Internet TV: Freshmen and Subversion

"Internet TV can be said to be another disruptor of the old model." Zhang Dazhong, deputy director of the Shanghai Radio and Television Station, told reporters that the features and new operating modes of access, open cooperation, etc., that are available in Internet TV, make it a digital Another major industry innovation drive beyond television and IPTV.

At the beginning of last month, after confirming the triple play pilot city, three Internet TV licenses were issued to the three radio and television organizations in CCTV, Shanghai, and Hangzhou at the end of last month, and Shanghai Radio and Television and Other organizations obtained the national complete license for “integrated broadcast control and content service”. , Can carry out Internet television and 3G mobile TV integration broadcast control, operation and content service business.

Director of the Policy Institute of the State Administration of Radio Film and Television and Director of the New Media Institute Dong Tie-chuen said that the significance of licensing lies in the effective management of the market through integrated licenses. The three licenses can be moderately competitive and cover the whole country, hoping for the future. The Internet TV technology platform must be improved and the business model must be effective.

Cross-sectoral cross-industry new industries

The Internet TV business is a digital television service emerging globally. Televisions with Internet TV function rely on Internet technology, relying on broadband access service users, and taking the form of video and audio multi-media as their features.

Gran Research analysts said that Internet TV is based on the public network as the transmission network, and television as the receiving terminal to provide users with Internet content services. Internet TV is different from IPTV. It is not restricted by geographical area. As long as you have a TV set embedded in an Internet TV client (developed by a company with an Internet TV integration service license), you can enjoy Internet TV services anywhere there is an Internet.

The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) currently adopts an "integrated service + content service" management model for Internet TV. Internet TV terminals must cooperate with platform integrators who have obtained integrated licenses and embed the latter's clients.

Zhang Dazhong said that it has been 3-4 months since the technology was accepted and issued for licensing, but behind it is the accumulation of new media platforms such as IPTV that have been operating nationwide for more than five years. According to China's Internet TV operating model, networks, terminals, applications, and content all need to be integrated by service providers. This is a manifestation of the country's will.

In some respects, Internet TV has always been a surpassing one. For example, Internet TV naturally realizes cross-region and service is unbounded.

According to Zhang Dazhong, under the Internet TV model, TV stations must be transformed into content service providers, and a small TV station at the county level may also become a film and television agency that broadcasts programs throughout the country. The radio and television organizations no longer have to be jailed and cannot move, but break the geographical restrictions and gain more space.

Dong also believes that local radio and television companies need to become content providers on the Internet TV platform to stimulate their institutional and content innovations.

"Internet TV has also broken the industry restrictions." Zhang Dazhong said that the content of Internet TV will be open to more partners, the entire service integrates telecommunications and radio and television, games, film and television and value-added services and other industries.

According to Li Huaiyu, CEO of BesTV, Internet TV integrated operators should cooperate with terminal manufacturers such as TV manufacturers and telecom operators. This is similar to Apple's internal and external cooperation model. BesTV, based on the innovation of IPTV and broadband TV technology in the past few years, has developed an independent intellectual property client. Its back office is actually a huge operating system for TV service platforms. This enables end-to-end audiovisual services.

Innovation is the fundamental driving force for industrial development

“The Internet TV service is not a business that can be carried out suddenly, but it needs a process of accumulation.” Zhang Dazhong said that BesTV, an operator of Internet TV operator SMG, has undergone a long-term accumulation of operations through the operation of IPTV, digital TV and Internet video gained previous experience and resources.

Li Huaiyu introduced to reporters that the Internet television technology system built by BesTV includes content service platforms and integrated broadcast and control platforms. Among them, the content service platform completes content production functions such as production, review, and release of content; the integrated broadcast control platform has five systems such as content integration management, integrated broadcast control platform, operation support platform, TVDN service platform, and TV terminal middleware TVOS.

BesTV, which is owned by SMG, has been operating IPTV services nationwide since 2005 and has obtained the nation’s first IPTV operation license. It has accumulated hundreds of thousands of hours of copyright content, covering popular TV dramas, finance, sports, and NBA. In 2009, SMG's mobile TV and broadband TV were integrated into BesTV's operations, and BesTV entered the "three-screen convergence" stage of IPTV, mobile TV, and PC network TV.

Zhang Dazhong said that BesTV will generally purchase all new media rights, which can be broadcast on television, computers and mobile phones. The annual purchase cost of IPTV copyright content exceeds 200 million yuan.

In the aspect of Internet TV platform construction, Li Huaiyu disclosed that BesTV has completed the construction of an integrated monitoring and control platform for Internet TV and a content service platform. The first stage of the Internet TV integrated broadcasting and control platform that can be put into use can support 5 million users to watch Internet TV. Peak concurrent online users One million people provide online on-demand and video download services. The program content video library supports 100,000 hours of content storage and supports access to more than 50 content service providers. It can provide Internet TV users with satisfactory online TV services.

For example, BesTV's TVOS middleware technology for Internet TV can support more than a dozen mainstream TV chips at home and abroad. Any domestic brand TV can quickly realize the functions of Internet TV services in the short term. The TVDN content service network technology uses technologies such as P2P and CDN, and supports multiple access networks such as telecommunications, China Unicom, education, and cable.

At present, Internet TV can achieve a visual effect similar to that of a DVD. Li Huaiyu disclosed that apart from being responsible for CDN network transmission and content purchase, the high-quality bandwidth protection required by Internet TV will be solved together with TV manufacturers and telecom operators, which can be subsidized through advertisements and value-added applications, and can also be divided into modes.

This differs from the IPTV model in that IPTV network transmission and charging are the responsibility of the telecom operators, and they manage the subscribers together with radio and television. The Internet TV billing and user management are all responsible for broadcasting. The Internet TV's profit model is also more diverse, such as advertising, content payment and value-added applications.

At the same time, Internet TV services will also be shared with IPTV. For example, BesTV has more than a dozen resident service teams across the country. Cooperation with TV manufacturers such as Konka, Hisense, Haier and Skyworth is open.

The industry chain will break out

"Internet technology, television experience." Zhang Dazhong said that this is the feeling that Internet TV needs to give users. The birth of Internet TV is a hugely influential innovation. Terminal equipment needs a better user experience and operators need better services.

According to CNTV stakeholders, TV terminals play a bigger role in the Internet TV industry. The combination of terminals and content will burst out with new innovations.

Zhang Dazhong said that Internet TV will greatly promote the intelligent development of televisions. Internet TV has added an online media processing chip to televisions, enabling televisions to have the capabilities of network processing and video decoding. In the past, many users exported to televisions through computer interfaces to view pictures, online videos, and locally stored videos on their computers. After the birth of Internet TV, users no longer needed an additional computer. The TV itself already had this capability. Television began. In the direction of computer intelligence is developing.

Behind the Internet TV is an open platform where all kinds of content and service providers can access it. In the future, you can play online games and carry out various Internet entertainments at home. For example, you can realize that three generations of grandparents and grandchildren “steak food” on different screens. Grandpa can steal food on TV, and both father and son can be at the computer and Stealing food on the phone, and behind these screens is access to the same service provider, Zhang Dazhong explained with great interest.

Li Huaiyu told reporters that there is a firewall mechanism between Internet TV and the Internet. Some audited Internet content can be played on Internet TV. Users can also access weather, road conditions and other Internet information services.

Through the payment controls in the Internet TV, the online payment service is embedded. Users can use the remote control to achieve TV consumption, such as the payment of domestic utility bills, online shopping for e-commerce platforms, TV shopping, and more e-commerce applications. Wait. At present, BesTV has further expanded the business of Internet TV online payment and video terminal e-commerce through cooperation with various service providers such as UnionPay.

Moreover, for the network and broadband industries, the demand for large-screen televisions for consumers to consume has increased to promote the demand for flat-panel Internet TVs. Internet TV needs high memory, high-performance CPU, and network interface capabilities, which will further stimulate the development of the hardware industry and the demand for broadband services in China, for broadband cities, next-generation Internet of Things (NGN) and next-generation broadcast television networks (NGB). Development laid the foundation. These are important parts of triple play.

"The future of television remote control needs to be transformed." Zhang Dazhong said that the use of Internet TV will bring tremendous imagination. For example, Internet TV creates a TV payment system that cooperates with UnionPay to bring TV billing systems to the industry and solve the problem of TV payment. In the future, TV advertisements will be as accurate as Internet advertisements. The display effect of TV advertisements combined with accurate Internet digital technology will make advertisements present a new situation.

Ten million users are the immediate targets

"The scale of tens of millions of users developed by Internet TV is not a big problem." Dong said early on that the development resistance of Internet TV is smaller than that of IPTV. Based on the public network to provide services, unlike IPTV, it is a private network service involving local deployment. problem. Payments and advertising are all feasible on the business model.

The recent bandwidth upgrade plan for telecommunications network operators has enabled China's central cities to generally have 1 to 3 trillion Internet bandwidth, and cities such as Wuhan, Shenzhen, Xi’an, and Shanghai have vigorously promoted “fiber to the home” and “urban optical network”. It has played a catalytic role in the development of Internet TV.

Li Huaiyu introduced that advances in chip technology and price reductions have accelerated the upgrading of TV terminals. Advances in terminal chip technology will enable Internet TVs to have greater computer capabilities, streaming media processing capabilities, and search capabilities.

In terms of Internet TV, Hisense, Konka, Tsinghua Tongfang, and Changhong have all cooperated with Shanghai Radio and TV stations and other licensed organizations to embed relevant broadcast control platforms and content services.

Lu Lin, sales director of Samsung China Shanghai, told this newspaper that Samsung is also very optimistic about the development of Internet TV in China. It has been waiting for the policy to be clear and able to develop the correct market policy to force Internet TV.

According to data from Yikang, a market research company, from January to May 2010, the proportion of domestic Internet TV sales to flat-panel TV sales has rapidly increased and is now close to 10%. The sales of TVs with Internet access are close to 700,000, of which, There are 690,000 Internet LCD TVs and 10,000 Internet plasma TVs. The retail volume of all flat-panel TVs was 7.32 million units.

"Several million user levels are not enough, and they must reach 10 million." Zhang Dazhong is so positioned on the scale of Internet TV that his investment level is no less than IPTV, and the goal of Internet TV is to have millions of hours of content. Billion users and the transmission of high-definition content.

Zhang Dazhong disclosed that BesTV will launch the commercial use of Internet TV in the third quarter. The relevant person in charge of Hangzhou Huashu said that it will also start trial commercial of Internet TV as soon as possible.

In the early years of Dong, Internet TV is complementary to IPTV and digital TV. It is one of the user's multiple access platforms. The three methods have advantages and limitations and are complementary and coexistent.