For the fmx team, January and February are the hottest months of the year: we now have the first confirmations from speakers and companies with exciting ideas to present at fmx/07 – the 12th International Conference on Animation, Effects, Realtime and Content. The international digital community will gather at the Haus der Wirtschaft in Stuttgart from May 01 to 04, 2007 to discuss and experience future technologies and current innovations in the conception, production and distribution of digital imagery – whether seen in cinemas or on television, or games and mobile entertainment.

Light Reading has an interesting article on why AT&T has choosen to use standard phonelines (HomePNA) for broadcasting their U-verse IPTV service throughout the home. AT&T ruled out both coax cable (MoCA) and the latest wireless standard, 802.11n, as options for U-verse.

Syndesis has announced their new IPTV service fulfillment solution, Syndesis IPTV Express, which manages IPTV service content and connectivity across telecommunications networks.

IPTV Express offers fulfillment for both content and connectivity, with capabilities for automatic orchestration between the two. The solution integrates into existing processes, systems and infrastructure and can be deployed on its own for end-to-end fulfillment management or in conjunction with existing systems. The IPTV Express solution can be extended to support fulfillment of multiple IP services -- including IPTV, VoIP, Triple Play, Quad Play and others -- over a converged next-generation network.

Ixia announced its latest product today, the IxLoad 3.20 IPTV/Triple Play test solution. The IxLoad 3.20 is their first product to support the key codecs for HD-video: MPEG-4, H.264, and VC-1. Furthermore, IxLoad 3.20 supports MPEG-4 video over both existing MPEG-2 transport streams and native MPEG-4 transport to allow testing of HD content regardless of how it is delivered.

As if almost responding to our recent skepticism on rollouts of the U-verse IPTV service, AT&T announced the initial launch of service in limited areas across the Milwaukee and Racine metropolitan areas. AT&T intends to increase availability throughout the area.

For those in that area, AT&T has a promotion where new customers can receive two months of free TV with 60-day money back guarantee through June 30. See their website for details.

That now places AT&T U-verse services in parts of 13 markets across five states. AT&T now puts the tally at nearly 7,000 U-verse customers in markets across the United States.

Switzerland's first Fibre-To-The-Home IPTV service went live February 15th as Sierre Energie launched its IPTV service. Amino will supply its AmiNET100 series of set-top boxes to enable the viewing of 90 channels.

The triple-play deal will initially offer a broadband connection, fixed telephone and IPTV services. It will also offer video on demand and its catch-up TV service. The complete triple-play services package will cost SFr. 57 (USD 46), or customers can purchase individual services for SFr. 25 (USD 20) each per month.

ROO Group plans to expand its video offerings to include secure peer-to-peer distribution, social networking, digital e-commerce and comprehensive digital rights management through a planned purchase of Wurld Media.

ROO has signed a letter of intent to purchase Wurld Media's assets for up to $10 million, to be paid in cash and ROO common stock at $4.39 per share.

Established in 1999, NY-based Wurld Media specializes in the P2P distribution of music, movies, games and TV shows The company has existing major content deals with an array of top-tier companies including 20TH Century Fox, WB, Universal, Sony, Warner, EMI, Fox Music, Fox for Movies, Atari and Activision, which are planned to continue post-deal.

Accedo Broadband and WorldMadeChannel, a user generated TV channel, have partnered to bring a new on-demand experience to Accedo's IPTV offering.

The WorldMadeChannel On Demand service contains thousands of videos created by consumers all over the world, packaged for quick and intuitive usage on TV. The content is structured in categories such as children, animals, nature and sports, and is constantly updated with new videos, which have been selected through a quality and content validation process. This partnership will give consumers the possibility to offer their own TV channel.

On Monday, the European Union launched a legal case against Germany for passing legislation that would keep rival telecommunications companies off Deutsche Telekom's Internet network through a regulation holiday.

The German Parliament had passed the law last Friday that exempted Deutsche Telekom from regulation or requirement that the company must offer its €3 billion broadband infrastructure to competitors.

Germany should not be surprised with the case being made by the European commission. Last October, the EU competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes sent a letter to the German minister of the economy Michael Glos warning that the draft legislation was not in line with European law.

The case could be escalated to a European court of justice in Luxembourg if Germany decides not to alter the new legislation. Germany will have 15 days to respond to the European commission's letter.

IOL Broadband has launched India's first IP-based on-demand television service using software, servers and middleware from SeaChange International.

Leveraging the networks of India's government-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL), IOL Broadband offers an on-demand line-up including Bollywood and Hollywood hits and music videos in Mumbai. Other IOL Broadband IPTV services include interactive gaming, video conferencing, an "e-education" channel and live financial data from the Bombay Stock Exchange.

On top of all the press lately on Tandberg TV and their suitors, Tandberg also introduced the latest in their IPTV video processing capabilities with the new Tandberg iPlex UltraCompression high definition and standard definition IPTV headend. Based on Tandberg Television's second-generation AVC platform - Intelligent Compression Engine (ICE3) – the iPlex UltraCompression video processing system brings a step change in digital video distribution.

The new system delivers bandwidth improvements of up to 50% over previously deployed MPEG-4 AVC units. With MPEG-4 AVC HD UltraCompression, the iPlex can deliver two full-resolution HDTV channels over ADSL2+ @ 2km – with data rates at below 6 Mbits/s @ 1080i and 4Mbits/s @ 720p, a new industry benchmark.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has standardized the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance's HomePNA 3.1 multimedia home networking specification, making HomePNA the only internationally standardized existing-wire home networking technology. HomePNA 3.1 enables high-speed Internet services (IPTV, VoIP, data) over both phone wires and coaxial cables at speeds up to 320 megabits per second.

HomePNA 3.1 provides multi-spectrum operation, adding VDSL coexistence to the ADSL, POTS and broadcast TV channel spectrum coexistence provided by the HomePNA 3.0 specification. Multi-spectrum operation also allows multiple HomePNA networks to coexist on the same wiring.

Eagle Broadband has entered into a multi-year agreement with FrontGate Broadband, a multi-service broadband provider, to deliver IPTV services to condominium and master planned properties in Florida.

Since December, Eagle has been delivering IPTV signals on a test basis to FrontGate MediaCom, which plans to deliver standard and high-definition programming to properties under contract to FrontGate.

Apple said in January that their new Apple TV device would hit the shelves sometime in February. However, Apple spokeswoman Lynn Fox said today that "wrapping up Apple TV is taking a few weeks longer than we projected." Fox went on to say that shipments should begin in mid-March but did not provide any further detail around what is causing the delay.

For more information on Apple TV, see Here Comes Apple TV.

AT&T announced a distribution agreement today to deliver Scripps Networks' programming as part of the AT&T U-verse TV channel lineup. But while AT&T continues to announce new programming agreements here and there, where's the new market announcements?

AT&T expects to reach nearly 19 million households by the end of 2008 as part of its initial deployment. AT&T thoroughly defended this projection and strategy during AT&T's fourth quarter earnings conference. At the call, AT&T's CEO Ed Whitacre said, "It works and it works well. The network is good. All of the delays and some of the difficulties we've had are due to programming and we think we're just about to get all of them solved. Everything seems to be working well so this is our plan A and plan A we're sticking with. We like this stuff."

However, since late 2006, AT&T hasn't announced any new markets for the U-Verse IPTV service. If only having around 4,000 customers by the end of 2006 wasn't enough for analysts to be skeptical, the lack of announcements is really adding fuel to the fire.