By Peter Blasina This time last year I was absolutely convinced that the 'next big thing' in home entertainment was IPTV (Internet Protocol Television, or Internet TV). I was the consummate evangelist, regaling people at dinner parties, in supermarket checkouts and even Sunday BBQs with my prophecy of the revolution that was about to take place in their living rooms.
So how did I, and many others, get it so embarrassingly wrong? Why are we all so wide of the reality mark 12 months later?
First, a quick recap. IPTV is video programming streamed or downloaded directly to your TV in the living room via a set-top box (not a PC) using a relatively fast broadband connection. The set-top box acts as a web browser, and programs are searched using customised guides containing video search abilities.
Currently provided by some major telecommunications companies around the world, IPTV has the potential to turn the broadcasting, film, advertising, telecommunications and Pay TV industries upside down. For this reason, it's regarded as disruptive technology - hence its potential for 'revolution' - but the expected shake-out has fizzled for a variety of reasons.
Firstly, there is virtually no agreement as to which of the myriad compression standards should be used to squeeze all this content - some in full HD - down the broadband pipes. Globally, MPEG2 has proven to be popular, and while some IPTV providers prefer MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) much of the smart money is backing Microsoft's Windows Media Video 9 codec. This dramatically reduces the bandwidth requirements, enabling IPTV systems to carry more standard definition channels or, potentially, HDTV programming.
Then there's the bandwidth issue. The Federal Government's $4.7 billion plan to rollout an optic fibre network (Fibre To The Node - FTTN) would provide speeds of up to 6 megabits-per-second (Mbps), while an alternate $9 billion plan would offer double the speed, up to 12 Mbps. Both, however, are inadequate, delivering only one lane of the required 12-lane information superhighway we should be working to build. By the time the new broadband network is rolled out - theoretically in 2013 - 12Mbs will be painfully slow. We should be talking gigabit per second connections and taking fibre directly to the home.
Then there's the 'chicken and egg' issue of what to watch on IPTV. Content producers won't create programming without an adequate way of distributing it, and infrastructure builders have little impetus to invest in the hardware without compelling content to distribute upon it.
Just as interesting as the obstacles facing IPTV is how it will fragment audiences, 'narrowcasting' to viewers rather than broadcasting as today's TV networks do. Traditional broadcasters are likely pair with telecommunications providers to provide an enormous number of digital program streams into the audience's homes, streams that are entirely under the broadcaster's control. For viewers, the experience would be something close to what is delivered by existing cable and broadcast television systems, but the offering would be so broad and plentiful that they would be able to essentially create 'a la carte' viewing packages. Video-on-demand and personal video recording features would allow them a greater level of control on how, when, and where they watch the programs.
Growing up alongside this - and in opposition to it - will be the audience that handles its own distribution; peer-to-peer or 'hyperdistribution' networks that distribute programming on their own, without the help, or even the legal sanction of the copyright holders.
So in Australia today, IPTV is a wide-open field, fraught with pitfalls, yet laced with opportunity and the promise of great programming diversity and choice. To progress though, there needs to be a forward-thinking strategy and concord between our infrastructure companies and content creators.
And once they build it, we will come.
