IPTV focus > Connected TV

Digital TV Europe

April 2010

Only connect

Hybrid platforms and connected TVs have been key topics of late, with interest fuelled by initiatives such as Project Canvas in the UK and HbbTV. Stuart Thomson looks at how service providers may stand to gain or lose from new technological innovations.

hybrid platforms are increasingly seen as the future of IPTV. And the meaning of ‘hybrid’ has undergone a subtle shift thanks to the growing momentum behind services that come under the rubric of ‘over-the-top’. Over-the-top is most usually referred to in the context of a threat to established pay-TV platforms. The launch of broadband-delivered on-demand and catch-up services by broad- casters (the forthcoming Project Canvas) and consumer electronics manufacturers manu- facturers (such as Sony and Philips) as well as a host of hybrid services launched by new

In the eyes of a number of observers,

entrants such as the UK’s Fetch TV or VideoFutur in France, have been greeted with little enthusiasm by pay-TV incumbents. From the point of view of telcos, however, the limited success of walled garden IPTV services to date, together with the possibility of using hybrid services to cement customer loy- alty, have added to interest in the opening up of the IPTV experience amongst broadband service providers and free-to-air content providers alike. In the UK, the BBC-led Project Canvas initiative has been joined by BT and TalkTalk, both of whom see it as a way to expand the population to which they can

offer some kind of triple-play service. BT already operates the hybrid BT Vision service, marketing its own on-demand content to complement broadcast services delivered over the digital-terrestrial network. Technology providers that traditionally have supplied direct to service providers rather than look to a retail model are now addressing the growing interest on the part of their existing customers in various forms of hybrid service. “There is room for the telcos to have a place by either partnering with broadcasters or by offering a kind of triple-play bundle and man- aging the network,” says Steve Morris, sys-

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