Internet Protocol Television - Case Study Example

IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) 1. Introduction The advent of IPTV opens up the television market to telephone companies and other service providers with lower barrier to entry than existing digital platforms. IPTV is the delivery of digital television over broadband networks with faster access and improved digital video compression. However, there are many commercial and technical issues involve with IPTV and this paper will discuss some of them. 2. IPTV Digital video is a precisely timed, continuous stream of constant bit rate information, which is commonly works on networks where each signal is carried over a network that was built for video. On the other hand, IP networks carry various kinds of data from a huge variety of sources on a common channel such as e-mail, web pages, instant messaging, voice over IP, and many other types of data. IP and Video seems do not make an ideal combination but despite of the apparent incompatibility, the demand for IPTV and Internet Video is increasing (Simpson and Greenfield 2007:2). The concept of IPTV or Internet Protocol TV according to Held (2006) is using IP as a delivery mechanism for video content over a private IP-based network. However, the term IPTV does not restrict content to that provided by broadcast television nor does it imply that delivery of content has to occur over the Internet since IPTV can operate over any IP-based network (p.2-3). Delivered as it is via broadband, IPTV is of particular interest to telecommunications operators keen to bundle telephony, the internet, and video or “triple play” (Hitchens 2006:307). 3. Commercial Impact of Technical Features and Issues of IPTV Since broadband IP networks reach so many households in developed countries, video service providers can use these networks to launch video services without having to build their own networks. IP can simplify the task of launching new video services, such as interactive programming, video on demand, and targeted viewer specific advertising (Simpson and Greenfield 2007:2). According to Al-Khatib and Alam (2007), geographically, the European market has taken the early lead in the global IPTV market. The strong revenue and earning growth in the second quarter of 2006 have shown the cumulative impact and the knock-on benefits of triple play, as customers seem happy to plough savings from cheaper phone service into new digital TV services, driving high cable TV ARPU growth. In the U.S., cable companies gained in their telephony subscriber penetration rates in 2005 reported 12% year-over-year revenue growth. Aggregate cable TV ARPU rose from 7% to 9% in 2006 drive by rate hikes and sales of digital set-top boxes (131). Although the dispute of IPTV success remains, telecom operators have faith in the new service, and they are predicting IPTV to be the “next big thing” (p.131). In Brazil, IPTV market is growing at a staggering rate and the number of broadband subscribers continues to grow, showing 78% increase in subscribers between 2004 and 2005 (p.131). The attraction of IPTV is the fact that it has the ability to alter completely the way information, communication, and media services are consume inside the home. IPTV moves the television experience from a passive model to an active, two-way communication where every subscriber experience have the potential to be unique (Sparrow 2007:64). 4. Triple Play in IPTV Triple Play refers to multiple services being delivered by a single service provider, normally voice or telephony, data, and television services. Services providers usually give more discounts on customers who subscribe to more than one service, which has proven to be successful marketing ploy. For IPTV, this means high speed ADSL, Internet Access, free voice calls to fixed line in more than 20 countries, and IPTV (Simpson and Greenfield 2007:38). 4.1 Difference and Significance of Close and Open networks Closed systems allow access to content only over the network of the customer’s service provided, who is the gatekeeper of all provided content. Subscription pricing for IPTV services is frequently used model. Open systems on the other hand are not controlled by a single provided as anyone having broadband access to an IP network can access service provider’s distributed content. Transaction pricing such as “pay per view” is the dominating model, since users do not have to be permanent customers (International Engineering Consortium 2006:17). One particular difference between closed and open networks is the fact that QoS or Quality of Service can only be achieved over closed service provider networks. This means user will get the same quality of service that he is used to from broadcast TV services. Internet TV distributed in the open network or Internet do not offer comparable quality (International Engineering Consortium 2006:9). 4.2 Internet TV and IPTV Although IP-based like IPTV, Internet TV is a way to distribute TV all over the world at quite low cost. Internet TV do not have the same quality as in ordinary TV since its more less adapted for the computer screen instead of the TV set (Lundstrom 2006:162). Internet TV is normally a transport streams sent over the Internet from outside the network to the user’s PC. On the other hand, the delivery of television content over IP-based platforms to an IP-STB (set-top box) is known as IPTV (Lekakos et.al. 2007:9). 4.3 You Tube and IPTV You Tube is not IPTV since its contents are user provided thus it is known as a video sharing website (Whittingdale 2007:24). In contrast, IPTV’s content comes directly from service providers like the traditional TV broadcasting. IPTV according to Bodenheimer et. al. (2007) is a transmission and control technique to deliver broadcast and VoD video streams to an STB. It is a broadcast video using multicasting techniques through point-to-point networking infrastructure (p.66). 5. Protocols 5.1 User Equipments In IPTV, users can choose between watching their favorite channels through a set-top box connected to the home IP network or through a PC. The essential technical difference is that with set-top box signals are sent to the telephone company telling them, which channel you, wants. Then they send IP packets containing just that service to your box. In broadband IPTV using a PC, a user can only receive one TV channel at time due to bit rate limitations (Lundstrom 2006:160). 5.2 Commercial Viability of IPTV IPTV is technically designed to extend the benefits and value of enterprise private line information services or IS to the mass market in the form of entertainment and eventually in broadband application. However, despite all the current market enthusiasm and hype over IPTV, all of its own contracted and IP-based channels, along with the various new IP multicasting services, could ultimately lead all retail intellectual property. These are content, games, information, software programs, blogs, publications, education, and entertainment programming. Apparently, these intellectual properties are just a click away from the consumer in a modern broadband home environment (Gunn 2007:3). On the other hand, assuming all legalities were met, IPTV is a better alternative to traditional TV and since IPTV offers a lot more than just video viewing, its commercial viability is undeniable. 5.3 Commercial Effect of Personal Video Recorder (PVR) Bundled into the User Equipment PVR is a service that allows IPTV users to record their subscribed channels to watch later. However, a video-recording solution caters to the copyright issue of the content. If all legal issues are met and resolved, PVR’s functionality such as EPG (Electronic Programming Guide), Time-Shifted TV (user can browse EPG backward in time to play programs recorded by operator), PLTV (allows users to pause), ToD or TV on Demand, and so on are clear benefits thus it should be bundled into the user equipment (International Engineering Consortium 2006:132). 5.4 IPTV Systems and Channels Available Today A good example of existing IPTV is the 16 Euros/per month Orange/France Telecom’s IPTV services with more than 40 channels and free basic triple-play package. This included a high speed ASDL2+Internet access, and free voice calls (Simpson and Greenfield 2007:14). Another is Cinema Now Inc. founded in 1999 is one of the key players in the delivery of IPTV content to consumers over the Internet. It offers legal content from a library of over 6500 movies, television programs, music concert, and music videos. Movielink is also a major player in the IPTV market. It represents the online video-rental service that was founded by five major studios such as MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal, and Warner Brothers (Held 2006:3). 6. Typical Throughput using IPTV 6.1 Throughput and Picture Quality As a point of reference, a distribution quality digital video signal requires approximately six million bits per second. Typically, audio and video channel that include text, graphics, stereo, and Sony surround, Dolby, and so on in MPEG-2 format. In perspective, a digitally encoded/compressed TV channel is 100 times larger than a voice connection. In addition to having 100 times more bits per second than a voice connection, the video signal is sustained for an hour particularly in prime time hour while aggregated voice only last for 30 minutes in the busy hour and substantially less time in non-busy hours (Gunn 2007:39). 6.2 Level of Picture Quality Required In this unique video environment of digital video, voice connection capacities become a rounding error. A single MPEG-2 distribution quality signal for Web TV would require approximately four SONET T1/VTs of capacity investment to carry all of the bits from the broadcaster to the receiver. The same amount of voice capacity could support nearly 1,200 phone users. In other words, consumer demand for digital video bits is relatively enormous. The currently slotted TV networks use its broadcast infrastructure to deliver these signals to every home on its network. IP does not need to duplicate this capacity in the same way since doing so the bit efficiency for digital video would be terrible. IPTV networks simply turn on a copy at the edges of the network to create efficiencies that are not available to the current broadcast configuration. The reproduction, performance, and reliability of audio and video signals will generally require 500 to 1,000 times more bits per second than current slotted voice service based infrastructure. Since there are so many bits in a typical digital video system, the carriage of other non-video oriented digital signals, such as voice and data, may soon be a rounding error in terms of bandwidth consumption (Gunn 2007:40). Expected picture quality in an IPTV as a minimum should be within the transport level picture quality or the state of the encoded MPEG-2 bit stream within the ETSI TR101 290 V1.2.1 standard (International Engineering Consortium 2006:244). 6.3 Required Broadband Network IPTV is a critical element of the digital home, an evolving term that describes the trend toward home subscriber’s seamless experience regardless of content origin for TV, music, phone, and high speed Internet. Therefore, the ability to deliver sufficient network capacity is of great importance. For carriers to predict bandwidth requirements they should have safe initial assumption that included three TV streams. This means two standard-definitions (SD) and one high-definition (HD). With advanced compression standards (H.264), this digital home scenario suggests minimum bandwidth requirements of 15 megabytes. This is however a conservative estimate based on the technology available today but this will surely increase as HD contents becomes ubiquitous and HD-capable displays become increasingly commoditized. A broadband network should be able to handle three simultaneous HD streams that alone require 24MB, without even considering the implication of upcoming applications such a video telephony and personal broadcast. This means additional bandwidth requirements to 50MB and above (Marcus 2007:461). 6.4 High Definition TV (HDTV) HDTV will soon become the next revolution of IPTV services but it requires a high transfer rate and greater than 15Mbps in MPEG-2 encoding technology. In view of the bandwidth constraint, HDTV can surely make a difference since it can deliver high-quality video using MPEG-4/H.264 encoding technology. It only takes about 6.5 Mbps to 9.5Mbps, which should be affordable by current access network technology (International Engineering Consortium 2006:161). 7. Conclusion IPTV is indeed commercially viable and in fact revolutionizes consumer’s experience. However, since of the issues particularly bandwidth consumption and intellectual property rights still remains unclear, IPTV still has to endure further scrutiny. Closed networks are definitely better in terms of quality of service. PVR on the other hand undoubtedly delivers powerful interactive functionalities and it should be bundled into the user equipment. The level of picture quality as we mentioned earlier should be at least within the MPEG-2 encoding standard. Broadband networks should have at the minimum 50MB bandwidth capacity if they really want to deliver quality video like HDTV. 8. Bibliography Al-Khatib Mazen and Alam Mohammad, 2007, PTV Multimedia Networks: Concepts, Development, and Design, Published 2007 Intl. Engineering Consortium, ISBN 1931695601 Bodenheimer Lars, Pfeffer Patrick, and Pech Eckart, 2007, IPTV: Technology and Development Predictions, Published 2007 Intl. Engineering Consortium, ISBN 1931695539 Gunn Howard J., 2007, The Basics of IPTV, Published 2007 Intl. Engineering Consortium, ISBN 193169558X Held Gilbert, 2006, Understanding IPTV, Published 2006 CRC Press, ISBN 0849374154 Hitchens Lesley, 2006, Broadcasting Pluralism and Diversity: A Comparative Study of Policy and Regulation, Published 2006 Hart Publishing, ISBN 1841132144 IGI Consulting Inc., 2005, IPTV-The Telco’s New Light Sword, B&C Consulting Services Report June 2005, ISBN 1568511736 International Engineering Consortium, 2006, Delivering the Promise of IPTV, Published 2006 Intl. Engineering Consortium, ISBN 1931695466 Lekakos George, Chorianopoulos Konstantinos, and Doukidis Georgios, 2007, Interactive Digital Television: Technologies and Applications, Published 2007 Idea Group Inc (IGI), ISBN 1599043610 Lundstrom Lars-Ingemar, 2006, Understanding Digital Television, Published 2006 Elsevier, ISBN 0240809068 Marcus Daniel, 2007, Requirements of the new IPTV Network: Beyond Optimization, UT Starcom Inc, Published 2007 Intl. Engineering Consortium, Annual Review of Communications: Volume 59, ISBN 1931695539 Simpson Wes and Greenfield Howard, 2007, IPTV and Internet Video: Expanding the Reach of Television Broadcasting, Published 2007 Focal Press, ISBN 0240809548 Simpson Wes, 2006, Video Over IP: A Practical Guide to Technology and Applications, Published 2006 Elsevier, ISBN 0240805577 Sparrow Andrew, 2007, Film and Television Distribution and the Internet, Published 2007 Gower Publishing, Ltd., ISBN 0566087367 Whittingdale John, 2007, New Media and the Creative Industries: Fifth Report of Session 2006-07, Published 2007 The Stationery Office, ISBN 0215034015 Read More