Click Image for Broadband/Mobile Plan/DTH Comparison Page
IPTV is the new age television, it is a technology which allows transmission of television over the existing internet and broadband networks. Thus, IPTV has digital television using the networking methods of Internet Protocol(IP), that we use in our day to day internet browsing. So IPTV is possible only where broadband and internet access networks exist, making it possible to digitally transfer television program data, instead of radio frequency and TV cables.
IPTV was first introduced in 1995 by a company called Precept Software. After that, IPTV has just climbed uphill and has been one of the pioneers of TV transmission. When it first started operations, IPTV was highly limited given the speed of prevailing broadband connections. The reach of IPTV also meant that the consumers had to be only in the area served by the broadband service providers, and needed to have a high speed internet connection. IPTV is also considered now, as a secondary revenue option for the large investments already made by the Internet Service Providers. But in India, it does not have the requirement of high speed pipe, with an unlimited option to provide for the bandwidth guzzling IPTV.
IPTV has many definitions over the period of time including such like elementary streams over IP, transport streams over IP and a number of other proprietary systems. The official definition by the Internation Telecommunication Union focus group is,”IPTV is defined as multimedia services such as television/video/audio/text/graphics/data delivered over IP based networks managed to provide the required level of quality of service and experience, security, interactivity and reliability”.
IPTV started off broadcasting the normal TV programs which were rightly handled by the existing broadband connections, but with the advent of HDTV they are buckling under pressure. This is very true especially in countries like India which are still not providing worthy Mbps connections. However premium content providers prefer IPTV as their delivery platform given the ease of delivering them. But IPTV in India has a long way to go, to reach the preferred quality control benchmark that is accepted worldwide.
IPTV is very easily distributed, with just the requirement of existing broadband connection at the customer’s house and a set-top box similar to those given by DTH or CAS providers. Thus it has lower costs for the operators and the consumers as well. The only additional requirement at the provider side is a server which takes care of the multiple requests from loads of consumers simultaneously. Generally there are two kinds of network architecture for the video servers, namely Centralized and Distributed. The Centralized Architecture is very easy to manage and is simple to handle as well, since the content is stored on a centralized server. In comparisions a Distributed Architecture system requires very high bandwidth to operate upon. IPTV has also been transmitted using satellites, just like satellite TV, but with better quality of audio and video. But it is restricted to connecting just the origin server and the distribution center. IPTV also provides interactivity for the end consumers, which can be changed based on the region without any hassles, thanks to the different distribution servers.
Ananth Acharya
Guest Blogger
www.ATechiesThoughts.com
Related posts: