The Egyptian telecommunications market generated US$6.4 billion in service revenue in 2010, having grown at 21% CAGR over the previous two years, according to Pyramid Reserach. And, while this period represents the peak growth phase, Pyramid suggests the country will remain one of the fastest growing markets in Africa and the Middle East going forward, mainly due to the promise of increased mobile broadband penetration and the value added services that high speed internet access can bring. Point Topic identifies a similar trend, indicating that the mobile telephony and broadband segments are starting to overtake all other telecommunication segments in the country.
In this busy emerging African market, our Dreamgallery™ middleware solution will power IPTV services from Egyptian Advanced Multimedia Systems, an Egyptian provider of IPTV services. The Nilesat Satellite will be used to transmit the multicast streams and VOD content to Regional Headends in the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf area, and EAMS project is expected to implement an average of 50 regional head ends every year for the first five years of operation.
After numerous successful deployments in Europe and mainly in developed markets, we are excited to extend our reach to offer Dreamgallery’s flexibility for regionalized administration and customization needed for this type of operator such as EAMS. Based on the dynamic nature of our platform and its ability to fit a variety of deployments, we look forward to helping more and more service providers to offer an exciting multimedia and content experience to viewers across the region.
Taking a quick look around the Internet, from Twitter to blogs to sites like Television Without Pity, it’s clear that people love their TV. And second to wanting unlimited great content choices, they want to be able to find the content they want quickly and easily. The middleware’s job is to help users find what they are looking for quickly and easily.
First, the middleware needs to be proactive. Rather than waiting for the user to search for a specific program or topic, the middleware can incorporate recommendations and provide an attractive and engaging UI that captures the user’s interests and leads them to relevant content.
Second, middleware needs to be intuitive. Just as navigation on the computer and on websites with great design is natural and enjoyable, TV navigation should let users focus on what they want to watch rather than how to get to it.
Finally, middleware should be unobtrusive to the user. Everyone says they have great ease of usability, but the interface needs to be hardly noticeable to the subscribers to that they feel right at home when they sit down and begin browsing programs and channels. The user shouldn’t even think about navigating the interface as it works seamlessly to get them where they want to be. We believe there are no limits to what can be achieved and that middleware should be able to do anything that can be done on the web.
Keeping in mind that TV Middleware is constantly asked for increased functionality, it is also extremely important that there is a way for operators to extend the offering. At Dreampark for example, we aim to meet this challenge by combining our Dreamgallery Portal Generator, a web-based What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get editor with a Software Development Kit, a set of tools that place the control right at the Operators fingertips. Dreamgallery middleware is dynamic so it doesn’t compromise speed or flexibility. We know it is important for our middleware to remember the end user and for that reason we keep it simple and intuitive for them to use. This will make it possible to launch new features matching the above criteria with an aggressive time to market.
This blog was also posted on the Official IBC 2010 Blog by Video Net News (on twitter: @videonetnews) and can be viewed here.
Author: Bjorn Lang, CTO
As the CTO of Dreampark, Bjorn has extensive experience from 20+ IPTV and hybrid deployments throughout EMEA.
We’re getting ready to fly over to London for IPTV World Forum next week. We were asked to write a guest blog for the IPTV World Forum official Show Blog on VideoNet (@videonetnews). It got us thinking about what all the operators out there need to do to differentiate themselves. Below is the blog we wrote with our thoughts about it (also on the VideoNet Official IPTV World Forum blog.
Flexibility is essential for operators and the middleware they use has to coexist with the STB, video server, encoder and other solutions that the operator is using. The need for a flexible interface is a necessity. The ability to support rapid development and add new hot features for the subscriber is the biggest concern for IPTV operators.
Some middleware vendors didn’t come from an IPTV background and they had to adapt for IPTV, sometimes at the expense of operators’ flexibility. We’ve noticed a trend where operators who already have one of these types of middleware solutions needs more flexible front-end solutions to integrate with their middleware providers’ back-end. Operators having a first generation middleware solution or a customized solution are often lacking the flexibility of doing changes in the portal, adding new applications or even to customizing the User Interface. This becomes increasingly important when competition among operators is getting tougher.
IPTV operators are confronted increased competition from cable and satellite. They are discovering that they need to add differentiating factors to attract and keep customers. What is lacking in most solutions is an administration tool that addresses this task and allows the Operator to be in control of both the Look-and-Feel and also the contents of the Portal.
Dreampark sees this opportunity for IPTV middleware solutions to create the most flexible solution available in order to help operators offer the best service to subscribers. We’ve taken the system one step further by allowing the operator to see the changes take effect in real-time on the actual device that is used by the subscribers, which they have noted is very important to them. Once the verification is done the Operator may publish the new additions and/or changes to all subscribers. Dreampark calls this “What-you-see-is-what-you-get.” Operators need to be able to create a business portal and push revenue generating opportunities to customers without a lot of help from the middleware provider. And, it’s easiest for them to do this if they can see what things will look like as they are adding to the portal in real-time.
Come visit us in Stand #169 at IPTV World Forum in London on March 23-25. We’ll be talking about our Front End solution designed to help operators get the maximum flexibility. Our front-end solution allows operators that already have a middleware solution in place to add new services in real-time and to really see what they are getting and exactly how it will look for the user. Operators running DreamgalleryTM software may fully control the business portal.
Visitors to IPTV World Forum will be able to demonstrate this solution and see how easily changes can be made to the Middleware instantly.
If you are interested in a meeting, please send an email to exhibition@dreampark.com.
If you are media or an analyst and would like to get a briefing from Dreampark at IPTV World Forum, please contact our PR representatives,
Alex Crabb or Jennifer Hicks at:
+1-617.956.2214 or +33 6 84 47 80 42
Alex@theinkstudio.com or Jennifer@theinkstudio.com
Twitter: alexcrabb and jennalee
Make sure you follow @DreamparkTV on twitter to get all our latest updates from the IPTV World Forum show floor and the inside scoop on whats happening inside our booth!
IPTV Global growth is estimated to reach 50.5 million subscribers this year with revenues topping $12.2 billion, according to Multimedia Research Group (MRG). IPTV News says that IPTV services will reach 70 million subscribers in the next 4 years more than double the end-2009 total of 26 million. IPTV has made watching TV in the living room more dynamic with a more incredible user experience. The worldwide IPTV market has been growing at a rapid pace but this year the promise and potential for IPTV will really come forth, especially for Dreampark.
Dreampark has been celebrating the many successes that 2009 brought. Despite the recession that has gripped the world over the past year, in 2010 we plan to expand the company with new hires by 30% in order to meet the demands from existing customers and respond to new business opportunities.
Dreampark has seen a huge demand for its Next Generation Portal, scheduled for release in Q1 2010. The Next-Generation Portal Generator brings the Dreamgallery Middleware “What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get” graphical user interface to a new level giving operators full control of their TV portals for customization and regionalization. Allowing operators to see changes take effect in real time makes it easier than ever for them to create a business portal and push revenue generating opportunities to customers.
By 2014, IPTV penetration will be above 10% of TV households in 17 countries around the world, according to the report from IPTV News. At Dreampark, we’ll do our part by staying committed to being the most deployed IPTV Middleware in Europe.
IPTV is a just a technology, transferring video over IP. So, how can a technology, IPTV, become a part of a new consumer TV lifestyle? Can it change the way we relate to the TV or more importantly, how we interact with the TV.
We believe all the elements are in place and you will start to see them become a part of the IPTV offering and deliver a new TV lifestyle to the consumer.
Endless amounts of content: New capabilities such as Video on Demand (VOD), client and network PVR, web sites offering video and the availability of digital content are making the world flat. Content can be offered from any place on the globe at any time. The concept of channels and schedule is becoming almost meaningless to most TV consumers today.
Rich user experience: Goodbye to boring programming guides, hello to new visual guides. Users demand a great user experience from everything they do on TV. They have come to expect it. They want to navigate the TV the way they do on their computer. It must be clear, crisp end enjoyable. Operators who seek ways to differentiate their service offering will need flexible software and SDK to allow them to change every bit of the way their TV looks and feel.
Personalization: With vast content resources users will need new ways to navigate around. The holy-grail is search-less search. Smart recommendations, tags and subscribe-notify mechanisms will be the way to let users find what they want without typing a single word. A lot of intelligence is now invested in trying to guess your needs and help you find your needle in the pile of content.
New type of applications: Dreampark’s Portal Generator allows operators to easily evolve and to support fast introduction of new services. Using an intuitive What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get editor will empower the operators to also customize and renew existing services and look and feel to keep the subscribers engaged with their offerings.
Blended services: IP infrastructure allows easy mixing of services from different domains. Voice, video, data and mobile can be stitched together to create new type of applications. Caller ID on TV, Informational widgets on TV and mobile picture to TV are just a few such examples.
Home networks: Multi-room TV and local programs, music and pictures will become a part of the household assets. See your household content wherever you like it, stop it in one room and continue in another or share a clip across all screens in the house is becoming a viable option with new standards for home networking.
Web 2.0: Communities, social networks, recommendation sharing and new types of user-generated content will all be part of the new wave of Internet applications. Expect to find many of these new ideas migrating from the computer to the IPTV environment and changing the way people interact with and consume their TV services.
Any device: TV on any device is a worldwide mantra. You will someday be able to see your TV on PC, Mobile or any device you can imagine and do it anywhere in the world.
As we have stressed, IPTV has what it takes to become a new and incredible experience for TV watching. While some of these elements above will be available only in the future, they still represent the powerful benefits that IPTV can bring to the television viewing experience. Dreampark is on the edge of innovation with its own Dreamgallery™ middleware to help operators make IPTV a more dynamic and user friendly experience. Dreampark remains committed to providing user friendliness, openness, flexibility and a unique TV application feel.
Online entertainment has gone through an immense change since the growth of IPTV and Internet video viewing. This dynamic trend has revolutionized what we understand as simple leisure time in front of the television. Social TV blends interactivity with television viewing. Previously, television watching has been a passive activity and with the introduction of social features, the viewers’ experience will change into a complex system of integration – adding voice commands, text-based chats and program ratings and recommendations to other contributors. Viewers today select and watch television programs at their convenience. Basically, viewers get what they want at their request; however this is still a solo activity. ‘Social TV’ throws in a new aspect by enabling viewers to watch television with their online friends in various locations and various time zones.
Online television is a new and distinctive medium for all those associated with media and entertainment. This new digital media solution is transforming the Internet as Web TV shows are being created for a specifically targeted group of viewers who disregard the isolated experience of television viewing. According to Parks Associates research, these viewers prefer going online than watching television and are enthusiastic about new social features on TV. There is a particular interest in interactive video games, chat sessions with viewers who are watching the same TV shows and even building networks of friends who admire your ‘Top 10’ list. Social TV even allows for small time-out sessions during sporting events or movies while you invite friends to discuss players, plays and gossip before the end of the broadcast.
In order to provide an appropriate response and employ customer retention strategy, IPTV and cable operators have started including their own alternatives for social TV and interactivity in the home environment. Features introduced include peer-to-peer messaging, recommendation engines. In order to provide an appropriate response and employ customer retention strategy, IPTV and cable operators have started including their own alternatives for social TV and interactivity in the home environment. Features introduced include peer-to-peer messaging, recommendation engines, iPhone applications, chat sessions and more.
Dreampark’s first-class IPTV middleware and television applications have been the preferred choice by many television operators in Europe. Today these operators are exploring a new alternative in television viewing. Over-The-Top (OTT) streaming enables viewers to watch more of their favorite shows or programs via multimedia and open public networks.
OTT is considered the latest solution in streaming media and telecommunications networks and allows for a broader scope of television, video content and social media offerings to subscribers. It facilitates multi-platform TV offering, as well as those service providers who do not have access to the appropriate network infrastructure but aim to provide continuous content directly to existing and prospective customers. Building comprehensive entertainment services has to be carried out using guaranteed standards, while at the same time adapting to new technologies and viewer demands.
Dreampark is committed to provide an integrated OTT solution as a new offering available via Dreamgallery™, our software suite. With such developments in television viewing, service providers, telcos and MSOs alike, would benefit from utilizing the flexibility and adaptability of Dreampark’s products in order to provide the best possible solutions to their subscribers.
Post by: Marcus Bristav, Head of Research & Chief Architect, Dreampark
One of the tricky aspects for vendors providing TV portals in the digital TV industry is the fact that the technology that is developed and introduced to the market affects the various players in the chain, as well as the end customer, of course, who is portrayed in each and every one of us. Each time a new feature or service is contemplated for the TV middleware, numerous considerations are involved; technological feasibility, complexity and integration efforts, user demand for the specific service, and pricing strategies, just to name a few.
The technological hurdles are relatively easily resolved. Operator flexibility and performance are maximized by taking advantage of the powers of open standards, such as HTML and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), to give operators full control of their TV portals for customization and regionalization. The same thing applies for integration when working with a leading vendor, whose TV middleware is pre-integrated with a wide range of set-top boxes, video servers and CA/DRM systems. The most challenging factor remains: how to increase user adoption of new interactive services and willingness to pay for these services. In order for the new service to be appealing to the customer, it has to bring an added value, or a new type of entertainment that has not yet been introduced. Another important element is the ease in which the user can experiment with the service and start using it. Complicated menus or unclear instructions are bound to deter viewers from adopting new services.
Current standard offering as far as TV middleware is concerned, have gone a long way since the inception of digital TV, yet a lot of services remain underdeveloped and untapped. These include gaming applications, mobile PVR and more. Consider being able to exercise PVR control with mobile devices, giving you the possibility to use a web page or a mobile device to remotely control a PVR Set Top Box in your home. Additional appealing features are personal channel lists, start over functionality and more.
Advanced television and broadband video services will flourish and influence the next generation of entertainment applications only if enough consideration is given to user demands. After all, increasing customer willingness to pay for advanced television features and for a personalized TV experience will further drive the evolution of digital TV, and the operators’ incentive to invest in introducing these services.
IPTV users and those in the industry are gradually being introduced to new technology in television middleware. Images and texts have become equally important in delivering information over the internet and television. A new and improved experience in television viewing is available, promising users high standards of quality and even further opportunities for television portals.
Television subscribers aspire to use the best possible solutions available and operators can now offer the best performance and solution for their subscribers with SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). SVG is a language for two-dimensional vector graphics which functions as codes of XML. Images are created and scaled to the size of the screen, which appear clearer and transmit faster without sacrificing the resolution of the image.
With such advanced developments, IPTV services are optimized in terms of speed and performance as files are smaller and the images can be adapted to fit relative to the size of the viewing screen. Such graphics allow for access to a broader group of users, such as those with strained vision, users of digital or mobile technologies, intricate internet business solutions and those in magazine or catalogue printing.
The Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) technology has been implemented in Dreampark’s Dreamgallery™ middleware, for bringing the IPTV user a new level of experience. Dreampark announced full commitment to the SVG standard last year based on its ability to optimize the speed and performance of IPTV services. Dreampark’s SVG Client brings the following improvements to the Dreamgallery middleware software suite:
Crystal clear graphics and high quality user interface in HD resolution
Two to ten times faster and more responsive performance than the HTML client running on the same hardware
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