Video over DSL: broadband gets entertaining

Read the full article at Europemedia.net

Pay-per-view movies and special events are already offered by most cable TV companies. Vendors claim carriers could find their way into this business by DSL. The chances are high that they are right, and that carriers could make extra turnover with comparably little investment.

Comments

[Andrew C.]

How long do you reckon until we get movie subscriptions over DSL delivered to our TiVo or other set-top box?

[SW]

Imminently - it should be launched in about a week. Here is the service, the first and only in Europe:

http://www.t-vision.de/

...and here is the box:

Fujitsu-Siemens

OK, so the movies you're thinking of may not be the same ones they are, but the product and the service are in place to do real VOD.

[Andrew C.]

Thanks SW. My german is sadly not as good as it once was but I understood the basics of T-Online's Vision Portal (far more advanced offering than BT in the UK...).

The FS set-top box is great - I particularly like the fact that it incorporates a cable/satellite decoder. I'm curious to see the PVR functionality and how it compares to TiVo.

Are you working on a project along these lines?

Please keep us posted on this and other relevant news. Thanks!

[SW]

All I can say is that this is one of the areas we work in. I don't know if you downloaded the PDF Brochure but it has a couple of screens in there.

[Andrew C.]

Ok then, from your comment I take it that you're working on the T side as opposed to the FS side. Are you on the software or the service side?

The screens you refer are split between the EPG and T-Vision service so I have to guess we're talking about one of the two.

What PVR software sits on the FS box? Is the EPG a 3, 7 or 14 day one?

All very interesting as it is the first PVR that I see outside of the UK and also France where I think that Canal+ are working on something similar to Sky+ in the UK. Do you know of any other parts of Europe with installed PVR bases?