Inside Digital TV articles from November 2001

Inside Digital TV archives from November 2001

CableLabs MHP Adoption Confirmed.(Brief Article)
November 19, 2001... As predicted in Inside Digital TV, CableLabs, the technology consortium for cable system operators in North and South America, has adopted MHP, DVB's open interactive TV middleware solution, writes Barry Flynn. As predicted in Inside...

Microsoft Continues to Oppose DVB MHP Standard.(Brief Article)
November 19, 2001... Barry Flynn Editor Microsoft says it won't support the DVB MHP standard until the conditions under which it is required to license Sun Microsystems' core Java technology are clarified. The software company has also re-iterated its...

STB Makers Concede MHP Premium.(Set Top Box)(Multimedia Home Platform)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 19, 2001... Barry Flynn Editor Philips, Sony, Nokia and Panasonic have published a White Paper (The Costs of MHP in Television Receivers) that concedes MHP implementation currently implies a premium over other interactive TV middleware solutions. ...

Irish Public Broadcaster RTE to Scrap DTT Plans.(Digital Terrestrial Television)(Brief Article)
November 19, 2001... Hugh Oram Dublin Irish public broadcaster RTE is expected shortly to gain carriage on the Sky Digital platform and - as suggested previously in Inside Digital TV - to scrap its plans to launch on DTT in a year's time. Pressure for...

Italian DTT Regulations Approved by Telecom Authority.(digital television)(Brief Article)
November 19, 2001... Branislav Pekic Rome Italy's Telecommunications Authority announced on November 7 that it had approved in principle a set of rules for the digital switchover of terrestrial transmissions by December 31, 2006. Under the proposals, there...

Telecom Italia May Sell Stream if Merger Plan Nixed.(Brief Article)
November 19, 2001... Branislav Pekic Rome Telecom Italia has said it would want to wind up its pay-TV venture, Stream, if Italian regulators block a planned merger with rival Tele+. Telecom Italia chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera said Stream and Tele+...

Auna Sets One Month Time Limited to Sell Quiero.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 19, 2001... David del Valle Madrid Telephony holding company Auna, principal shareholder with a 49 percent stake in Spanish DTT operator Quiero, has set itself a one-month time limit to find a buyer for the ailing company. Otherwise, the company could...

Pace Targets IPTV Market with Improved Box.(Internet Protocol Television)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
November 19, 2001... Barry Flynn Editor Pace believes IPTV is set to become the telcos' killer application, and has revealed a new IPTV box to prove the point - the IP500. Targeted at telephone companies, the box will, Pace declares, "dramatically...

Britain's ITV Launches Playalong Quiz Show.(Brief Article)
November 19, 2001... Barry Flynn Editor UK commercial network ITV has finally unveiled the interactive version of its hit quiz show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. It will launch nationwide on DTT on November 24 on ITV2, ITV's second channel, and be broadcast...

Tallying Up the Digits.(UK's digital TV operators)(Brief Article)
November 19, 2001... With a fresh clutch of results in from the UK's digital TV operators, Barry Flynn muses on the implications for pay-TV in general and interactive TV in particular. The latest tally is Sky Digital: 5.50 million; NTL: 1.14 million; ITV...

Briefly...(includes various information)
November 19, 2001... * The Swedish government-appointed Digital Television Committee has reported its recommendations to the Ministry of Culture on digital switchover. The findings include: that analogue switch off should take place in 2007; that there should be a...

Microsoft Middleware 'Glitches' Seen Stalling Cable Expansion.(Brief Article)
November 28, 2001... TV Cabo 'Postpones' Plans for iTV Expansion It has been a difficult few weeks for Microsoft's Advanced TV middleware, writes Barry Flynn. First, its future on the US DBS platform appeared to be threatened by the Echostar/DirecTV...

MSOs In Germany Remain Divided On MHP.(Brief Article)
November 28, 2001... Mark Holmes Senior Editor The decision by the US cable MSOs' technology consortium, CableLabs, to adopt MHP, DVB's open interactive TV middleware solution as part of its OpenCable standard (Inside Digital TV Vol.4 No.23), has caused a...

Telewest Posts Buoyant Results For 3rd Quarter.(Brief Article)
November 28, 2001... Barry Flynn Editor UK cable MSO Telewest posted record quarterly EBITDA of GBP83 million [E133.3 million] in its third quarter figures, with monthly revenue per household up to GBP40.29 [E64.70] from GBP39.29 [E63.11], and a 71 per cent...

Pace Defends IPTV Concept, Clarifies MPEG-4 Role.(Brief Article)
November 28, 2001... Barry Flynn Editor Pace has defended the strategy behind its IP500 "IPTV" box, and clarified its role in the development of MPEG-4 codecs. In the last issue of Inside Digital TV, it was suggested that poor MPEG- 2 video quality at...

Astra BBI Commercially Available Across Europe.(Brief Article)
November 28, 2001... Barry Flynn Editor SES ASTRA, operator of the Astra satellite system, has announced - on schedule - the commercial availability of its Broadband Interactive System (BBI). BBI, which uses Ka-band frequencies on the ASTRA 1H satellite at...

Liberate Middleware Cuts Churn at Insight.(Brief Article)
November 28, 2001... Barry Flynn Editor Insight Communications, the ninth largest cable operator in the U.S. with around 1.4 million customers, is claiming that deployment of interactive TV using Liberate's middleware has helped it to reduce digital churn by...

Recording a Hit: Our Editors Test Drive the Sky+TV Box.(Brief Article)
November 28, 2001... At the beginning of October, Julian Clover, Chris Forrester and Barry Flynn were supplied with Sky+ boxes by BSkyB. Here are their verdicts two months in. Chris Forrester The Sky+ set-top box has changed my life. I'm serious. Sky+,...

Echostar's DVR 7000: From Cute to Indispensable.(Brief Article)
November 28, 2001... The Sky+ box is not the only Personal Video Recorder on the block, writes Chris Forrester, and Echostar's impressive DVR 7000 is especially worth looking at as a guide to where software development within the sector is heading. The Echostar box...

UK Broadband Now at One Per Cent ... and Rising.(Brief Article)
November 28, 2001... Inside Digital TV Editor Barry Flynn assesses the progress of the UK broadband sector With Telewest's latest financials now in, it seems a good time to assess how the UK broadband sector has fared since the beginning of the year. Inside...

Briefly...(Brief Article)
November 28, 2001... * MIH has discontinued its Mindport Broadband operation "in line with the slowdown in broadband service revenues and market forecasts," resulting in a loss from discontinuing operations of $23 million [E26.2 million]. The news came as part of...