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Google online video ads

Google launched a new advertising technology that will allow publishers to incorporate text ads into online videos. The launch marks the search group's most ambitious attempt yet to make money by selling ads that appear inside video clips. Under the new system, advertisers will pay to have their messages appear inside online videos across the […]

February 22, 2008

Online users prefer web to TV

An IDC study of consumer online behaviour found that the Internet is the medium on which online users spend the most time (32.7 hours/week). This is equivalent to almost half of the total time spent each week using all media (70.6 hours), almost twice as much time as spent watching television (16.4 hours), and more […]

February 22, 2008

NBC streams retro TV

NBC Universal has revealed will stream full episodes of old TV shows, including “The A-Team”, “Buck Rogers” and “Kojak,” on its websites. Beginning this month, the shows will be available on NBC.com and on network-owned niche sites SciFi.com, ChillerTV.com and SleuthChannel.com. The content also will be available on Hulu, the online video joint venture that […]

February 22, 2008

Video quality essential to success of IPTV

Symmetricom has released a study conducted by Multimedia Research Group (MRG) that assessed telecommunications service providers' requirements for IPTV test, measurement and monitoring solutions. Results of the study confirm that video quality is critical to the growth and success of IPTV, significantly affecting customer support calls and customer churn. Importantly, the study also revealed that […]

February 21, 2008

Gesture-recognition for Imagenio

From David Del Valle in Madrid Changing channel through gestures and without a remote control will be possible very soon on the Telefonica-controlled IPTV platform, Imagenio, with more than 500,000 subscribers. Telefonica and the technology specialist Gesture Tek are joinly developing a system that can recognise user hand signs via the set-top-box (STB). The system […]

February 21, 2008

Sport the content of choice online

In the same way that sport content was a major driver of pay-TV adoption, sports will be the single biggest driver of consumption for online video. Screen Digest forecast the number of online sports videos (OSV) streams/downloads served in the domestic US market will increase from 5.2bn last year to 10.8 billion by 2012. In […]

February 21, 2008

BBC iPlayer growth continues

Over 17 million programmes have been streamed or downloaded on demand on BBC iPlayer in the first seven weeks since its marketing launch, according to the latest figures from the BBC. During January, over 2.2 million people watched a programme on BBC iPlayer, with approximately 11 million TV programmes streamed or downloaded on demand.

February 21, 2008

Asia-Pacific will outpace Europe in IPTV

The global IPTV industry is rapidly expanding with the rising penetration of broadband in households all over the world, says “Global IPTV: Market Analysis and Forecast to 2011”, a comprehensive market research report by RNCOS, a market research company. The report has found that the global IPTV market is currently dominated by Europe but it […]

February 20, 2008

Euro project to shape next-gen Internet TV

From Colin Mann in London P2P-Next, a pan-European conglomerate of 21 industrial partners, media content providers and research institutions, has received a E14 million grant from the European Union. The grant will enable the body to carry out a research project aiming to identify the potential uses of peer-to-peer (P2P) technology for Internet Television of […]

February 20, 2008

TVCatchup suspended

The TV recording site TVCatchup.com has had its service suspended after complaints from the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Channel Five. TVCatchup launched in trial last year, allowing users to record offline TV shows, watch them online and share copies with other members. The UK-focused site immediately attracted the concern of broadcasters, which have invested […]

February 19, 2008