An innovative and leading-edge conference called “Broadcast, Interactive, Internet and Hybrid TV in Africa” will be held from the 4th to 7th July 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The ‘TV in Africa’ conference brings together TV industry leaders from Africa and around the World to understand the latest innovations in TV delivery and specifically what this means to Africa. Speakers include the Secretary General of the Africa Telecommunications Union, the United Nation’s Industrial Development Organization, Regulators, Broadcasters, TV content producers and owners, Telecom Operators and Suppliers; it’s the whole of the emerging TV ecosystem.

“TV in Africa is a unique conference, its created in Africa for the African market. We’ve brought the best and the brightest from around the World together for 4 days to understand what the Digital and Interactive TV revolution means for Africa.” said Mark Maritz, CEO of Vital Training, the conference organizer.

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Internet Protocol Television (iPTV) - Global Strategic Business Report" report to their offering.

This report analyzes the worldwide markets for Internet Protocol Television (iPTV) in Millions of Subscribers and US$ Million. The market is also analyzed by the following Systems: Set-Top Boxes, Access Systems, Video Headend Equipment, Video-on-Demand, Middleware, Content Protection, and System Integration. The report provides separate comprehensive analytics for the US, Canada, Europe, Asia-Pacific (including Japan) and Rest of World. Annual estimates and forecasts are provided for the period 2009 through 2015. Also, a five-year historic analysis is provided for these markets.

Private Media Group announces the company has entered into an expanded agreement with long time IPTV partner, Free, an internet service provider in France. Leveraging Free's leading distribution platform which includes free-to-air TV channels, PVR, and catch-up services, along with extensive user base, Private will have 100% coverage throughout France with terms that will continue to significantly improve revenue generation through increased exposure and premier positioning.

Under the terms of the agreement, Private's content is now also featured on the Free platform in the "Hot Video Store" Video-on-Demand shop of Hot Video magazine, the most popular adult magazine in France. The new offering went live in March this year.

The 19th Convergence India 2011 Expo organized by the Exhibitions India Group, and currently being held at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, was today buzzing with business-to-business interactions. In addition to Telecom and Broadcasting, the exhibition floor had strong presence from the Broadband and LTE companies. The focus of the industry towards the two technologies clearly indicates the emerging trends and the growth path for the ICT sector.

At the concurrently held conference, a special session was conducted by Huawei Telecommunications to highlight strategies for successful implementation of LTE technology. The conference also covered discussions on digitalization,3G ,wireless broadband, network health, VAS, rural infrastructure and green ICT.

The emerging role of Broadband Wireless Access was topical and definitive at the opening ceremony of the 19th Convergence India 2011 Expo which began at Pragati Maidan today. Envisaging a future for the communications industry to be data heavy, Hon’ble Minister Shri Sachin Pilot emphatically pointed during the inauguration that, “ less than 1% Broadband connectivity is unacceptable”. Admitting that the technology agnostic government needs to adapt itself to the latest developments, he said “Convergence has happened much faster than anyone expected”. However, Indian ICT industry has all the ingredients to lead from the front. Hailed as South Asia’s largest event on information and communications technology, the 19th edition of Convergence India expos continues to make difference in the lives of ordinary men, by showcasing and promoting innovative technologies and new applications.

Global market research firm IMS Research has updated its Online TV Set Shipment Database with new information regarding TV shipments split by technology, iDTV demand, and TV households split by reception platform in 68 countries. The update reveals that Latin America is projected to be the fastest growing TV market over the next several years. Additionally, IMS Research expects a change in the demand for several key TV types, including LCDs, OLEDs and iDTVs.

Parks Associates announce the preliminary agenda, featuring the core topic areas of CONNECTIONS: The Digital Living Conference & Showcase, including mobility and communications, entertainment and content, connected consumer electronics, and cloud-based value-added services.

The three-day event, June 28-30 at Santa Clara, Calif., offers a unique mix of market research presentations, trending data, insight from industry leaders, and discussion of the current strategies and future challenges in providing connectivity and technology services for consumers.

Digital Rapids announces new dual-channel models in the StreamZ and StreamZHD families of studio encoding systems; StreamZHD Live ABR adaptive streaming encoder; and Flux family of video capture and pre-processing hardware. The new models combine Digital Rapids' long-standing ability to output multiple formats, resolutions and bit rates simultaneously in real time with the capability to capture and encode from two distinct sources concurrently.

Dual-channel, standard-definition StreamZ models feature SDI video input support with embedded audio. High-definition, dual-channel models of StreamZHD and StreamZHD Live ABR support HD-SDI, dual-link HD-SDI, 3G-SDI and standard-definition SDI video inputs. Real-time down-conversion of dual-link and 3G-SDI inputs leverages new facility infrastructures and allows easy repurposing of such sources without the workflow inconvenience and expense of external format converters.

Pixelmetrix is set to launch its Consolidator, its new generation Network Management System, StationView for Simple, Effective Monitoring and the Electronic Couch Potato Video Quality Index for video quality verification.

Consolidator provides centralized access and visibility of key network fault and performance information. Scalable to thousands of probes and millions of data points, it tracks all parameters in real time, through a combination of push notifications and information pull mechanisms, enabling faster fault resolution, thus improving Quality of Service.

Consolidator can also give an aggregated view for display on a video wall. This view combines data collected from different monitoring points within the network. Role-based views and access permissions allow creation of different views based on application – including drill-down screens for troubleshooting and executive dashboards.

Video-on-demand has become a rapidly growing market in the pay-TV industry. IMS Research estimates that at the end of 2010, 13.2% of the world’s digital pay-TV subscribers were requesting VOD content via their set-top box. The number of pay-TV households using VOD services is forecast to triple over the next five years, from 53.9 million at the end of 2010 to 157.3 million at the end of 2015.

In a recently published study, “On-demand Services Business Models: Video, Games & Over-the-Top – 2011 edition,” IMS Research examines the types of services and content driving on-demand service revenues generated by pay-TV subscribers. In 2010, operators generated $4.3 billion in on-demand revenues, with traditional closed-network VOD accounting for 99.5%.

Reservation Telephone Cooperative announces its plan to deploy Mariner’s award-winning IPTV service assurance platform, xVu.

Serving the North Dakota rural market, RTC will rollout xVu to monitor the quality of IPTV services, and deliver Quality of Experience insight that will enable RTC to rapidly confirm and isolate network issues before they negatively affect the end user’s experience.

By reducing unnecessary dispatches and STB swap outs, xVu helps operators to control operating costs and remain cost-competitive, while consistently ensuring high QoE which improves overall customer retention levels.

Amino has secured a follow-on order to provide its hybrid/OTT technology to support Telecom Italia's deployment of its Cubovision all-in-one multimedia broadband service.

Launched in December 2010, Cubovision offers home TV access to a range of digital terrestrial TV channels, leading web TV sources, and pay-per-view films as well as personal content such as photos, videos and music. Connected to the TV aerial and ADSL broadband, Cubovision transforms the traditional home TV into an online multimedia powerhouse offering a broad range of digital services and content via a single remote control.

In the exclusive EWT Event Hotel Melia de Mar
Only few hotel rooms STILL AVAILABLE: Book and secure today your beautiful room with sea view in EWT Event Hotel Melia de Mar.

Participation/Registration & Room Reservation

The Eurowebtainment – a unique offer of infotainment events. New with two additional and interesting Networking Events:

• On the opening day after 20:00 - the new Welcome Event “MEET & EAT"
• On Thursday afternoon - the special “Business Women’s Lounge”
• Now new: on 2 event days - our „ Speed-Networking-Events“
• In addition, several speeches, workshops and for the first time - the Webmaster Panel Discussion
• Spanish Webmaster Lounge

Espial announces Hitachi is shipping their latest Connected TV models into the Japanese market powered by the Espial TV Browser. To assist with their goal of being one of the premium TV suppliers to the Japanese Market, Hitachi has incorporated the Espial TV Browser which is included in the following Connected TV models shipped to only Japanese market: Hitachi P42-XP07, P46-XP07, P50-XP07, L32-XP07, L37-XP07, and L42-XP07.

Saudi Telecom selects JDSU to provide a comprehensive IPTV end-to-end service assurance solution. The solution will give STC the visibility to proactively detect and resolve IPTV service and network quality issues which will help speed repair times and ensure higher Quality-of-Service for subscribers.

The JDSU IPTV solution was also selected by STC for its ability to effectively reduce the complexity involved in assuring IPTV service end-to-end. The solution consolidates all troubleshooting software and hardware elements and offers an easy to access, efficient view of key performance indicators to identify service-affecting issues throughout the entire IPTV network.