Samsung see horizontal IPTV opportunity

[BGonaSTICK]

Samsung executive John Adam has called upon platform operators to give manufacturers an opportunity to develop an ever-greater range of devices for their services.

Speaking at the DVB press conference at IBC, Adam, who is his company’s representative on the DVB, said the horizontal market has the greatest opportunity to integrate. “It’s Samsung’s hope that the DVB IP standards will enable a similar horizontal market in the emerging IPTV space. It’s our hope that some of the pay-TV operators embrace the horizontal market and bring their pay-TV services to a wider range of devices”.

Samsung has recently been awarded a contract by BSkyB to develop receivers for its UK DTH service, commencing with Sky HD.

The DVB Project is currently developing a set of specifications for IPTV, nine of which has already been published, with a further five to follow. Included in what would be the world’s first set of specifications for the interoperability of IPTV are an application layer, forward error correction, and an electronic programme guide.

“IPTV does promise to be one of the hottest topics at IBC, it is an area extremely fashionable, but it remains to be seen if all the promises are realised,” commented Peter MacAvock, executive director, DVB Project Office. “IPTV remains the areas that has yet to benefit from a DVB set of standards and we’re hoping top change that.”

Source: Broadband TV News