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.

Post by: Bjorn Lang, CTO, Dreampark

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