Microsoft Mediaroom Powers New HD IPTV Service from Canada's MTS

Microsoft contacted [itvt] last week to let us know that MTS Allstream, a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian telco, Manitoba Telecom Services, has launched an HDTV service in Winnipeg, based on the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform and various technologies from Mediaroom reseller and systems-integration partner, Alcatel-Lucent. According to Microsoft, the new service offers 30 HDTV channels (with more to be rolled out later this year), DVR service, and an EPG with picture-in-picture capability; and is slated to roll out additional advanced services later this year. It is currently available in limited areas of Winnipeg. "We are thrilled to bring the most advanced TV experience in Canada to Winnipeg residents and to share the next generation of TV with our customers," Kelvin Shepherd, president of consumer markets at MTS Allstream, said in a prepared statement. "We are proud that we have built an innovative product like no other in the country with industry leaders Alcatel-Lucent and Microsoft, and we look forward to providing our customers with Canada's number one TV entertainment experience."

In other recent Microsoft Mediaroom news:
--The company announced last week that US incumbent telco, AT&T, whose U-verse IPTV service is powered by the Mediaroom platform, plans to use Microsoft PlayReady content access and protection technology to enable shared content and converged entertainment experiences across its television, broadband and wireless services. As part of the deal, Microsoft says it will add support for PlayReady into the Mediaroom platform, enabling access to PlayReady-based content through AT&T U-verse set-top boxes. "AT&T's vision of converged entertainment services is something we share, and our collaboration on the use of PlayReady technology for content access and protection represents a significant milestone toward the future of integrated entertainment across multiple screens," Enrique Rodriguez, corporate VP of Microsoft's TV, Video and Music Business Group, said in a prepared statement. "Through the power of software such as PlayReady and Mediaroom, AT&T will bring its customers an exciting new range of services and content." PlayReady is billed by Microsoft as being designed to enable digital entertainment services across devices and software applications, with a specific focus on meeting the needs of mobile and network operators, service providers and device manufacturers. According to the company, it supports a broad range of business models that can be applied to almost any type of digital content and a wide range of formats; and provides features, such as service domains and embedded licenses, specifically designed to make it easy for consumers to enjoy content on all their registered devices without requiring an active connection.
--At the IPTV World Forum in London last month, Alcatel-Lucent announced that its "digital media suite" of products--comprised of its Multimedia Content Manager and its Interactive Media Manager--now supports the Microsoft Mediaroom Presentation Framework, Microsoft's new multimedia application environment for the Mediaroom platform (note: for more on the Mediaroom Presentation Framework, see [itvt]'s interview with Microsoft's Shari Barnett, in Issue xxx). The company claims that this will enable IPTV service providers to increase ARPU and generate new revenue streams by offering personalized, on-demand content offerings and interactive TV advertising. "By streamlining service operation over IPTV platforms, Alcatel-Lucent enables service providers to concentrate on content retailing and maximizing their advertising space," Rik Missault, VP of Alcatel-Lucent's Digital Media and Advertising Division, said in a prepared statement. "IPTV providers leveraging Alcatel-Lucent's solutions can infuse subscriber services with a rich mix of video, music, games, mobile, and interactivity to make the IPTV viewing experience more personal and compelling for subscribers. And, with our support of the latest version of the Microsoft Mediaroom platform, we are now extending this functionality to an even broader market." Microsoft bills the Mediaroom Presentation Framework as providing IPTV operators with tools for seamlessly blending on-screen broadcasting with content and services pulled from the Web, and Alcatel-Lucent claims that its digital media suite will "further complement" this capability. The suite provides operators with a series of pre-tested templates for quickly creating new interactive TV applications (including voting, enhanced TV and interactive ads); according to Alcatel-Lucent, these templates offer a "write once-deploy many" solution that gives content providers and media agencies an "abstraction layer," so that they can focus on their core expertise without having to worry about the technical capabilities of TV software platforms. Alcatel-Lucent also bills the digital media suite as enabling operators to upload a digital media asset once for monetization across many devices and users: operators can extend the video experience for their TV audience while also enabling that same experience on broadband or mobile, the company says; and content packaging to personalize the user's experience is made easy by cross-promoting video assets with music and other services, and by providing multiplatform purchase capabilities allowing users to access their content anywhere, anytime, it claims. In addition, Alcatel-Lucent says, the look-and-feel of the experience can be exposed to content providers and media agencies so that they can customize it to their needs using pre-tested templates.
--At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas January, Microsoft unveiled a new Mediaroom TV timeshifting feature, dubbed Mediaroom Anytime. According to the company, in addition to supporting such existing Mediaroom timeshifting features as VOD, DVR Anywhere and Remote DVR, Mediaroom Anytime takes "timeshifted TV to the next level" by offering three new features: 1) Restart Anytime, which enables viewers to rewind or restart the currently airing program from any point, regardless of whether the show is being recorded or the TV was switched off or tuned to another channel; 2) Live Anytime, which allows viewers to scroll backwards in the EPG, in order to watch previously aired programs (note: those previously aired programs can also be made accessible through the service provider's VOD library, Microsoft says); and 3) Download Anytime, which Microsoft says enables viewers to download on-demand programs to their set-top boxes, so that they can watch them at any time, regardless of bandwidth constraints (thus, Microsoft says, viewers could watch HD programs on low-bandwidth networks). According to Microsoft, Singaporean incumbent telco, SingTel, is trialing the Restart Anytime and Live Anytime services, with an eye to launching them to its mio TV subscribers later this year. The company says that Mediaroom Anytime functionality can be added to SingTel's existing Mediaroom-powered TV service via a simple software upgrade that requires no action by existing subscribers.
--Microsoft also used CES to showcase various new interactive TV concept-applications for the Mediaroom platform that featured Internet-based content and services. They included 1) an emuse-developed app that allowed viewers to access and interact with content from the Web site of the BBC's popular automobile-enthusiast show, "Top Gear" (among other things, the app allowed viewers to download episodes of the show); 2) an app that was developed by Turner Sports, the PGA and ES3 and that allowed viewers to switch dynamically between camera feeds, watch instructional videos on golfing, and click from static to video ads; 3) a celebrity-news application, developed by the Associated Press and ES3, that allowed viewers to access "up-to-the-minute" information, photos and video clips from red-carpet events; 4) an app that let viewers upload photos and videos to the Microsoft Live Mesh cloud storage Web site and view their personal content on the TV; 5) a visual voicemail app that let viewers check and play back messages, even at pitch-controlled, fast-forward speeds; and 6) a TV dashboard app, developed by ES3, that allowed viewers to access local news and information while watching TV. All the applications were built on the Microsoft Mediaroom Presentation Framework. "Television is no longer a one-way broadcast experience," Microsoft's Enrique Rodriguez said in a prepared statement. "With powerful software and network connectivity, TV is evolving to deliver richer, more immersive ways for consumers to watch anything, anytime and anywhere. These latest developments of the Mediaroom platform demonstrate how Microsoft is leading this transformation from broadcast to connected TV and shaping the consumer experience and expectation of TV."
--In January, Microsoft announced that Guangzhou Digital Media Group had launched an IPTV service, called Zhujiang Digital, that is powered by the Mediaroom platform. The service, which is available in China's Guangzhou region, is the first Mediaroom-powered TV service to launch in China and the first Mediaroom service anywhere in the world to be delivered over a cable network. It also includes the first deployment of the new Microsoft Mediaroom Anytime feature set (see above), which lets viewers access previously aired shows from their EPG and immediately restart currently airing programs without any pre-planning or prior digital video recording. The new IPTV service was officially launched at a January 12th ceremony in Guangzhou City. During the ceremony, Guangzhou Digital Media Group stated that it plans to connect a total of 2.5 million subscribers within three to five years. "With the launch of Zhujiang Digital Interactive TV service, the Guangzhou Digital Media Group is delivering a personalized and connected alternative to existing TV services," Guangzhou Digital Media Group chairman, Guan Zhijian, said in a prepared statement. "Powered by the Microsoft Mediaroom platform, the new service will allow residents in Guangzhou to enjoy their TV when they want it, without missing a thing, as well as rich interactivity." In addition toMediaroom Anytime functionality, HDTV and VOD, the new service features a range of interactive TV applications that blend Web content with broadcast TV. According to Microsoft, Guangzhou Digital Media Group has tapped a number of local businesses to develop the apps. The latter include apps that display local news from government Web sites; local sports and entertainment apps that let viewers watch video clips, view pictures, vote on shows, and check text messages; an app that lets viewers read emails sent out by local government; an app that lets viewers check their local social security information; and tcommerce apps that let viewers pay their phone bills and their traffic tickets. Microsoft says that Ghuangzhou Digital Media Group plans to use the Mediaroom Presentation Framework to launch a number of other applications in the future, including online shopping apps, and apps that let viewers search for information on local restaurants, hotels, traffic and entertainment.