Metropol

The internet TV box gets closer ....

Partners to bring broadband to the TV

The BBC, ITV and BT today are joining together to work as partners to promote a common industry approach and consumer offer to deliver on-demand TV over broadband.

The initiative is open for all public service broadcasters, device developers and other ISPs.

The proposals, which form part of the BBC Executive's wider partnership proposals, would see the development of a standards-based open environment for broadband connected digital television receivers.

It would support a wide range of content providers and could be promoted by all Internet Service Providers, with the aim to involve a wider group of partners by launch.

This would mean a new generation of subscription-free devices, carrying free to air channels and a huge selection of on-demand TV services like iPlayer and ITV Player, as well as the potential for films, shows and interactive content from a range of other providers in standard and high definition.

The plans are subject to BBC Trust approval and public consultation.

I'm quite sure the country's ISPs will be absolutely delighted by this news.

Was that post in sarcasm Mark? I assume you know about the big who-ha with ISPs complaining about BBC iPlayer making everyone consume more bandwidth. But they have reason to be pleased about it as well, so...

I think the BBC and ITV have played a master stroke getting into bed with BT over this, the leading UK ISP has by joining the consortium run a coach and horses through other ISP's complaints about iPlayer Bandwidth. They will now be actively promoting this new service with other ISPs on board. Naturally if they object it'll be a superb marketing tool for BT to use.

I'm thinking Apple will be looking at what will be a realistic alternative to AppleTV with interest too.

I'd imagine that the required playback module could be fitted into a new IDTV easily and at reasonable cost. Presumably a flash drive would be used to cache the incoming VOD material, the base version would be ethernet connected but as the price points rise wireless connections would be standard. I hope the tech specs are sorted quickly so that the new DTT HD STBs, PVRs etc. can have this onboard from launch.