Liechtenstein. It has been an NDS customer since January 2006.

Telekom Austria uses VideoGuard content protection and DRM for delivery of multichannel pay-TV and VOD services over a broadband connection.

In 2005 it launched its branded aonDigital TV hybrid IP STB as an alternative to satellite and cable TV offerings.

Strong growth       

“NDS has made real progress in the German pay-TV market and now we have a significant base of customers,” Padrines says. “Our first priority is to support them and to complete our current projects. This includes delivering new products and services. At the same time, we are in touch with all other market players,” he says.

“Opening the NDS office in Munich enables us to develop business in one of Europe’s largest and most innovative pay-TV markets,” Padrines says. “Combining our global reach with a local presence benefits all the players and the consumer,” he says.

For more information:

VideoGuard - http://www.nds.com/solutions/videoguard.html  

When the popularity of major media events like the Beijing Olympics meets the convenience of watching on mobile phones and PCs, the result can be new forms of convergence. Both mobile TV and IPTV are gaining in popularity in different markets around the world. This is especially true in Russia.

Sistema Mass Media (SMM), which launched its IPTV service in Moscow several years ago, is now preparing to launch its mobile TV business. It chose the NDS Unified Headend™ to both manage and to protect its TV content delivery to subscribers on both networks.

A subsidiary of Sistema, Russia’s largest public diversified consumer services corporation, SMM is the largest pay-TV and broadband Internet provider in the country. Based in Moscow, SMM operates in more than 40 cities and has more than two million broadband subscribers.

Comstar Direct, another Sistema subsidiary, is now responsible for the IPTV business. It delivers programming services secured with NDS content protection technology to over 120,000 subscribers in Moscow with plans to expand the service to other cities.

“Our partnership with SMM began in 2005 when they first launched IPTV services using VideoGuard CA,” says Jeremy Maddocks, NDS Regional Director, Russia, CIS and Eastern Europe. “This year they began a massive upgrade of their cable infrastructure,” he says.

“The agreement to implement the NDS Unified Headend will provide SMM with a secure platform that will support all Sistema deployments including IP STBs, mobile handsets and PCs,” Maddocks says.

Mobile TV launch scheduled 2008-09

With a 17 percent market share, SMM is Russia’s largest pay-TV and broadband Internet access operator.
 
Through its content division called Stream-Content, SMM is involved in the production and aggregation of TV programming on five channels. The commercial launch of SMM’s mobile TV service, based on the DVB-H standard, is scheduled to begin later this year in Moscow and then in 16 other cities each with a population of more than 1 million.

Unlike most other DVB-H deployments which are tied to a specific mobile operator and require a subscription and operator-specific SIM card, SMM’s DVB-H service, uniquely, will be available to all Russian mobile subscribers regardless of their network service provider.

NDS Unified Headend central to mobile TV service

The deployment for SMM includes VideoGuard Mobile™ which is a component of the NDS Unified Headend that protects SMM’s DVB-H mobile service.

“The NDS Unified Headend which we are deploying is vital for us because we want to use a single security system to ensure proper support for all kinds of viewers’ devices,” says Dr. Vitaly Shub, SMM’s Deputy CEO.

“SMM achieves convergence by integrating CA and DRM with a variety of third party applications,” Maddocks says. “This enables them to deliver secure broadcast as well as video-on-demand (VOD) services to a variety of devices including STBs, mobile phones, PCs, portable media players (PMPs) and DVRs.”

“Only NDS was able to provide us with a complete, cost-effective solution that enables us to offer truly converged services to our customers,” Dr. Shub says.

“NDS provides both the flexibility to combine multiple platforms for a single management view of operations as well as giving us the opportunity to offer advanced new services in the future,” Dr. Shub says.

“By deploying the NDS Unified Headend, SMM is doing more than supplying pay-TV services to its subscribers over IP,” Maddocks says. “Its converged services result in more exciting possibilities for customers by combining mobile service with IPTV.”

VideoGuard Mobile: Delivering true convergence

VideoGuard Mobile supports both the Open Security Framework (OSF) and OMA BCAST smart card profile standards. It also offers a clear, seamless migration path between them. VideoGuard Mobile is fully compliant with DVB-H, DVB-SH, DMB, MediaFLO, CMMB and STIMI standards.

VideoGuard Mobile is based on NDS market-leading VideoGuard® CA and DRM technology which now protects over 90.3 million digital devices around the world. VideoGuard Mobile will secure the broadcast content delivered over SMM’s mobile TV network, safeguarding its subscription revenues, while enabling the company to benefit from a variety of possibilities for business models and enhanced services. VideoGuard Mobile is fully integrated with a variety of handsets and standalone devices that will be available in the Russian market. This includes new models to be supplied by Samsung, LG and Gigabyte.

“SMM is demonstrating its pioneering spirit as it adopts the latest technology to deliver a compelling converged environment to consumers,” Maddocks says.

“With the enormous scale and reach of its operations, SMM has the potential to change the way millions of subscribers watch TV across Russia,” Maddocks says.

“The partnership between SMM and NDS will help SMM realise its aspirations to be a fully integrated media company and content distributor, and we look forward to continuing to support them,” he says.

For more information:

NDS Unified Headend - http://www.nds.com/solutions/videoguard_unifiedheadend.html

VideoGuard Mobile -
http://www.nds.com/solutions/videoguard_mobile.html

Way back in 2006 'Internet broadcasters' were often people interested in producing user-generated content for sites like YouTube. By 2007 major TV broadcasters were among those eager to bring their premium content to the Internet.

The shift was swift and dramatic. Delivering TV content over the Internet now seems to be a hands-down favourite among those who predict what will be the “next big thing.”

In the UK for example, the BBC iPlayer is generating a huge amount of interest and headlines. Even though the anticipated long term level of usage of the iPlayer is still unclear, it shows that what is underway is a real social change in how people want to view content.

Of course Apple created its own Internet content universe for the iPod generation: iTunes.

Content in the non-Apple world

But what about the non-Apple world? NDS may have the answer. NDS is developing a future-looking system to deliver content to multiple devices including connected TVs and portable media devices. This project is called Infinite TV™.

“Infinite TV is about more than content,” says Nick Thexton, NDS Senior Vice President R&D, New Initiatives. “It provides an infrastructure that brings together CE manufacturers, operators and content owners. Infinite TV is designed to enable them to deliver content directly to consumers. It’s a different business model,” he says.

“Operators are now trying to deliver content in a different way that competes with free-to-air,” Thexton says.

For the sake of comparison Thexton explains that iTunes has been a successful model for getting people to pay for content. 

“iTunes has set the bar fairly high,” he continues. “Any alternative is going to have to be based on a strong user experience.”

There’s yet another difference: software. “We are trying to create a powerful user experience with an application-based software client,” Thexton says. Why? “So that it can interface with as many devices as possible while avoiding a vertical market situation.”

Changes in viewing habits

Viewing habits have changed because PCs have led people to want convenient content delivery.

People today are sampling content. It’s almost like listening to the radio. They change stations frequently. As such there is a need to transfer content as smoothly as possible. 

Thexton expects transferring content from a DVR to a mobile handset or other device – also called side-loading – to be popular. “Infinite TV circumvents the need for side-loading by delivering content over the Internet that is tailored to a subscriber’s devices.”

Nevertheless there are some serious obstacles for those who want to deliver content from PCs to other devices. “When it comes to being able to deliver convergence to three or more devices and getting it on the TV, no one else but NDS has succeeded,” Thexton says.

The range of CE devices that can be used creates other interesting choices. “Television viewing can include high definition, surround sound and a host of other options,” Thexton explains. “But if you’re watching content on a portable media player (PMP), you don’t need these options.” Infinite TV knows what devices the individual owns because they are registered on the system. The result is that the operator can deliver content in the appropriate format.

Premium content, targeted advertising

Infinite TV has been developed to bring premium content to connected devices. It also offers targeted advertising on multiple devices. In addition to content owners, the major groups who could benefit from this project are CE device manufacturers, advertisers and of course end-users.

• Content owners are looking for ways to use their back catalogue to boost their bottom line. The most obvious way is to offer their content on as many new devices as possible – in an open market.

• CE device manufacturers are battling to provide rich media applications to compete with some of the established vertical market players such as iTunes and Playstation Network (PSN). Their challenge is to provide value added premium services that will appeal to the owners of their devices. The end result has to be a quality user experience. Infinite TV makes this possible for STB vendors and vendors of PCs and personal media players.

• Users want access to premium content with a system that is convenient, instant and all-encompassing. “When users switch on an Infinite TV device they can instantly browse or view a library of freshly updated content,” Thexton says. Both the content and the user interface are populated with targeted advertising.

The question is whether the delivery of all this content will choke the Internet. Will consumers have to actively monitor and manage the capacity limitations of their networks and devices?

“Infinite TV adopts pre-emptive delivery from the broadcasting world. Consumers don’t necessarily need to know that content is delivered to one of their devices until they want to access it,” Thexton explains.

“The system operates based on what we call ‘intelligent decisions’,” he continues. “If the system knows that an individual subscriber is interested in a particular series, subsequent episodes are delivered at times of day that won’t overload the broadband infrastructure. This eliminates network bottlenecks and associated delivery costs.”

This is similar to subscribing to a podcast, Thexton explains. “The difference is that content is pushed out to devices at the least cost to the operator.”

There’s more. Infinite TV also makes it easy for operators to decide whether to deliver content over a broadcast path or over broadband. As a result they can reach millions of users at the lowest possible cost.

Targeted advertising: A revolution is on the way

“Infinite TV not only offers content but it also supports a very sophisticated infrastructure for targeted advertising,” Thexton explains.

Infinite TV features a rich advertising delivery and display infrastructure that enables the implementation of a variety of engaging new formats. This includes standard banner ads as well as innovative rich media formats for advertising with trick play modes such as pause and fast forward.

“We are not trying to increase the number of ads subscribers watch. What Infinite TV does is make certain they receive the ads that are most relevant to them,” Thexton says.

Infinite TV has enabled NDS to envisage entirely new paradigms in advertising. “We can implement more than normal pre-roll, post-roll and mid-roll ad breaks,” he says. “Now we can also introduce a variety of very sophisticated possibilities.”

“We also offer full measurement techniques on a variety of devices. This is a breakthrough,” Thexton says, “because operators can now get real time reports on who is viewing what.”

“In addition, users may register multiple devices on the Infinite TV service. What’s important for the operator is that for reporting purposes, the subscriber’s devices are addressed as one unit. Now operators can know what subscribers are watching – including which ads on which device.”

Another important feature of the emerging Infinite TV project is that operators don’t need separate delivery systems for each device. They can decide which ads provide the best return on their investment and deliver them to any registered device.

What does Infinite TV accomplish?

“We are creating a convenient, personalised user experience. In the broadcast world it is difficult to tailor the viewing experience to the individual,” he says.

“In the online world searchable databases and vertical search engines deliver the type of personalisation that both subscribers and operators want.”

The way Infinite TV works is that users enter the portal, register themselves and their devices, and provide some preferences and demographic data. This includes choosing programmes, search terms, even genres. When they’re on the move, the system knows who is watching, and makes intelligent, relevant decisions for them. It keeps their playlists updated and refreshed with premium targeted content and advertising.

“What’s important is that we aren’t trying to replace the advantages of broadcasting. This is a secondary system,” Thexton says, “but we’re convinced that because it’s so convenient it’s bound to become popular.”

IPTV is like the new kid on the block. It may not be a fully fledged competitor in the pay-TV market, yet. But the predictions are promising. According to most industry analysts, the IPTV market only accounts for about four or five percent of the global pay-TV market today. This amounts to about 15 million households in total. But the numbers are increasing and they are starting to be significant.

NDS VideoGuard conditional access and digital rights management (DRM) solutions now secure content in hundreds of thousands of IP-enabled set-top boxes (STBs) worldwide – with and without smart cards. This places NDS among the top IPTV content security providers. In fact, two independent research organisations have recently declared NDS to be market leader in this area.

Current Analysis: NDS Leads in IPTV Content Protection

Based in Washington, DC and Paris, Current Analysis conducts research on the telecommunications, networking, and business software markets. On July 22 they issued a report on independent content security companies:

“Content security solutions are increasingly becoming critical components for enabling business model flexibility, in addition to securing content and revenue streams. This flexibility comprises three key elements: network, integration, and cost…NDS, by virtue of its dominant footprint and capability to deliver an integrated end-to-end offering, captures the top spot in terms of influencing the overall IP video and IPTV content security market.” said Yoav Schreiber, Senior Analyst, Digital Media Infrastructure at Current Analysis.

Why are these elements so important? Current Analysis explains: "First, operators seek flexibility to distribute content across multiple network systems. This maximises subscriber choice for receiving content as well as optimises network efficiency from the operator's perspective. Second, operators seek streamlined integration of their content security solutions across their digital media architectures, including headend, middleware and content delivery systems. Third, operators are looking to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) for their content security components, including deployment, support costs and countermeasures to combat content piracy.”

“Operators are increasingly leveraging IP technology to expand their consumer video service offerings with functionality such as interactive services and non-linear content. This puts increased demand on content security vendors for enabling operator business model flexibility to provide differentiated services," continued Schreiber.

ABI Research Ranks NDS Number One

Current Analysis is not alone in putting NDS at the top of the IPTV leader board. NDS has also been ranked IPTV DRM leader in the latest Vendor Matrix released by ABI Research. The Vendor Matrix is an analytical tool developed by ABI to provide a clear understanding of vendors’ positions in specific markets.

“NDS took top honours mainly on account of its larger market share,” says Zippy Aima, industry analyst for ABI Research. “On the basis of longevity in the market and number of customers, NDS has to be considered the market leader.”

This leading position is hardly surprising considering that NDS is a world leader in supplying open end-to-end digital technology and services to pay-TV platform operators and content providers. This includes some of the world’s most successful satellite and cable service providers such as BSkyB (UK), DIRECTV (US) and Premiere (Germany).

In the IPTV market NDS customers include: Arcor (Germany), BBTV (Japan), Cyta (Cyprus), KT (Korea), SES Americom (US), Sistema Mass Media (Russia), Telekom Austria and Viasat (Scandinavia).

What is significant is that with so many customer deployments around the world, NDS products are mature, “road-tested” and able to meet the needs of this growing sector.

Where is IPTV market headed?

The main market demand for IPTV solutions comes from major telcos that see it as a new offering in addition to their current data and voice services. Research firms are predicting high penetration worldwide. Various analysts suggest that by 2011, IPTV households will grow to more than 30 million, close to 10% of the total projected pay-TV market worldwide.

What is important to bear in mind is that even if the analysts’ predictions are overly optimistic and IPTV penetration takes longer than they expect, it will happen eventually. And it will be major.

Critical factors for success

The current trends indicate that there are a number of factors that will significantly contribute to the long term mass adoption of IPTV:

Improved quality of service: In order to support IPTV, the physical telco network needs to be upgraded to support the quality of service (QoS) that is required for reliable TV delivery, both linear and on-demand. In addition, many telcos have not yet made sufficient investment in premium content or the applications to drive IPTV forward.

Robust, secure content protection: What will pave the way for the success of IPTV? Without great content, subscribers will stay with their current TV service provider. Without content security, operators won’t have this great content to offer in the first place. At present some nascent IPTV operators seem unperturbed by the threats from piracy. But they are advised to look at the experiences of the pay-TV world. When they perceive that the potential spoils are big enough, the pirates will do more than take notice. It’s only a matter of time before IPTV providers realise they need robust security. Some, undoubtedly, will realise this too late, after revenues have leaked away due to piracy.

Making convergence easier: This is another key factor that leads to a quality user experience on all services: TVs, PCs, mobile devices. IPTV will come into its own when it can offer cross promotions on different devices and include multi-platform offerings. This means, for example, that a subscriber could purchase Batman on VOD and then can download it free to a mobile device to finish watching on the train to work.

Given this background, telcos have a unique opportunity to offer a multi-screen experience. But they won’t be able to do this until the critical factors are in place.

DRM is one of the critical elements that will enable telcos to offer IPTV. But of course there are others. As the Current Analysis report suggests, telcos will have to include content security that supports flexible business models. If they don’t offer differentiating services such as VOD, DVRs and high definition broadcasting it’s unlikely that prospective subscribers will switch from their current service provider.

The brave new world of convergence

In most markets the hype surrounding the brave new world of IPTV has been just that - hype. There still isn’t sufficient infrastructure to support the required network reliability and there is a lack of compelling content and applications. These factors will have to be resolved in order for emerging IPTV providers to compete with incumbent pay-TV operators and/or to increase their fee paying subscriber base.

The truth is IPTV is not just about delivering TV over an IP pipe. It requires an integrated marketing strategy for content acquisition, packaging, distribution and security.

While telcos can leverage their ability to deliver convergence to TVs, PCs and mobile devices, this is just the beginning. The bottom line is that in order to succeed in the IPTV market, they will have to offer more than the competition: the established satellite and cable operators. They will need to offer true convergence between TVs, PCs and mobile devices. And, critically, they need to generate revenue while doing so.

For more information:

VideoGuard - http://www.nds.com/solutions/videoguard.html