Inside Digital TV articles from February 2003

Inside Digital TV archives from February 2003

German MHP Now In Doubt.(surprise resignation of Helmut Stein)
February 5, 2003... Barry Flynn Editor The future of the German MHP project has been thrown into doubt by the surprise resignation of Helmut Stein, pay-TV operator Premiere World's chief technology officer. Stein holds a senior position within DVB, the...

SES Astra Searches For Interactive Breakthrough.
February 5, 2003... Mark Holmes Senior Editor SES Astra, one of the leading European FSS players, is hooking up with the European Space Agency (ESA) and other partners in order to develop a lowcost satellite return channel to support interactive TV...

Omission Corrected.(Correction Notice)
February 5, 2003... In our previous issue, the name of the author of the analysis on the US interactive TV market was inadvertently omitted. The analysis was written by Fredrik Nars, of Swedish interactive media consultancy Digiscope (email:...

Is MHEG Return-Path Solution Coming Soon?(Brief Article)
February 5, 2003... Barry Flynn Editor One of the reasons UK DTT operator Freeview is unlikely to include a return-path in its basic receiver specification is that the MHEG interactive middleware solution adopted for the UK does not include return-path...

Dutch DTT Gears Up For Launch.(digital terrestrial television)
February 5, 2003... Barry Flynn Editor After repeated delays, the Dutch digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform should launch in April. According to Erik-Jan Gelink, chief commercial officer of the Digitenne DTT consortium, which includes KPN,...

Financial Players Boost European Cable Influence.
February 5, 2003... Mark Holmes Senior Editor It appears that financial investors such as The Carlyle Group, Providence Equity and Apax Partners are rapidly becoming power brokers in the European cable industry. In the past week, the three companies have been...

Digital TV Poses Many Regulatory Challenges.(Column)
February 5, 2003... The move to digital TV requires a changing approach to regulation as a result of huge increases in content availability and, consequently, competition for viewers. Add to that the provision of entirely new service types through the TV. In...

Sizing Up The Wired Economies.(USA, Australia and UK compared)
February 5, 2003... Barry Flynn introduces a new regular Inside Digital TV data analysis feature During 2002, I had occasion to visit both New York and Sydney for research purposes, and have been ruminating ever since on the contrasts (in technology terms)...

Briefly.
February 5, 2003... * According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, 7.5 percent of all European households now subscribe to a broadband Internet service. A record 6.3 million customers signed up for broadband for the first time during 2002, according...

BSkyB Bucks The Trend.
February 19, 2003... Barry Flynn Editor UK digital satellite platform BSkyB has delivered a strong set of interim financial results for the calendar quarter ending 31/12/02, adding another 244,000 subscribers to take the total up to 6,562,000 for the UK and...

Irish Cable Players Doubt Potential DTT Plans.
February 19, 2003... Mark Holmes Senior Editor The Minister of Communications in Ireland, Dermot Ahern is considering adopting the Freeview model in the UK for DTT in Ireland. The service could encompass both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The...

FastWeb: A Benchmark In European VOD.
February 19, 2003... Mark Holmes senior editor Italian operator FastWeb continues to be one of the pioneers in the digital TV arena in Europe. It offers a combination of telephone, Internet and TV services in Italy on its fibre-optic IP network. It is also one...

How Will PVRs Impact The Market?(Personal video recorders )
February 19, 2003... Alain Puissochet IDATE Viewers' ability to record and store video, film and TV programmes began in 1956 with the introduction of VCRs. The advent of television recording equipment immediately gave rise to litigation, brought by copyright...

Mass Take-Up Of PVRs Still A Long Way Off.
February 19, 2003... Barry Flynn has been looking at the figures for sales of BSkyB's Sky+ PVR According to the interim results announced by BSkyB last week, the number of Sky+ PVR subscribers increased by 27,000 to reach 65,000. As the table shows, this...

Briefly.(Digital Television industry )
February 19, 2003... * French pay-TV company Canal+ had 4.48 million individual subscribers to its premium channel at the end of 2002, down 70,000 on the previous year, according to owner Vivendi Universal. However, CanalSatellite, which operates the Canal+ digital...