Digital Lifescapes

Despite representing only a very small portion of the total pay-TV addressable market, telco IPTV services have had some impact on the evolving marketplace, forcing long-overdue change across the entire linear broadcast video entertainment delivery ecosystem. Most IPTV service providers continue to focus on customer attraction and acquisition -- by offering similar legacy broadcast video services tiers as their competition. Those services are supplemented by a limited set of more forward-looking video-on-demand (VOD) offerings. The latest IPTV market study by Infonetics Research confirms that, finally, some new and innovative IPTV services are in development, as operators move beyond basic broadcast video offerings and begin providing consumers a more personalized, integrated and portable on-demand viewing experience. Multi-screen viewing, interactive applications and social networking are some of the services expected to be implemented over the next year. The question still rem...

Sales of Blu-ray disc (BD) players, excluding PS3, are expected to total nearly 24 million units this year across the three key growth regions -- USA, Europe and Japan -- according to the latest market study by Futuresource Consulting . "Last year's crucial Q4 period accounted for nearly half of all BD players that were sold globally in 2009, and the upward trend is continuing, with our projections showing in excess of 80 percent unit growth across this year," says Jack Wetherill, Research Consultant at Futuresource. This view is based on inputs from a wide range of companies operating in the global Blu-ray hardware business, including vendors, retailers and component suppliers, and forms part of their ongoing research in this area. All attention will once again be on the holiday season, with Futuresource predicting sales in excess of 11 million units in that quarter alone, a healthy year-on-year growth that will continue to drive BD adoption into the mass market. ...

With Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity becoming a standard feature in most consumer electronics (CE) devices with a screen, the television and associated media industries -- in particular,  the incumbent pay-TV service providers -- are attempting to fully understand the disruptive impact on their core business. Hybrid set-top boxes (STB), that utilize both broadcast and broadband connectivity, could be vital tools that enable network broadcasters and pay-TV service operators to compete with low-cost high-value over-the-top (OTT) video offerings, such as Netflix and LOVEFiLM, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . "When Apple began supporting applications on their Apple iPhone, a whole new industry was created with about half a million apps now available worldwide," says Gerry Kaufhold, Principal Analyst. Now, with a multitude of connected TV devices moving into the market, Internet Video is becoming the new must-have service. TV programs may eventually bec...