iPTV is the buzzword of the broadcast media industry at present but what is it and will it really change the way you and I watch TV?

Television is one of the few technologies that has found it's way into everyone's home, it has the power to bring nations together and governments down. However the basis of the technology has remained the same since the early days and only recently has the signal been moved into the digital age, even now the digital signal is still sent via RF (radio frequency waves) to an aerial or via satellite.

So time for a quick straw poll. How many of you have broadband? That's almost all of us except that chap in Peckham who is still reliant on dial up and is quite red in the face! The UK has the fastest growing broadband user base in Europe and we now have some 6.5 million connected homes. BT wholesale have committed to allow users to have the maximum speed their line will allow, that means that most of us will have a 2 megabit connection within the year.

This leads to a logical conclusion, why send TV signals through the air when we all have a perfectly good data connection? Like most technological revolutions just being a better way does not make people shift there has to be a driver, some new feature that users want.

That's where iPTV really shows it's cards. Imagine a world where the TV scheduler is an endangered breed and you decide what to watch and when to watch it, picture if you will the ability to watch TV shows as soon as they are made available anywhere in the world, TV where you pay for what you watch.

A dream? perhaps but only in terms of timescale. In a small way services like Homechoice and KIT (Kingston interactive television) are already offering a taste of the future, viewers can watch multicast transmissions of linear TV or enter a vast library of VOD (video On Demand). Take this a step further and add a search engine to help you find content you want to watch, something like Google Video or Blinkx and you soon start to see the power of connecting television with the web for both viewers and corporations.

You could be watching an episode of 24 and be given choices of programmes that you may also like to view, a bit like the recommendations on the Amazon website, the broadcaster could also offer you premium content a bit like the DVD extras or even the chance to go shopping for related technology products, like the 24 ringtones!

Of course the nay Sayers will bleat that the public (especially the older generation) will never adapt to this new way of viewing. Perhaps the big boys have the answer. Next year Sky will launch their ADSL enabled set-top box, this digibox will take the existing Sky channels from satellite and augment it with niche content and movies over ADSL. So your gran won't even know how the signal got onto the TV screen.

Users who want to explore more will start to discover the portal of content that lies behind the "traditional" television and EPG, while those who may never cope with the evolution can use the same interface quite happily. It's not just Sky the way is open for ISP's and other Broadcasters to set-up their own iPTV or Broadband TV platforms and services as the web based technology starts to democratise the broadcast medium.

Perhaps the only real discussion is not if but when the move to IP based delivery will start? 2006 seems most likely as the kick off with both Sky and BT bringing new units to market that will make limited use of the ADSL connection and the continued expansion of smaller services like Homechoice and Blueyounder TV.

Who knows maybe the time will soon be right for Lordpercy.TV?

Until next time take care, LP

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Sublime Streaming

Sometimes we get a bit of kit to review that just proves to be perfect. This was true of the new Squeezebox 3 from Slim Devices. The Squeezebox is a hardware client that connects to your HiFi and then allows you to access the contents of your music server over a WiFi connection.

That's only half the story because it looks stunning too, with it's sleek lines and bright LCD screen it really makes your living room look high tech, especially when you have the RSS news feeds scrolling across the screen!

A 10/10 review is quite rare from Lordpercy.com but the Squeezebox 3 got full marks

You can read our full review here

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