TORONTO – Using IP as a delivery mechanism, average consumers who have caught the video content creation bug are now in a position to become IPTV broadcasters, according to industry experts who spoke at this week’s Canadian Digital Broadcasting Summit 2007 held in Toronto.
There are two flavours of IPTV today, explains Alan Sawyer, media strategist and consultant for Toronto-based Two Solitudes Consulting. “There’s the IPTV stuff going over a dedicated network by a telco or a cable company, and then there’s the stuff on the wide open Internet which is also using IP to deliver TV content,” he said.
“The world of content creation and distribution has changed. Now anyone anywhere anytime can create content. Content creation is now without boundaries or borders… and that content is being distributed in a lot of different ways using IP, but arguably it’s still a form of IPTV,” Sawyer said.
User-generated content aggregator sites such as YouTube or Google Video are two examples of different ways that IPTV content is being distributed to computers, Sawyer said. In the case of Google Video, user-generated content and licensed content, from Warner Brothers perhaps, may be displayed side by side. “They’re both video, they both have audio components, they’re both available for streaming over the Internet. Is one television and one not television?”
With TV tuner cards and digital video interface cards now widely available, computer users today can output IPTV content to a standard television set. And in Sawyer’s opinion, viewing TV episodes available from the CTV Broadband Network, for example, via a computer-connected television set provides an image quality as good as the standard broadcast. “It’s very hard to differentiate between the two,” Sawyer said.
Having said that, Sawyer admitted that some industry watchers might point out that colour correction differences between the two media can be a problem. However, he added that, to a large extent, many consumers are not as discriminating as the industry would like to think that they are.
“We need to recognize the fact that people are not necessarily demanding a perfect signal,” Sawyer said, citing the tremendous popularity of poor-quality low-resolution videos readily available on sites such as YouTube.
Capitalizing on the desire of many Internet users “to just get noticed” seems to be the goal of Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting’s recent launch of its blogTV.ca site. Still in beta, blogTV.ca is a social network community that allows users to produce and record 15-minute live broadcasts and also interact with like-minded video content creators.
“With blogTV.ca, we’re empowering anyone with a webcam to broadcast a live video show,” said Tim Lambertus, director of social media and blogTV.ca for Alliance Atlantis. According to Lambertus, blogTV.ca is the first Canadian social media site of its kind.
Citing recent market research from comScore Media Metrix, Lambertus said the number of Canadians looking for Canadian content on user-generated content sites is growing, with 61% of respondents to a recent survey saying they prefer to view Canadian material.
Media strategist Sawyer agreed, saying the local relevance of broadcast content is important to Canadians, especially when it comes to local news and cultural content. Image quality is less of an issue, according to both Sawyer and Lambertus.
Michael Cowpland, president and CEO of Ottawa-based Zim Corp., says he believes there is a very large market for what he calls “adequate TV”. Zim operates a peer-to-peer (P2P) global Internet TV network, in which each IPTV viewer is also a broadcaster. Zim’s mass market approach to IPTV broadcasting is based on a belief that 400Kbps bandwidth is good enough for 98 per cent of its audience.
Users who want a better quality IP broadcast experience may be interested in the new Apple TV device, set to ship next week from Apple Canada Inc. Apple TV allows users to view their iTunes content (which isn’t much in Canada) on a widescreen, enhanced-definition or high-definition TV.
Another option for users will be Sony’s Bravia Internet Video System, announced at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show and expected to ship in summer 2007. The Bravia Internet Video System will attach to the rear of a TV, allowing it to stream free broadband Internet video content, including high-definition TV video.
Sony has partnered with AOL, Yahoo! and Grouper to deliver Internet video content directly to the Bravia Internet Video System, said Daniel Panke, product manager in the marketing division of Sony of Canada Ltd.
For users who are serious about creating high-quality video content for Internet broadcast, Sony offers a range of high-definition camcorders and video editing software that makes it easier for consumers to become broadcasters, Panke said.
Linda Stuart is a Toronto-based freelancer who covered the Canadian Satellite Users Association annual Digital Television conference in Toronto this week.
