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IPTV

January 17th, 2008 by calin

IPTV is supposed to be the next broadcast solution and replace traditional television program delivery. The concept behind IPTV is to deliver TV programs over the Internet. Watching YouTube clips in your browser is not IPTV. Take a look at VoIP (Voice over IP). When you say VoIP you may think Skype, but look further at businesses and you will find that users just pick up that business-looking black and silver handset, answer, or dial a number even if they use VoIP. My point here is that user habits must not be changed, so even if the technology behind the handset is new and more cost-efficient, you still use something that can be called a phone.The same thing should happen with IPTV. Subscribers may receive the signal through their broadband connection instead of the traditional antenna or the TV cable (analog or digital), but besides that, they will want to use their old TVs or new LCD TVs and plasma TVs to watch TV, not run a “Watch TV” application running on their computer.

So far some content providers are delivering a few solutions. Take Joost for example. It’s a great application from the founders of Skype that delivers TV shows via an application. A great selection of shows is available for every taste, it even works perfectly with my HP Pavillion dv1000 laptop’s remote, so I can “watch Joost” just like watching TV. But still, when I purchased my laptop, watching TV was not on the list of requirements and that’s because I and most buyers already own a TV set for that purpose.

Another solution is Apple TV, which lets you easily watch the video content from your computer on your TV screen. The solution is well done, but still, you have to go through your PC to watch content on your TV.

The last one I mention is a Romanian service I came across yesterday called i-tv that offers the same channel list that most cable TV providers on your computer for a monthly fee comparable to that of conventional cable TV providers.

While all these are good solutions, none of them let me plug in a cable into back of the TV set and watch content without a PC in the home.

Expect an IPTV offer from any of your mobile phone, fixed phone, cable TV or your Internet provider in the years to come!