IPTV is starting to take off in Australia as consumers choose IPTV devices over 3D TV’s. During the past two months more than 45,000 people have purchased Telstra’s T Box, while other consumers have chosen the Fetch TV offering.
According to BigPond 90,000 “paid for movies” were downloaded last month with this set to rise as TV vendors build IPTV software into Internet enabled TV’s. It is not known how many movies were downloaded via the Fetch TV offering.
The most popular IPTV movie last month was Bounty Hunter.
Later this year and early in 2011 both Google and Apple are set to go head to head, Goggle with their new Google TV offering which has been adopted by several vendors including Sony and Samsung as well as Logitech who is set to launch a Google set top box. Also expanding their IPTV offering is Apple who recently introduced a $129 Apple TV streaming box.
The move by consumers to adopt IPTV services has already had an impact in the USA with Blockbuster the movie rental and game entertainment chain filing for Chapter 11. The Company has already moved to start closing down many of their 3,306 stores in the USA.
According to Ben Kinealy Head of IPTV at Telstra consumers are taking to IPTV services faster than they to 3D. He said that since launching their T Box offering 6% of their 45,000 customers were new to Telstra, 25% took a new broadband connection and 14% took a new PSTN connection and 2% a new Pay TV connection.
“T Box and our BigPond Movie services are really having a positive impact on our business. The rubber has really hit the road in recent months with media growth of 29% year on year” he said.
Kinealy, who admits that several other TV vendors are set to take up their BigPond Movie service, believes that by late 2011 IPTV will be a major business.
According to Terry Smart CEO of JB Hi Fi retailers are seeing demand for IPTV enabled devices. “Content is a problem with 3D as a result consumers are gravitating to IPTV devices” he said.
According to several vendors consumer electronics retailers need to improve their display capability for IPTV devices with many retailers still unable to demonstrate the service due to a lack of fast broadband in stores.
In other moves Telstra recently started trialling Widevine’s IPTV technology which when fully implemented will allow Telstra to deliver Full HD moves and 3D content as part of their BigPond Movie offering.
The Widevine technology allows consumers to access live, high definition (HD) entertainment over the Internet. The premium broadcast content can be viewed over both IPTV enabled TV’s PC’s and Tablets and mobile devices.
Kinealy said “Widevine will assist us deliver a technology called “adaptive broadcast technology” – put simply this means we can provide our customers with higher quality IPTV on demand using our existing networks.”
