Microsoft has dropped the “IPTV” moniker from its Internet protocol television middleware, revamping the system “Microsoft Mediaroom.”
Microsoft has updated and revamped its IPTV software platform offering with the newly launched Microsoft Mediaroom.
The new Mediaroom platform features in-home personal music and photo sharing, allowing consumers to listen to music and view photographs stored on their computers on television screens.
It has also released a new Mediaroom Application Development toolkit, which gives IPTV service providers and third-party developer’s better tools to create TV-based applications. It also noted that Mediaroom supports simultaneous recording of multiple high-definition and standard-definition TV channels.
The reason for the name-change from Microsoft IPTV Edition is “to offer service providers a powerful way to differentiate their service and enhance consumer perceptions in the TV marketplace by leveraging the awareness of Microsoft’s proven software solutions, innovation and connected entertainment pedigree” and to “communicate more easily the potential of the platform,” according to Enrique Rodriguez, corporate vice president, Microsoft TV Business.
Microsoft IPTV has been out for years, and there have been issues around it in terms of bugs and being slow to market. There has been a lot of criticism in the marketplace. “They have taken their IPTV middleware platform and they are adding some multimedia capabilities and renaming it,” IDC multimedia research director Matt Davis said in a statement.
There is more to the new name than just abandoning a moniker associated with trouble. They emerged from a troubled era, so it is probably a good idea to put a new name on it and cast it in new light. “Mediaroom” better reflects the updated platform’s multimedia enhancements, which Davis believes is important.
The upgrade also includes dynamic MultiView (multiple picture-in-picture) capabilities, Multimedia Application Environment for development of interactive services and advanced applications and digital terrestrial television (DTT) support.
“In the highly competitive television market, a well-regarded brand can be a very strong asset,” Christine Heckart, general manager of worldwide marketing for Microsoft TV, said in a statement.
Microsoft is committed to providing our IPTV customers with the very best software platform so they can take full advantage of their intelligent, two-way IP networks, and begin deploying richer and more personalized TV and connected entertainment experiences, Rodriguez said in a statement.
Moving away from the IPTV label is a wise move for Microsoft, even though IPTV is the heart of the Mediaroom platform, because television is just one piece of the convergence, said Davis.
IPTV is firmly associated with switched digital video and sort of an enhanced replication of the existing broadcast television delivery system, he said.
Heckart said the name will better reflect the broader set of new connected entertainment experiences made possible by IPTV.
The Multimedia Application Environment offers support for Web services and applications, enabling service providers to use advanced features such as dynamic video-on-demand portals, casual games and interactive TV services.
The Enhanced MultiView capabilities will allow consumers to see multiple channels, programs and camera angles on one screen.
In addition, the Microsoft Mediaroom name and identity are designed to create a “powerful competitive differentiator” for service providers.
Mediaroom is intended for incorporation in set top boxes offered by IPTV providers. Microsoft said “more than 18” service providers (including AT&T’s U-Verse) have selected Mediaroom for their digital TV offerings and commercial deployments are under way with 10 of the providers.
Service providers will be better able to offer consumers Web services and applications such as dynamic video-on-demand portals, games and interactive TV services, the company added.
With personal media sharing and new application development capabilities, Microsoft Mediaroom brings the consumer television experience to a new level, enabling the best in TV, plus access to all your media in one place, said Rodriguez.
While IPTV alone has capabilities far beyond standard cable TV, such as enhanced digital video recording, video on demand, high-definition television and “instant channel zapping,” the addition, through Mediaroom of personal media “enables consumers to easily listen to digital music and view digital photographs stored on PCs elsewhere in the home on the best screen in the house: the television,” said the company,” said Microsoft.