Posts Tagged ‘iptv’

IPgallery announced the release of its Click to Anything application for Facebook, which will allow content service providers to extend the company’s cloud-based, Web-activated, Internet-protocol-TV platform to the social networking site, permitting users to call, chat, watch, share, and transfer multimedia content.

The company — which delivers bundled voice, Internet, video, and mobile services to service providers such as cable operators — will participate in CableNET 2011 at The Cable Show at McCormick Place in Chicago June 14-16 to demonstrate how cable operators and related service providers can create a branded communications and interactive environment to reach consumers of its content while they are active on social networking sites.

IPgallery CEO Avihai Degani said:

The new connected TVs, smartphones, and tablets expose the MSOs (multiple system operators) to new challenges, with OTTs (over-the-top services) offering IP-based low-cost alternatives, causing existing consumers to give up their current subscriptions and the younger generation to not even consider it. We have now enabled the MSOs to deliver cloud-based, Web activated IP services that work alongside their current digital-TV deployments, for an enhanced viewing and communication experience across any network and any device, creating new revenue streams from both current and non-subscribers, while reducing capex (capital expenditures) and opex (operating expenses).

Executive vice president of sales and marketing David Spear added:

In the era of social networks, consumers are looking for communication simplicity, along with the flexibility to access content and value-added services anywhere. Our unique social communications platform now enables the MSOs to reach beyond their current boundaries, providing the same communication and entertainment experience to consumers no matter what environment they’re in, turning over-the-top threats into opportunities and reduced churn.

Barely a week after launch, a Seattle-based streaming TV startup filed suit against major broadcast networks, hoping that a court will approve of it’s attempt to retransmit live television broadcasts over the Web.

Unlike streaming video-on-demand services like Hulu and Netflix, the plucky ivi, Inc. says it will give viewers access to more than 20 live TV streams from networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox for the low price of $4.99 a month. Only one problem: Nobody ever told the networks.

Because it’s “retransmitting” TV streams online, ivi claims that it does not have to pay the pesky FCC mandated retransmission fees like a cable company would, but it does pay content royalties to broadcasters through the copyright office, and releases viewership data to Nielsen so networks can factor it into their advertising calculations. According to ivi, it’s actually doing broadcasters a service by distributing existing broadcast feeds to a larger audience. However that hasn’t kept most of the major broadcasters from sending cease and desist letters to the company.

Rather than wait to get sued, ivi filed a suit of its own against broadcasters including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and Major League Baseball, seeking a declaratory judgment from the state of Washington’s legal system.

The 18-person ivi says it has gone to great lengths to prevent content piracy by encrypting its feeds, and founder Todd Weaver scoffed at a comparison between ivi and online piracy. “We’re conforming to us copyright law exactly to the letter and paying the original broadcaster. We’re more comparable to the early cable companies. It has nothing to do with piracy whatsoever, and we frown upon piracy,” he said in a statement.

For the legally-minded, a ful .pdf of ivi’s complaint can be found here.