Orb Networks announces the world's first way to stream live TV to the iPhone and iPod touch. For the first time, iPhone users can enjoy the immediacy of live sporting events and fast-breaking news on their phone.

"TV on the iPhone is now real," said Joe Costello, CEO of Orb Networks. "Steve Jobs may think that buying shows from iTunes is the same as watching TV, but iPhone users know better. When the NBA playoffs are on, you want to see the game, live, wherever you are. Free."

Orb was the first company to enable the live streaming of TV from users' homes to almost any mobile phone with a streaming player and a web browser. To get around the iPhone's extreme limitations on supported video formats, Orb created a special application, OrbLive, to enable the streaming of any video format to iPhones.

Screen Digest examines the market for pay TV in 12 Central and Eastern European countries, and Russia. Eastern European Pay Television reveals that, driven by continued strong growth in both cable and satellite markets, total pay TV penetration will increase rapidly in the region from 40 per cent at the end of 2007 to 60 per cent by 2012 with a total of 63m homes subscribing to pay TV services. This impressive growth will be driven by a strong pay TV market in Russia which will account for 28m of the region’s pay TV subscribers by 2012.

Since 2004 the CEE country economies and Russia have enjoyed rapid expansion, growing at more than double the rate of markets in Western Europe. 2007 saw the market growing at its fastest rate, with 18 percent growth of total pay TV subscribers.

Yankee Group announces that there is a significant shift taking place in the advertising industry—cable and IPTV operators will lose out to internet video platforms in the competition for the incremental ad revenue that supports investments in interactive television. By the time cable and IPTV operators will be able to deliver interactivity to a large number of households, content owners and advertisers will have already made long-term interactive platform investments online.

According to the recently published Yankee Group Report, The High-Water Mark for Interactive Cable, digital and interactive advertising is the cornerstone for the infrastructure investments necessary to support interactive programming. Cable networks will continue to command large linear audiences and above-the-line advertising revenue, but cable operators will be limited in their ability to deliver interactive experiences that can compete with internet video.

HomePNA announces that the 5 millionth HomePNA 3.1 chipset has now shipped, up from 2 million less than six months ago. The shipments demonstrate the high demand for HomePNA multimedia home networking devices in IPTV service deployments.

HomePNA is being deployed by dozens of telephone companies worldwide including AT&T, Aliant in Canada, and Sonaecom in Portugal. With almost 30 certified products, HomePNA offers service providers more certified products that operate over coaxial cable than any other standard.

The pay-TV market in Western Europe is generally considered to be mature, but the increasing deployment of IPTV services will see the market enjoy a modest rate of growth in the number of households subscribing to pay-TV services, according to the latest research published by Analysys Mason, the premier advisors on telecoms, IT and media.

According to the Analysys Mason report, Pay TV in Western Europe: market sizings and forecasts 2005–2013, the number of households subscribing to pay-TV services will increase at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 3.2% from 90.6 million in 2007 to 109.2 million by the end of 2013.

The IMS Research study IPTV: A Global Market Analysis - 2008 Edition forecasts that, on a worldwide basis, shipments of IP set-top boxes will grow at a CAGR of 37.1% through the end of 2012. These shipments will represent revenues of $3 billion. IP + Digital Terrestrial hybrid STBs are expected to comprise 30% of shipments in 2012 with HD DVR boxes nearing 35%.

Parks Associates and CEA welcomed Roger Pitton, Program Director, TV Business, Microsoft Corporation, as the Keynote speaker for CONNECTIONS Europe Summit, taking place May 19, in Nice, France. This one-day executive seminar will be held in cooperation with TM Forum annual management conference at the Hotel Palais de La Mediterranee.

Mr. Pitton will deliver his keynote "IPTV and the keys to keeping customers" in the Cotton Club Room at 9:45 a.m. He will address business strategies for IPTV operators, including best practices to gain and retain customers in the highly competitive European market. Mr. Pitton, an expert with several years of firsthand experience in marketing and selling IPTV services, will specify the keys to differentiation, including unique content, an unmatched user experience, and the convergence of technology and content, required for sustaining success.

DivX and Revision3 announce an agreement that will bring Revision3’s hit online shows to television viewers through the DivX Connected platform. The agreement will enable consumers to easily access many of their favorite Revision3 channels like PixelPerfect and Diggnation on any DivX Connected device. Revision3 offers a number of online channels featuring compelling, original video content. Through DivX Connected, Revision3 will be able to extend the audience for these popular programs beyond the web and into the living room.

Team Lightbulb announces that the number of registrants for its Telecom2008 conference at the NAB Show was double last year's conference registrants. They also announced that the participation in the exhibit floor tours was up 45%. Total registration for Telecom2008 was over 450.

"Deployments of IPTV are growing. Carriers and vendors are looking for valuable information on revenue-generating opportunities such as dynamic advertising and premium content," said Fred Ellis, COO of SecureMedia, the leading provider of digital media protection for video-on-demand, IPTV, multimedia and music over broadband IP networks. "With a wide range of sessions hosted by knowledgeable experts, Telecom2008 provided a wonderful venue for attendees to obtain practical IPTV solutions. We look forward to our participation and sponsorship again next year."

KyLinTV announces the most recent channel to join its extensive list of 41 live channels. Hwazan TV is now available on KyLinTV offering the beliefs of Buddhism to its international audience. Hwazan TV is a Chinese-language Buddhist channel from Taiwan aimed at spreading the teachings of Buddha to the rest of the world. Audiences are able to see Hwazan TV 24 hours a day.

Hwazan TV originated in January 2003, offering a platform for Ven. Master Chin-Kung to preach Buddhist dharma. Utilizing IPTV technology allows the teachings to reach a broader audience throughout the world.

ROK has acquired 100% of the issued and to be issued share capital of Jalipo Ltd for total consideration of 600,000 ordinary shares.

Jalipo is a UK Registered IPTV company which offers live streaming of TV content over the internet. Jalipo is the first online marketplace for TV and video, allowing content owners to use the internet to offer their channels, video-on-demand and live events direct to viewers around the world.

Aniboom has grown its network of branded internet channels through partnerships with five key online video platforms, bringing its animations and cartoons to an online audience of more than 140 million viewers. Aniboom content is now available online via Dailymotion, Metacafe, Veoh Networks, blip.TV and blinkx. The expansion of Aniboom’s online network follows the company’s massive success with the Aniboom-branded channel on YouTube, which has garnered more than 15 million views in its first eight months. The newly-increased online reach of Aniboom content is a boon for the company’s community of independent creators across the globe, who will see an enormous boost in the exposure given to their animations, the buzz they build for their careers and the revenues they share with the animation network.

Vusion announces its formal company launch, leaving behind its stealth-mode name of 'Jittr Networks'. Vusion will deliver the industry's first end-to-end online video distribution service capable of providing the scalability and reach to serve true HD and DVD quality video to 95 percent of all broadband consumers.

The high bandwidth fees and limited reach of current content delivery technologies has made streaming video a loss leader for even the most highly trafficked web properties. Vusion's technology has been designed to answer the great demand among media companies and content providers for an end-to-end service to efficiently monetize assets through the delivery of high-quality video over the standard Internet.

IOL Netcom has selected Verimatrix as the content security provider for its on-demand IPTV service, India's first IP-based on-demand television service to more than 250,000 subscribers. In addition to deploying the Verimatrix Video Content Authority System for IPTV, IOL will be offering premium, MPEG-4 content via subscriber's home PC through Verimatrix's ViewRight PC Player, the only independently-audited, secure PC player for IPTV on the market.

IOL will be offering the PC as a viable second screen in a subscriber's home, providing a cost-effective option to view its on-demand movie library and 150 broadcast channels. ViewRight is an integrated component of VCAS and provides the same level of content security and revenue protection as with dedicated STB equipment.

ZeeVee launches ZvBox, a new consumer electronics product for watching any Internet TV, online video, or computer content on HDTVs at home. Available for preorder online exclusively at Amazon.com.

The explosion of Internet TV and movie downloads has been confined to the computer's small screen. Alternative solutions have failed to solve this problem, with drawbacks including limited content, added subscription fees, the need for a box at each TV, and the inability to show everything a computer can do with high-quality video and audio. ZeeVee's new ZvBox is the first device that allows consumers to watch anything they can get online or on their computers on all the HDTVs in their homes. ZvBox achieves this by simply connecting to the monitor output of the computer and turning it into a new HD TV channel called Zv, which is then broadcast across the existing cable wiring to all HDTVs in the home. As a result, ZvBox frees TV watchers from restrictive set-top boxes, rigid network schedules, and the strain of hunching over laptops to view online video.