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Digital TV Europe July/August 2010


Issue no 295


Published By: Informa Telecoms & Media Mortimer House 37-41 Mortimer Street London W1T 3JH Tel: +44 (0) 20 7017 5000 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7017 4953 Website: www.digitaltveurope.net


Editor Stuart Thomson Tel: +44 (0) 20 7017 5314 Email: stuart.thomson@informa.com


Deputy Editor Graham Pomphrey Tel: +44 (0) 20 7017 5293 Email: graham.pomphrey@informa.com


Contributing Editor Stewart Clarke


Contributors Anita Awbi, Kate Bulkley, Nick Flaherty, Andy Fry, Peter White


Correspondents France: Julien Alliot; Germany: Dieter Brockmeyer; Italy: Branislav Pekic; Spain: David Del Valle


Advertisement Director Katrina Coyne Email: katrina.coyne@informa.com


International Sales Manager Patricia Arescy Email: patricia.arescy@informa.com


Art Director Matthew Humberstone Publisher Lydia Blackwood Managing Director Ian Hemming PrintingWyndeham Grange, West Sussex


Multiplication tables It’s


all getting very complicated. We’re increasingly aware that pay-TV operators can no longer simply offer a line-up of broadcast content to retain customers that are increasingly net-savvy and willing and able to look for what they want elsewhere. Nor can they restrict their customers’ viewing to a single screen in the living room. The key phrases on everybody’s lips at the moment are “over-the-top” and “three-screen”. Service providers increasingly are looking to support the delivery of content over the open internet as part of the experience they offer, if only in order to head off the threat posed by advertising-supported and online-only subscrip- tion offers. At the same time, pay-TV service providers are nervously addressing the growing demand for the delivery of content to multiple devices in the home and outside it. Both the delivery of over-the-top content to the TV and the delivery of premium content to devices outside the immediate control of the pay-TV service provider will have a big impact on content security. How can content from a range of sources – the walled-garden pay-TV service and the open internet – best be secured? And as channels, content providers and platform oper- ators also increasingly look to deliver services to multiple outlets – the PC, mobile and other screens – how can they guarantee not only the security of the content supplied by their partners but also their own revenue streams? How can they manage the requirements of multi-screen delivery, including the delivery of managed pay-TV content to devices sold on the retail market? In this issue of Digital TV Europe we look at some of the challenges the service providers face, and the solutions on offer. Multi-screen delivery is having an impact on other parts of the content production and distri- bution chain. Also in this issue, we look at the ways in which playout and broadcast systems are evolving to support multi-screen delivery of content as well as other new innovations including the delivery of on-demand and (especially) catch-up services. We also look at recent trends in the outsourcing of playout to third-party providers.


The growing interest in over-the-top and multi-screen delivery presents a particular challenge to cable operators that until now have kept their broadcast and data services separate. Within the wider context of cable migration to IP-based technologies, this issue of Digital TV Europe will also look at aspects of the development of the next-generation cable headend, with particular focus on the CMAP initiative pushed by Comcast in the US, as well as the European DVB-C2 initiative – and assess whether these meet market requirements. Finally in the July-August issue of Digital TV Europe, we provide the first part of our traditional two-part preview of products and technologies that will be on show at the forthcoming IBC show in Amsterdam. ●


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Stuart Thomson, Editor stuart.thomson@informa.com


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