IPTV

silvine

What kind of internet speeds do you need to use your connection for an IPTV service? I have a ten mb connection and am wondering are there any Irish IPTV offferings yet? I hear Magnet have something.

watty

You need to be a Homevision/Magnet/Smart customer. Real IPTV does not work across the Internet, it uses your local connection to your ISP as a kind of "video sender" with essentially a "virtual set box" at exchange or node streaming video to a dedicated IPTV set box in your house. Having more than one set-box/TV usually needs fibre. Having HDT V at anything like Satellite or BluRay quality is barely possible on a 30Mbps connection, for only one TV.

10Mbps is not really good enough. Get a Dish (or possibly Cable, subscription only) if you want decent Digital TV, free or pay channels, inc free HDTV. Satellite and Cable can do even HDTV to any number of TVs / Set boxes.

IPTV is not for users/consumers. It's a scheme to allow non-cable Telcos to compete badly with established Pay TV operators.

silvine

IPTV is not for users/consumers. It's a scheme to allow non-cable Telcos to compete badly with established Pay TV operators

Not according to this guy: http://www.thebillblog.com/billblog/index.php/2008/07/15/time-for-digital-turnoff/

I have a 10mb connection and NTL cable. I'm trying to figure out how I can get more from my internet.

bk

silvine wrote: »

Not according to this guy: http://www.thebillblog.com/billblog/index.php/2008/07/15/time-for-digital-turnoff/

I have a 10mb connection and NTL cable. I'm trying to figure out how I can get more from my internet.

The above article is full of rubbish and hype. There is absolutely nothing exciting about IPTV, IPTV is simply a very inefficient way to distribute TV by ADSL providers who can't distribute by any other more efficient means, due to the limitations of their network.

I have Smart's IPTV service and it is nothing but a very inferior version, with less channels, of what you currently get from NTL.

Basically IPTV in Ireland means you get exactly the same (or usually less) channels then you get from NTL or Sky, but with lower picture quality, slow EPG, pixelation and audio sync problems.

Perhaps you are getting confused with Video On Demand services and BBC iPlayer, but these aren't actually IPTV and non of these services are available in Ireland.

silvine

No I am not mixing the two but I thought Bill's blog was worth a read. It's a shame RTE et al don't have anything like the iPlayer. Having a good internet connection is a bit pointless if the services aren't ther to match.

paulm17781

silvine wrote: »

No I am not mixing the two but I thought Bill's blog was worth a read. It's a shame RTE et al don't have anything like the iPlayer. Having a good internet connection is a bit pointless if the services aren't ther to match.

I think we'll all need FTTH (not FTTK ot FTTB) before we'll start to see decent IPTV. Why not look at downloading some series of things. I'm with you though, 20Mb connection and nothing to do.

barnicles

4od is available in ireland. Joost is another option

watty

Joost is p2p eats your cap and is near death.

4oD is like iPlayer/Kontiki/SkyAnyWhere P2P. Same applies.

These are not IPTV and a PVR makes more sense.

Unless there is a 100,000 title catalogue, Video on Demand makes no sense on cable. Recent releases can be background broadcast on cable (not IPTV) saving 50x to 10,000x bandwidth and recorded on the PVR (Sky do this on Satellite in background on PVR too). Then unlike "real" IPTV VOD playback, your VOD portal playback is always perfect.

IPTV will ALWAYS be inferior to broadcast, unless we all have 2Gbps or better fibre EACH.

I've about 18Gbps of digital TV bandwidth. It's called Satellite TV. I can have 17 set boxes and the system is expandable to 1000 receivers. Even IPTV on fibre can't compete.

IPTV is over hyped and ONLY EXISTS for Telephone Exchange/copper pair / fibre operators.

The 100,000 title catalogue has never materialised. Most IPTV is a poor copy of cable with XtraVision recent releases as the VOD part.

Mountjoy Mugger

Can I take it you won't be subscribing to it anytime soon then, Watty?

barnicles

Id agree mm

watty

Mountjoy Mugger wrote: »

Can I take it you won't be subscribing to it anytime soon then, Watty?

Sometimes I use things just to prove my theories

thebromeliad

watty wrote: »

I've about 18Gbps of digital TV bandwidth. It's called Satellite TV. I can have 17 set boxes and the system is expandable to 1000 receivers. Even IPTV on fibre can't compete.

According to Robert Dunn from UPC Sky doesn't have real HD and NTL will be providing that next year (as well as 100mb/s broadband).

dub45

thebromeliad wrote: »

According to Robert Dunn from UPC Sky doesn't have real HD and NTL will be providing that next year (as well as 100mb/s broadband).

At the moment I would be very grateful if UPC would provide me with a decent analogue signal!:rolleyes:

useruser

watty wrote: »

IPTV is not for users/consumers. It's a scheme to allow non-cable Telcos to compete badly with established Pay TV operators.

Hmm. There are now an estimated 15million IPTV subscribers worldwide, up from 8 million only one year ago. Seems like something a little more substantial than a quick wheeze to wheedle more money out of Joe consumer.

bk

useruser wrote: »

Hmm. There are now an estimated 15million IPTV subscribers worldwide, up from 8 million only one year ago. Seems like something a little more substantial than a quick wheeze to wheedle more money out of Joe consumer.

Except for the small detail that the majority of them are on Verizons Fois service in the US and similar services in Japan and Korea.

Why this is important to note, is that these companies actually do Fibre all the way into the users actual home and then they actually broadcast all the channels at the same time over the fibre, just like how the cable and satellite companies do it. So it isn't really IPTV in the traditional sense and works much better then DSL based IPTV streaming services.

The rest are poor suckers like me trapped in apartment developments with monopolies with the likes of Smart and their crap IPTV service.

useruser

bk wrote: »

Except for the small detail that the majority of them are on Verizons Fois service in the US and similar services in Japan and Korea.

Why this is important to note, is that these companies actually do Fibre all the way into the users actual home and then they actually broadcast all the channels at the same time over the fibre, just like how the cable and satellite companies do it. So it isn't really IPTV in the traditional sense and works much better then DSL based IPTV streaming services.

The rest are poor suckers like me trapped in apartment developments with monopolies with the likes of Smart and their crap IPTV service.

So IPTV per se is not rubbish, rather IPTV over DSL is the problem? In any case, your contention that most IPTV deployments are FTTH based is just not correct (I will post Gartner figures if I can find them).

edit: can't find that report, here is a link stating that approx 12m of the 15m estimate are ADSL2+:
http://www.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=454914

Your poor experience with a small IPTV operator is hardly a reason to write off the technology.

watty

useruser wrote: »

Hmm. There are now an estimated 15million IPTV subscribers worldwide, up from 8 million only one year ago. Seems like something a little more substantial than a quick wheeze to wheedle more money out of Joe consumer.

It's exactly what it is. How many people get TV via Aerial, cable and dish? About 2 Billion or more.

Also over 1/2 those viewers have a poorer experience than Satellite. ALL are pay TV customers (Satellite & Aerial has free TV).

It's driven by telcos. The successful ones have fibre to the home.

paulm17781

watty wrote: »

It's exactly what it is. How many people get TV via Aerial, cable and dish? About 2 Billion or more.

How long have aerial, cable or dish been available? What about IPTV?

watty wrote: »

Also over 1/2 those viewers have a poorer experience than Satellite. ALL are pay TV customers (Satellite & Aerial has free TV).

You've seen this personally?

watty wrote: »

It's driven by telcos. The successful ones have fibre to the home.

No one said this isn't true. No reason to write it off though, it's had what, 10 years to develop so far?

useruser

watty wrote: »

It's exactly what it is. How many people get TV via Aerial, cable and dish? About 2 Billion or more.

Also over 1/2 those viewers have a poorer experience than Satellite. ALL are pay TV customers (Satellite & Aerial has free TV).

It's driven by telcos. The successful ones have fibre to the home.

eh? What have the 2 billion existing users got to do with anything? How many mobile vs fixed phone subscribers were there when GSM first appeared?

Various predictions for IPTV growth put the numbers of subscribers at anywhere between 50 and 100 million by the end of 2010, enormous investment is going into IPTV worldwide. These kind of numbers surely indicate that IPTV is doing more than just "competing badly" with traditional TV. If the IPTV experience is so much worse than Satellite why are these numbers increasing so sharply? (+%50 YoY).

bk

useruser wrote: »

Various predictions for IPTV growth put the numbers of subscribers at anywhere between 50 and 100 million by the end of 2010, enormous investment is going into IPTV worldwide. These kind of numbers surely indicate that IPTV is doing more than just "competing badly" with traditional TV. If the IPTV experience is so much worse than Satellite why are these numbers increasing so sharply? (+%50 YoY).

useruser, did you not read my above post explaining that most of these users are on pure fibre to the home services, where IPTV BROADCAST systems can work well?

You do understand the difference between a IPTVBROADCAST system on pure fibre, versus IPTV STREAMING service on DSL and the quality difference.

Watty is correct, it is fundamental physics, the greater the bitrate of a video using a particular codec the better the picture and sound quality.

Satellite, pure fibre and cable all have massive amounts of bandwidth available to them and therefore can have excellent picture and sound quality. DSL has very limited bandwidth, therefore the picture and sound quality suffers badly, plus slow channel change speeds.

IPTV is just a way for telecoms companies to get into the TV broadcast market, it holds little or no benefit to ordinary people.

useruser

bk wrote: »

useruser, did you not read my above post explaining that most of these users are on pure fibre to the home services, where IPTV BROADCAST systems can work well?

You do understand the difference between a IPTVBROADCAST system on pure fibre, versus IPTV STREAMING service on DSL and the quality difference.

I understand the difference and I assume you mean non IPTV broadcast on fibre, but look at what you said earlier:

Except for the small detail that the majority of them are on Verizons Fois service in the US and similar services in Japan and Korea

You were referring to the 15m figure I quoted earlier and this statement is just not correct. RF TV over fibre is not IPTV and I would be surprised if the 15m figure includes such subscribers.

Watty is correct, it is fundamental physics, the greater the bitrate of a video using a particular codec the better the picture and sound quality.

Satellite, pure fibre and cable all have massive amounts of bandwidth available to them and therefore can have excellent picture and sound quality. DSL has very limited bandwidth, therefore the picture and sound quality suffers badly, plus slow channel change speeds.

This is not my experience. I have viewed MPEG4 IPTV and cable DTT side by side and have not been able to tell the difference (maybe I am not as critical a viewer as you but honestly they seemed the same to me). DSL can provide sufficient bandwidth to equal SD TV (I have not seen HD IPTV yet). Fast channel change (Microsoft) can actually be faster than digital cable at the expense of bandwidth overhead. In any case the regular channel change speeds I have experienced have seemed as good (bad) as digital cable TV to me.

IPTV is just a way for telecoms companies to get into the TV broadcast market, it holds little or no benefit to ordinary people.

Well 15m subscribers seem to disagree with you.

watty

You can't beat mathematics.
"Traditional" IPTV is unicast/multicast/IP Broadcast. One stream per user or per set box. 10 set boxes consumes 10 times the bandwidth. True broadcast is 100s to 100,000 times more efficient as every setbox gets the SAME spectrum.

The true value of real IPTV, (assuming you have the 30Mbps to 100Mbps per user's connection needed) is long tail VOD (Video On Demand). The catalogue of 100,000 titles. Not Xtravision style rentals (which can be done on true broadcast via hidden files on PVR) nor a clone of cable TV.

The other important thing is that not a single IPTV is free as many Satellite and Terrestrial Digital channels are. The only viable alternative to aerial, Satellite and Cable TV is fibre.

Even moderately poor IPTV on DSL can probably only be delivered to 10% or less of households given speed needed and length / quality of the copper pairs. Magnet used to promote IPTV on DSL, now they only promote it on Fibre.

The Microsoft method of channel change is either expensive or not scalable if everyone changes channel at once. Cable Digital in Ireland is poorer than the best satellite/Terrestrial Digital. DSL certainly can't support HD at the quality Virgin cable or BBC/ITV /C4 do it, or for most people at all. Very few DSL users could have two set boxes.

useruser

watty wrote: »

You can't beat mathematics.
"Traditional" IPTV is unicast/multicast/IP Broadcast. One stream per user or per set box. 10 set boxes consumes 10 times the bandwidth. True broadcast is 100s to 100,000 times more efficient as every setbox gets the SAME spectrum.

How is broadcast efficiency relevant? A telco can use their copper network to distribute TV, it matters nothing to them that satellite broadcasting would be more efficient - they are not satellite broadcasters! All that matters is that the end user's experience is as good as or better than existing media.

The true value of real IPTV, (assuming you have the 30Mbps to 100Mbps per user's connection needed) is long tail VOD (Video On Demand). The catalogue of 100,000 titles. Not Xtravision style rentals (which can be done on true broadcast via hidden files on PVR) nor a clone of cable TV.

30mbps is far more than is required for SD TV. I certainly agree with your point about content and this is where IPTV will have an edge over other media. It remains to be seen if the content producers (studios, TV stations etc) will get behind IPTV, my guess is that they will (eventually).

The other important thing is that not a single IPTV is free as many Satellite and Terrestrial Digital channels are. The only viable alternative to aerial, Satellite and Cable TV is fibre.

There are perhaps 12 million ADSL IPTV subscribers already, clearly fibre is not the only viable alternative.

Even moderately poor IPTV on DSL can probably only be delivered to 10% or less of households given speed needed and length / quality of the copper pairs. Magnet used to promote IPTV on DSL, now they only promote it on Fibre.

%10? I think you are way out, that's certainly not true worldwide, what is your estimate based on? My guess is that there are other reasons for Magnet promoting fibre over DSL.

Cable Digital in Ireland is poorer than the best satellite/Terrestrial Digital.

I have seen IPTV vs Cable setups in several countries now, all have appeared the same to me. I would hazard a guess that most people are happy with digital cable TV quality here, if IPTV can match that then it is acceptable.

DSL certainly can't support HD at the quality Virgin cable or BBC/ITV /C4 do it, or for most people at all.

That's not what the IPTV headend manufacturers are saying (predictably enough I suppose) but you may be right, I don't know yet.

Very few DSL users could have two set boxes.

With ADSL I expect so (perhaps one HD, one SD STB might be possible). Unlikely to be true of VDSL deployments.

bk

useruser wrote: »

I understand the difference and I assume you mean non IPTV broadcast on fibre, but look at what you said earlier

You were referring to the 15m figure I quoted earlier and this statement is just not correct. RF TV over fibre is not IPTV and I would be surprised if the 15m figure includes such subscribers.

No, IPTV is any TV delivery service where the video is sent as IP packets.

These IP packets can either be unicast or multicast, typically there are two types of IPTV networks:

Those who typically use IPTV multicast throughout the whole network from the headend right to the customers premises via fibre to the home. This means that the user is actually receiving all the channels at the same time via IPTV and the customers set top box "tunes" into whichever channel they want.

Multicast means that there needs to only be enough video encoders in the headend for each channel (and not each customer) and it typically uses far less core bandwidth and scales much better.

Unicast IPTV systems, means that just one "stream" is being "transmitted" to each customer and to change the channel the users set top box tells the video encoding server and the video server changes to the indicated channel.

Unicast IPTV systems are very inefficient and don't scale. With Multicast IPTV, if you have 100 channels, you only need 100 video encoders and 400MB of bandwidth (assuming 4mb MPEG4 SD channels), no matter how many customers you have. With IPTV unicast you need one video encoder for each customer and dedicated bandwidth for each customer, so if you have 1,000 users then you need 1,000 video encoders and 4,000 MB of bandwidth, you see it doesn't scale well.

Typically ADSL IPTV uses a hybrid, IPTV multicast on the fibre backbone as far as the long exchange and then unicast encoders from the exchange to each customer.

So your 15 million, includes all types of IPTV customers.

Also 15m is a pathetically small number, there are literally billions of TV customers in the world.

useruser wrote: »

This is not my experience. I have viewed MPEG4 IPTV and cable DTT side by side and have not been able to tell the difference (maybe I am not as critical a viewer as you but honestly they seemed the same to me). DSL can provide sufficient bandwidth to equal SD TV (I have not seen HD IPTV yet). Fast channel change (Microsoft) can actually be faster than digital cable at the expense of bandwidth overhead. In any case the regular channel change speeds I have experienced have seemed as good (bad) as digital cable TV to me.

Your not comparing like with like, cable typically uses MPEG2, if cable switched to MPEG4 it would have far more bandwidth available for each channel and it would look far better.

It is easy to see the difference on a big TV. I've had NTL up until last year and I'm on Smart IPTV service now and NTL was far superior. Smarts IPTV service surfers from pixelation, out of sync audio, very slow EPG and channel change, this is the reality.

Everyone agrees that you get the best picture quality in this order: sat, fibre, cable, IPTV.

useruser wrote: »

Well 15m subscribers seem to disagree with you.

Almost everyone in the industry agree that ADSL based IPTV is a failure and a non starter. This is why Verizon is going to massive expensive in the US to rip up telephone cables and replace them with fibre.

Likewise, Free, in France, one of the first and largest ADSL IPTV providers in the world is busily converting their network to fibre:
http://telcotv-view.blogspot.com/2008/03/frees-ftth-plans-in-france.html

ADSL based IPTV is just hype and in reality it is a fairly rubbish and immature technology in a market with very mature and well developed competitors (cable + sat + DTT).

watty

Very clear BK, though tecnically even DVB does actually use a form of IP

A network has to be specially designed and all the routers & equipment especially for true Multicast or else in reality unicast streams are used on portion to the User. In this case you save only bandwidth at the server end. Microsoft based IPTV switches from Multicast to Unicast and then back when you channel change, hence the huge hit on servers and core if users all channel flick at end of Eastenders or in an Advert break.

Some networks (e.g. Cable and WiFi ) inherently don't do true Multicast, the user connection is always unicast, you only save server and core bandwidth. Not a problem for cable as it can use DVB for video.

useruser

bk wrote: »

No, IPTV is any TV delivery service where the video is sent as IP packets.

Yes of course, all IPTV is IP based. I assume you are aware that one common FTTH technology allows RF TV to be broadcast in a separate frequency band from the data traffic? Verizon FiOS is not IPTV.

These IP packets can either be unicast or multicast, typically there are two types of IPTV networks:
Those who typically use IPTV multicast throughout the whole network from the headend right to the customers premises via fibre to the home. This means that the user is actually receiving all the channels at the same time via IPTV and the customers set top box "tunes" into whichever channel they want.

All large deployments are multicast for broadcast TV (obviously VoD is unicast). The user does not "receive all channels at the same time" I guess you must have mistyped this as you seem to have missed the whole point of multicast. The customer's STB requests individual channels using IGMP as and when needed, the stream is then relayed to the STB.

Unicast IPTV systems are very inefficient and don't scale.

Well this remains to be seen. All commercial deployments use multicast for broadcast channels. The % of VoD and hence unicast traffic is expected to increase rapidly as more content becomes available.

With IPTV unicast you need one video encoder for each customer and dedicated bandwidth for each customer, so if you have 1,000 users then you need 1,000 video encoders and 4,000 MB of bandwidth, you see it doesn't scale well.

Which is why nobody would propose such an architecture, have you ever seen something like this?

Typically ADSL IPTV uses a hybrid, IPTV multicast on the fibre backbone as far as the long exchange and then unicast encoders from the exchange to each customer.

This is absolutely wrong bk. Any large IPTV deployment always uses multicast for broadcast channels, with all streams going as far as the DSLAM or an aggregation point just before the DSLAM. Encoders are not distributed (they will be at the headend(s)). Unicast VoD servers may be distributed closer to the end user (they are relatively cheap commodity servers).

So your 15 million, includes all types of IPTV customers.

Yes, not RF over fibre FTTH subcribers (FiOS) and far more than half are currently on DSL.

Also 15m is a pathetically small number, there are literally billions of TV customers in the world.

Righty ho, if you don't think 15 million users is a substantial start to a technology then I guess we will have to wait. What number would impress you?

Your not comparing like with like, cable typically uses MPEG2, if cable switched to MPEG4 it would have far more bandwidth available for each channel and it would look far better.

That's a silly statement bk. Do you think the user gives a toss what codec is in use? Of course I am comparing like with like - one TV service with another.

It is easy to see the difference on a big TV. I've had NTL up until last year and I'm on Smart IPTV service now and NTL was far superior. Smarts IPTV service surfers from pixelation, out of sync audio, very slow EPG and channel change, this is the reality.

I don't doubt that your experience is poor but this is just one operator you are talking about, I have seen several actual operator setups and many different vendor demonstrations. The quality (yes, on big screens) seemed the same to me.

Everyone agrees that you get the best picture quality in this order: sat, fibre, cable, IPTV.

Really? Is there any research to back up this claim?

Almost everyone in the industry agree that ADSL based IPTV is a failure.

ADSL based IPTV is just hype and in reality it is a fairly rubbish and immature technology in a market with very mature and well developed competitors (cable + sat + DTT).

12 million subscribers say you're wrong, although I guess that's a pathetic number really.

useruser

watty wrote: »

A network has to be specially designed and all the routers & equipment especially for true Multicast or else in reality unicast streams are used on portion to the User. In this case you save only bandwidth at the server end. Microsoft based IPTV switches from Multicast to Unicast and then back when you channel change, hence the huge hit on servers and core if users all channel flick at end of Eastenders or in an Advert break.

Any large core network will support multicast these days, it is no longer that big a deal. All switch/router vendors support multicast out of the box.

The bandwidth hungry feature you mention in Microsoft's middleware is "fast channel change" and it can be turned off by the operator if they don't want it.

bk

useruser, ADSL IPTV is all hype and yes 12 million is a pathetically small number for even a new technology (really a 5 year old technology).

Actually ADSL IPTV has been growing at a very slow pace, when I first heard about it years ago all the hype indicated that we would all be using it by now.

The thing that I don't understand is what benefit is there for the customer????

I have yet to hear you describe what benefit the customer gets from IPTV?

The vast majority of people are happily getting all their TV needs from Sky, FreeSat, UPC and DTT soon. Why would any ordinary person cancel their current service and sign up to ADSL IPTV?

Just explain that to me. Pretend I'm paying €30 per month to Sky and now convince me to take up your ADSL IPTV service.

useruser

bk wrote: »

useruser, ADSL IPTV is all hype and yes 12 million is a pathetically small number for even a new technology (really a 5 year old technology).

You are obviously hard to please. If IPTV hits 70-80m subs in 2010 will you then admit that it might, maybe, perhaps be viable?

Actually ADSL IPTV has been growing at a very slow pace, when I first heard about it years ago all the hype indicated that we would all be using it by now.

hmmm. %100 growth from 07 to 08, hardly a slow pace.

The thing that I don't understand is what benefit is there for the customer????

I have yet to hear you describe what benefit the customer gets from IPTV?

The vast majority of people are happily getting all their TV needs from Sky, FreeSat, UPC and DTT soon. Why would any ordinary person cancel their current service and sign up to ADSL IPTV?

Just explain that to me. Pretend I'm paying €30 per month to Sky and now convince me to take up your ADSL IPTV service.

You're right bk, there is just no room for this service and all of the 100s of operators deploying it worldwide are doomed to failure.

Hank Scorpio

well simply it sounds interesting
but i cant imagine myself with a few friends drinking a few beers around my pc, at the end of the day it will have to output to the tv so why bother make any hassle, satellite and cable tv is very reliable, infact mines never been down in the past 5 years and the hd quality is excellent.

useruser

nuxxx wrote: »

well simply it sounds interesting
but i cant imagine myself with a few friends drinking a few beers around my pc, at the end of the day it will have to output to the tv so why bother make any hassle, satellite and cable tv is very reliable, infact mines never been down in the past 5 years and the hd quality is excellent.

In the usual IPTV service the customer receives a set top box (STB) which they connect directly to their standard TV set via SCART or HDMI. Similar to how a satellite or digital cable service is provided, no PC is needed.