RealPage has selected BitBand as its affiliate vendor for implementing on-demand IPTV services. This partnership reinforces the growing emphasis by the multifamily industry of bringing interactive TV entertainment to its residents.

RealPage provides products and services to more than 20,000 apartment communities across the United States. RealPage’s entertainment and communications service, StarFire, offers residents IPTV, broadband, telephony. BitBand’s solutions include BitBand's Maestro Content Distribution and Management suite, BitBand’s Vision VOD appliance servers, as well as BitBand’s CMS, content management system, for smart and efficient content ingestion and delivery across the network.

YouTube to Offer Live Video Feeds in 2008?
YouTube to begin live streaming video? Thats what YouTube co-founder, Steve Chen hinted during a YouTube party in NYC. Steve Chen claims, "2008. We’ll do it this year. Live video is just something that we’ve always wanted to do, we’ve never had the resources to do it correctly, but now with Google, we hope to actually launch something this year."

MySpace is Playing "Keeping up with the Joneses"
After Dailymotion began offering it's HD video to the web last week. Myspace is now launching their own HD video player for the social networking community. The HD trailer for Marvel Comic's new movie Iron Man can be found at Myspace's Trailer Park.

Belgacom TV Reaches Over 300,000 Subscribers
Belgian IPTV service Belgacom TV reached over 300,000 customers at the end of 2007. Belgacom TV added 165,654 new homes at a monthly service price of €16.10 in 2007. Belgacom's growth helped make it the second largest digital TV player in the country just behind Telenet's 400,000 customers. With the indtroduction of the 'comfort view' offer that provides pause live TV and one-touch recording on the PVR Belgacom hopes to continue its expansion.

AT&T has to replace the batteries in the cabinets for U-Verse IPTV because of four fires have broken out in different locations. AT&T doesn't feel comfortable with the batteries that provide backup power to over 17,00 of its equipment cabinets in neighborhoods across the United States. There is no immediate guess as to how quickly AT&T can replace all the batteries and has declined to answer any questions on the costs of the effort.

Saveaccess.org provides some images of the fire started by the exploding batteries in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

The heat got turned up on cable and satellite companies this week at CES in Las Vegas. A focus of large technology makers was to make it easier to send Internet content to TVs. Sony showcased it's new line up of Bravia TVs, while Sandisk unveiled its Take TV product for sending videos stored on computers directly to most televisions.

You can read more at "Cable-TV Industry Girds for New Threats"

Panasonic introduces its flagship PZ850 series, previewed the industry’s first IP enabled television. Building upon the market and critical success of Panasonic’s previous Plasma models, the 2008 PZ850 series includes a number of step-up features that will further strengthen Panasonic’s leadership position.

Panasonic’s VIERA full HD 1080p PZ850 series features four models - the 46-inch class TH-46PZ850, the 50-inch class TH-50PZ850, the 58-inch class TH-58PZ850 and the 65-inch class TH-65PZ850. The introduction of the IP enabled televisions, a technology that provides access to on-line content directly from the televison with VIERA CAST technology, is one of many advances found in the PZ850 line. In addition, the PZ850 series features a Pro Setting Menu, allowing the consumer to access professional calibration software; an improved native resolution contrast ratio of 30,000:1 and a dynamic ratio of 1,000,000:1; Digital Cinema Color Re-Mastering; 24p native reproduction; Game Mode; an SD memory Card slot; RS-232C connection; four HDMI connections; increased luminous efficiency; lead free panels; 100,000 hours to half brightness and a PC input. The 850 series further expands the capabilities of the SD Card feature by utilizing the H.264 codec to display high definition video recorded on a HD camcorder equipped with the H.264 codec.

BT is testing an advertising-funded video delivery service to evaluate demand for a different video-on-demand business model, according to Light Reading Europe. Three movies are available to download for free and contain targeted ad insertion.

Broadband TV News reported yesterday that BBC's iPlayer will go live on December 25th. The computer-based free catch-up TV service has been in beta since launch back in July 2007.

French broadcaster TV5 Monde has created a global online video-on-demand portal titled VODéothèque. The new platform offers nearly 1000 documentaries and reports in French. Videos can be rented for 48 hours starting at €1 or a permanent download starting at €1.99. TV5 Monde has a temporary offer to watch a documentary for free from their 1000 programs available. The offer is valid from December 3rd thur 10th 2007.

EchoStar is changing their name to DISH Network and will be spinning off some of their businesses, namely their set-top box division that now owns Sling Media, creators of the Slingbox. Read more at GigaOm.

In some older news, Brightcove will be closing doors on the ability for consumers to upload and share personal video clips. Brightcove said it will stop accepting video uploads after December 17.

Coverage of English and Scottish Premier Leagues soccer/football has helped spur BT's IPTV service, BT Vision, according to an article in Light Reading. BT's CEO Ben Verwaayen said the launch of BT Vision Sport and the start of the soccer season in August boosted BT Vision subscriber numbers to 70,000. That number is now said to be more around 100,000.

Microsoft is finally seeing some positive signs for its long-labored IPTV/MediaRoom platform. Yankee Group analyst Vince Vittore stated, "It's a complicated business," Vittore says. "But Microsoft is starting to get traction, and they've got the biggest carriers as key customers." Read more from BusinessWeek.

Telephony Online reports that Surewest Communications is actively seeking acquisitions but at this stage, it's anyone's guess who they might be eyeing.

Comcast's stock got nailed this week reports the Wall Street Journal as subscriber growth declined and investors worry about the increased competition Verizon and AT&T pose. "Right now it is cable that is perceived as being on the defensive" and investors perceive Comcast as being too passive.

Widevine has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Verimatrix for unspecified damages. The lawsuit comes following attempts by Widevine to openly license its intellectual property to Verimatrix. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

In general, Widevine’s 7,165,175 patent describes and claims methods and systems for selectively encrypting different portions of data sent over a network. Specifically, Verimatrix’s content security solutions, such as the Verimatrix Content Authority System (VCAS), infringe on Widevine’s Apparatus, System and Method for Selectively Encrypting Different Portions of Data Sent Over A Network patent number 7,165,175. Verimatrix’s VCAS solutions—which have been sold throughout the world—practice Widevine’s selective encryption patent.

ZDNet Asia reports the progress made by the Beijing Organizing Committee and IT services vendor Atos Origin in preparing for the 2008 Olympics. The two organizations will be using several new technologies for their IT systems including open source and RFID technology. However, the Beijing organizing committee clearly stated that Mobile TV and IPTV will be left off the list of technologies used due to the lack of national standards in China.

Following Light Reading's story on Alcatel-Lucent's IPTV strategy (See Alcatel-Lucent Unveils IPTV Strategy), Alcatel-Lucent today confirms it will actively evolve MiViewTV capabilities as a key component of its next generation of converged entertainment platforms.

Alcatel-Lucent values its relationship with Telefonica, one of the leaders in the new multimedia segment. Alcatel-Lucent supports and will continue growing the capabilities of the Imagenio service to meet the increasing demands from their end users.

Telefónica del Perú's general director of TV and multimedia services Werner Schuler told BNamericas that the Spanish telecommunications company plans to offer IPTV services from Mexico to Patagonia. He also predicts the IPTV market in Latin America, excluding Mexico, will generate around USD$1bn in revenues in two years time.

The BBC Trust has given initial approval to BBC's launch of its on-demand services via the iPlayer. The iPlayer will allow users to watch or download movies and TV shows from the last 7 days. Based on feedback from Ofcom (See Ofcom Frowns on BBC's On-demand TV Plan) the BBC will scale back the amount of time a user could store a saved video from 13 weeks to 30 days, prior to viewing. After being played, the video would expire within seven days. However, this gets a bit more confusing when the BBC throws in a "stacked" series clause that allows certain shows to remain viewable until the end of the series.

On Monday, IBM and Cisco provided a glimpse at the companys' soon to be launched end-to-end IPTV product to customers from the Nordic region and Baltic States. The preview took place during the opening of a new facility that demonstrates how the IPTV solution performs during normal operation, under extreme circumstances, and when technical difficulties occur. The IPTV solution is scheduled for official launch in March.

Michigan has created a statewide form that will be used by operators to apply for franchise agreements. Under new franchise laws that took effect January 1st, operators will file the standardized form with local governments who then have 30 days to approve it. The new process aims to speed the rollout of IPTV service and increase competition. AT&T has promised to invest $620 million and hire 2,000 new workers in Michigan while building its IPTV network.

The Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis is reporting that AT&T's IPTV U-verse service may be around the corner for North County residents and businesses. Craig W. Felzien, AT&T's regional director of external affairs, said AT&T will be talking with officials in all of North County's municipalities. Meanwhile, Charter communications is threatening legal action to stop AT&T from moving into the area.

Tis the season for top 10 lists. Via Light Reading: Top Ten IPTV moments of 2006

"Most people will probably look back at 2006 as (another) 'warm-up year' for IPTV. Here at Light Reading we like to think of IPTV as a toddler -- just out of diapers, and about to break a heap load of stuff as part of its 'learning process.'"

After Dittberner announced the U.S. is not in the top 10 for amount of IPTV subscribers, Telephony Online is now reporting Dittberner says the U.S. may be in IPTV Top 10 after all.

Our apologies for the recent lack of articles. Unfortunately, an ice storm hit our office here in Missouri and we were without power for 5 days. Needless to say, we are back in business.

Here's a few articles to check out:
AT&T says won't need fiber-to-the-home network
IPTV: Risky now, but lucrative in the long term
Analysts give verdicts on BT's Vision

IPTV still has some growing up to do from CED Magazine
Brian Santo, CED Magazine Senior Editor, shares his thoughts on the TelcoTV conference.

Sources: Moto's Shopping for IPTV Middleware from Light Reading
Who might they be looking to buy?

Well, we tried something different this week with the IPTV headlines. Rather than waiting till the end of the week to share some interesting headlines, we have been posting them as we come across them throughout the week. This way the content gets categorized into our system and provides more "real-time" coverage.

One story we didn't cover was AT&T's warnings to several large companies including Apple on patent infringement. AT&T is claiming ownership to several patents that are essential components of MPEG-4 and asking companies using the technology to obtain licenses. Our question is what kind of impact does this have on those companies?