IPTV is Here, But What is IPTV?

It’s always exciting to witness a new technology foraying itself slowly but surely into our daily lives, and the Internet Protocol Television is one such phenomenon that is unassumingly coming in, testing the waters, albeit in a very nascent stage in India. We at Tech2 were just waiting for the right opportunity to pounce on this story. A Bangalore-based MSO called ACT TV obliged us first, so they're in the limelight today.

There are other telecom stalwarts introducing this new technology city by city, but as of now Bangalore has got ACT TV. We went down to their studio for a demo, and this presentation is a hands on walkthrough that we got from them, and not really a review of the product. We did get to play around with the thing for a couple of hours, so here is our intro to the exciting technology of IPTV. There is a video link at the end of this article that shows all the screens and also an interview with the Chief Technology Consultant, or rather, their head tech guy.

So what exactly is it?
Picture this: you can watch TV on your regular screen , but there is added interactivity, like you can choose which show you want to see, you can demand movies, watch internet videos (on your screen itself), book tickets for railways/airlines and even order pizza. This is what is advertised, and at the ACT TV demo most of this was actually possible. Still in RnD mode, the team plans to incorporate all these features.

Technically speaking, conventional broadcast is one way, meaning from the stations to our homes via analog cable (old fashioned) and Digital cable (set top box). But here we have a 2 way movement of information, because the TV broadcast is sent to you through internet protocol, or simply speaking, through your internet connection, the same one through which you can browse, send mail, download stuff etc. That is why it's 2-way communication; simple eh? Plus there are more features like recording shows if you miss them, and also, exclusively to IPTV only, you can even access a show you have missed in the past, without even actually recorded it. Thus you can watch Splitsvilla and procrastinate whenever you wish.

The equipment
ACT TV offers a palm sized little set top box, which in theory acts as the interface between your TV and the internet. A black chassis with green LEDs lined up at the front panel pretty much make up the aesthetics. It’s a cute little thing that comes in three models, with the lowest no frills model also having a decent set of functionalities. __STARTQUOTE__Thus you can type 'eggs' and you get recipe videos on your TV screen itself, so you can shout it out to the kitchen and hope that someone will make it for you.__ENDQUOTE__The STB(set top box) connects to your TV via composite video (yeah we know that is old), thus we have an RCA out, plus 2 USB slots, as this device also acts a media player, and can read songs, videos and pictures off your HDD as well as Flash Disk. Regular formats like .mpg, .wmv and .vob files are mentioned but no DivX. Audio formats include mp3, mp2, wav and wma. It does not come with built in space, but has LAN and WLAN capabilities, with the appropriate i/o on the back panel. With this, one can share media from a PC, and play on your TV screen.