In
an interview with advanced-television.com, Regis Saint Girons, (left),
Managing Director OpenTV Europe explained that he believes that interactivity
is the future of TV, and OpenTV will lead its delivery.
OpenTV
provides solutions for the interactive TV industry in two main areas. The first,
and best known is Middleware for television set top boxes.
Girons states, "We are already delivering to around 14 million set top boxes
from 30 manufacturers for 40 operators internationally - on satellite, cable,
and digital terrestrial."
For the longer term, OpenTV aims to provide the high functionality market, but
is also meeting current lower level requirements, commenting, "OpenTV is adding
HTML to the software as an extension, enabling users to 'plug-in' to access
HTML content. However, this functionality will require a more advanced set top
and is not designed for current usage. We are also developing a PVR extension
to allow storage of interactive content on the local hard drive, acting as a
server."
The key issue for the market is the creation of standards, whether they be de-facto
standards or agreed standards for interoperability - the industry wants to see
re-use of its content. XML is increasingly used, and MHP has just been adopted
in Norway. ATV asked, OpenTV has done well as a proprietary system; what is
your policy regarding standards, and how do you differentiate yourself in a
standards-led world?
Girons responded, "In relation to standards, we are working with an MHP solution
to provide interoperability with other networks. The recommendations for MHP
as a solution (to the lack of standards) will enable us to decode (other's content)
and encode (our content for use on other systems).
"Any standard will be a definition with multiple implementations of the same
standard. It is still unknown if MHP will become that standard, but its proponents
would like it to be the agreed solution, or the market may come up with a de-facto
standard.
"We will address all possibilities. There is a market (for interactive TV) today
whereas MHP requires a very advanced set top with 200 MIP, 15 MB Flash memory
and 2MB RAM. This platform doesn't exist - with 20 to 50 MIP more typical, therefore
you can't run MHP today, but there is a big demand for interactivity now, so
we run a non-MHP product."
"OpenTV produces interactive TV solutions, and we have a good track record of
implementing real interactive TV. If MHP - or any other system - becomes the
standard, we will provide the best implementations, with the best features and
the lowest costs. If you take the PC as an example, with HTML as the standard,
there are a few vendors who are better than the others at being able to provide
viable solutions."
ATV: Set top box interactive middleware is the company's most familiar product,
but what other areas is OpenTV developing?
Girons: "Our aim is to be an end-to-end provider of software, including developing
the server side, helping to launch interactive services on broadband. OpenTV
publisher is our new server software. Content is created once for the Internet
using XML which allows the same content to be broadcast in real-time to the
end user - introduced around a month ago.
ATV: To what extent does OpenTV see iTV as being a merger with the Internet,
a separate entity or enhanced TV?
Girons: "Our Server platform development is more dependent on Internet technology."
Generally, OpenTV does not put its emphasis on Internet TV. You don't have to
use the TV for everything. The Web on TV has been tried and it failed because
Web content is created for the PC and not the TV. We offer services that can
exist on the Internet and other platforms, but is put together in a package
in a TV-centric way. Essentially we are using XML for content creation, and
the display format of the TV.
"In the future there will be opportunities for multi-platform content which
will be a mix of virtual channels - with services linked to TV - like News,
Weather, and stock prices - which will also be available in a TV centric format.
"For us, like Sky, we see most opportunities are through adding interactivity
to existing TV, rather than pure iTV content. We are still at the very beginning
of the interactive TV industry, and need to have a big enough installed base
of customers to justfy building services for the public.
"The iTV customer base needs to be big enough to justify the development costs,
hence the UK and France are the main targets right now, with simple services
such as sports programming with-on-demand statistics during the game. Then we'll
be adding T commerce during the game - which is very attractive - including
chat between viewers during a game on TV, which is something that is coming
now."
ATV: BSkyB's interactive revenues are primarily from gambling. Is that a focus
of activity for OpenTV?
Girons: "So far we have not specifically addressed this sector, though we have
provided the APIs to enable interactive gambling. To date itùs a very
country specific application due to the wide variations in approach from regulators,
with the UK the most proactive in encouraging this development."
ATV: You develop for Satellite and Cable - what about the opportunities for
interactive TV via xDSL? Do you plan to address this market now that ADSL VOD
services are rolling out?
Girons: "There is still very little xDSL deployed. It's an area we are looking
at, but we are market driven and the market isn't there yet. When xDSL is ready
to deliver digital TV we'll address it.
"It's not so much a technical issue as it's just a small difference compared
to say cable where we meet Doccis and DVB standards. xDSL is just another extension.
We see xDSL as an on-demand technology, as well as linking up with satellite
and terrestrial to provide a broadband return path."
ATV: When you talk about providing a return path for broadband on say satellite,
does that mean that you favour a 'fat client' type set top, rather than the
distributed models which some cable companies are looking at?
Girons: "We're seeing the move to big boxes more and more, including on the
cable side, which also has demand for a high-end box. PVRs are seen by satellite
as only a feature for advanced boxes as they require a hard disk. Since this
is the only extra cost, it is seen as providing extra value for the user. VOD
is then bought as a service, not a feature. User reaction will decide the development
of the market - what is more sense, a server at home or at the head end? It's
still open to dispute.
"For cable companies who are also offering PVR itùs a different proposition.
But for us it's transparent.
For now, the market is definitely satellite, which has the larger volume of
digital TV in Europe. The difference between the two (cable and satellite) is
a factor of ten.
"The main difference is the business model. Satellite companies are primarily
TV operators offering content and network access. Most cable companies are only
access providers, not managing the content, so the economics are very different.
It also explains why satellite is very proactive in moving to digital.
"We do want to address the three markets, and we see there is a demand for high
end boxes in the cable industry too when we look at the US digital cable market
which has created a mass market for 12MB Flash memory boxes."
ATV: The US and Europe are your main markets. Where are your other key growth
areas?
Girons: "We are definitely world wide, addressing all the main markets. After
the US and Europe then Asia and Latin America are our biggest markets, but we
are working in all markets. We're working with DirecTV in Latin America and
looking at cable opportunities in less developed markets.
In Asia we are very active in Australia, in China - looking at both Cable and
Satellite - and in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
"There is more and more demand for servers, and its not just about boxes, but
also providing the tools and support activities that go with them. We work with
very strong players like Sky, but also other big and small players."
ATV: What would you estimate is OpenTV's market share?
"What is our market share? We have 13.9 million boxes rolled out. Liberate is
in the thousands, Canal plus (MediaHighway) is not clear, but we would estimate
about six million - and the D-Box is not true interactivity. Microsoft is big
enough to purchase the technology and customers, as well as having their own
technological development capabaility, so they are a potential threat. Today
they still suffer from being too PC-centric, and have failed to move from that
world. One day they will - but they'll find it very different from what they
are used to."
ATV: And the potential for interactive TV in the future?
Girons: "No digital system is launching today without iTV. iTV is the future
of TV. iTV is a special development with its own solutions to launch new services.
That's where we are, moving from middleware to a full solution to deliver multiple
interactive services - without crashing the TV, easy to use, already proved
(including the tools). We have found the solutions because we were in at the
very early days of iTV."
ATV: What about the additional security and billing functionality required for
T-commerce?
Girons: "Digital TV systems are inherently very secure because the mechanisms
and technology for security and payment are covered via conditional access.
It's very easy to control access to services, and to control payment.
"We use the technology of conditional access and we use the technology of the
Internet such as SSL. An iteration of the Internet world is used for management
of those processes. We aren't reinventing he wheel, we are using existing solutions
and investment to offer the user more, better services."
