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delivery: Pounds £995, US Dollars $1,495
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"Interactive TV" is a new report
from the team that researched and authored VisionConsult's popular
"Internet @ Digital.TV" and "Opportunities in Streaming
Media" reports. It totals over 290 pages and includes more
than 100 charts, figures and illustrations.
The report is rich with illustrations of
the major interactive applications to date in the USA and Europe.
Interactivity is at the earliest stages of development, but significant
implementation has now been carried out, especially in Europe, and
there is much to learn from.
Enhanced or Interactive?
VisionConsult reports on interactive results
from all the key players, and considers the potential of various
levels of interactivity, from "Enhanced TV" (no return
path, signals broadcast in the TV stream), to full interactivity.
OpenTV is already in 16 million homes, and Microsoft TV claims it
has 15 million committed to its platform. US interactive TV commerce
is forecast to reach $4.4 billion by 2004, with US interactive households
totalling 32 million by 2004, up from 5 million today. BSkyB is
already generating interactive revenues at the rate of $120 million
a year.
Digital Industry
Ecosystem
VisionConsult also evaluates the digital
"Ecosystem": Digital Cable, Digital Terrestrial and Digital
Cable, each sector's progress, the type of set top box and return
path specified, and estimated roll outs. There are 20 million existing
set top boxes in the market that could not be upgraded to the MHP
platform, for example.
Who will benefit from the report?
The report aims to assist management and
business strategists (as well as Technical Management that needs
to understand the market environment) in organizations including
TV Broadcasters, Cable TV, Satellite, Regulators, TV Programming,
Consultants, Financial Institutions, and Software, Hardware and
Set Top Box companies.
International, latest data
Research and interviews for the project
have been carried out throughout Europe, with analysts based in
our London and Berlin offices, and at NAB 2001 in the USA. We include
the results of BSkyB's Open interactive platform announced in May
2001, together with actual market results on new services such as
gambling and gaming, and provide our independent forecasts.
The Standards Battle
Standards are just one area of our
research. The standards battle has been ongoing for several years,
and is still far from won, or lost. VisionConsult first reported
on the ATVEF standard in 1998, when there was a view that HTML and
ECMAScript based standards (and Microsoft) might also dominate the
TV industry. Since then, middleware such as OpenTV and Media Highway
have grown in market penetration, and Microsoft's implementation
of its TV platform is taking longer than originally expected. European
and US governments are reluctant to mandate a standard, although
they are is strong lobbying in the EEC for MHP to be mandated, especially
in Germany. There is certainly reluctance to mandate a standard
that may require broadcasters and cable operators to increase their
costs, or to specify set-top boxes that require increased sophistication
and resident memory, that will thus increase capital costs. Combined
with the so-called "chaos" of standards in the US cable
industry, where decisions are taken by individual operators, it
seems that the market battle will not be won on standard issues
alone.
VisionConsult International's Independent
Research
Founded in 1993, with offices in London,
Berlin, Karlsruhe, Paris and Boston, VisionConsult is an independent
international consultancy. The core expertise of the group is strategy
consultancy, research, executive search and research report publications
for the convergence industries. Clients include hundreds of the
world's leading convergence organisations. Please contact us on
+44 1438 714882 for further information.
Pdf downloads now available
Single user Pdf copies of the report
are now available to download at www.visionconsult.com. Credit card
orders can be processed with files available for download on the
same day. Email orders to info@visionconsult.com. Pdf delivery requires
prepayment, and download instructions will be provided once your
order has been processed. You can select and print from the pdfs,
which are encrypted for single user license; multi-user licenses
are available on request. No refunds are available for pdf delivery.
New US Office
You can now also order from our Boston
office: Tel: +1 508 276-1157 or Fax: +1 413 669-0330. We look forward
to hearing from you.
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