Competition try to tear Canvas

Project Canvas, the joint venture between the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva which will deliver TV channels through a set top box (which is connected to an aerial for receiving DTV and the Internet for IPTV) and is now known as Youview has been given the go-ahead by Ofcom.

Actually Ofcom has decided not to accept complaints from Virgin Media, IP Vision and 11 other parties including BSkyB.

Ofcom's reasons are that the IP TV market is still fledgeling and it's too soon to see if Youview will make a difference in the market, Youview should benefit consumers and if they do harm the competition will the harm outweigh the benefit and the alleged harm may not occur depending on the technical specifications of the system.

Youview has gone through many iterations and current traditional pap-per-view systems like Virgin and Sky have the most to lose if a generic IP TV system can be brought into play that utilises people's broadband to deliver high quality IP TV services. Both BT and TalkTalk are part of the project and will be delivering fibre-to-the-street cabinet/premises (FTTC/FTTP) services which will deliver 40Mb/s - 100Mb/s to the home, which is enough for HDTV, thus negating the need for people to buy satellite TV or cable TV.

The fill press release is available from Ofcom

Seesaw tips the balance

IPTV company Seesaw has launched as a completely free service in the UK. It has programs from BBC, 4oD and Five available 24 hours a day and available to anyone without a sign-up etc.

They have 3,000+ hours of content available for viewers to watch including current series on terrestrial TV and it's streamed in Flash 10 video.

All the videos (even BBC - which comes from WorldWide) come with pre-roll adverts (i.e. before the program starts adverts are run).

For UK viewers Seesaw is a great catch-up free TV service with some good content.

There's a new play on words and it's called SeeSaw

The quite cleverly named new IPTV player has gone into private beta. The service is called SeeSaw (get it?) allows TV programs from the BBC, 4oD and Five to be delivered on your PC.

There are various categories: -

Comedy
Drama
Factual
Lifestyle
Entertainment
Sport

Or you can select by channel: -

BBC
4oD
Five

There's quite a lot of content available with new shows like Skins from 4oD and also a lot of Dr Who from the BBC (both past and present) and things like the Gadget show from Five, there also lots more. The content uses DRM and Flash Video.

If SeeSaw manage not to annoy too many people (like BSkyB) and keep the service going there'll be compelling content for viewers (it seems you have to be in the UK to view it). How the commercial models will work is yet to be seen. Hopefully it wont go the same way as its predecessor Kangaroo.

There's a private beta request sign-up on the front-page.

Carphone Warehouse to acquire Tiscali UK

Carphone Warehouse (CPW) are acquiring the assets of Tiscali UK for £236m from Tiscali (Italy).

Tiscali have been up for sale for some time as broadband economics worsen and competition increases. Both BSkyB and CPW have been rumoured to be in the running as well as outsiders like BT.

It seems CPW have got to the finishing post and they'll gain Tiscali's infrastructure and customers. CPW's customer base will increase to 4.25m making them the largest UK (home) broadband provider. There's going to be considerable overlap in infrastructure and staff so CPW will likely make sweeping cuts in both. Tiscali's IPTV platform (previously HomeChoice) will give CPW an edge to compete with BT Vision and whatever Sky are planning. Tiscali only managed to achieve 100,000 IPTV customers (they wanted double that) and maybe CPW will be able to get that out to all their customers.

If CPW can utilise the extra infrastructure and minimise costs then they may be one of the larger players that survives the broadband commoditisation game.

Comcast turns down Joost

Joost who raised $45m in 2007 are up for sale and have been touting themselves to cable companies where there could be a good fit.

Initially Joost tried to tempt customers with a standalone P2P video player (using the same underlying technology as Skype) but have since moved to a web based model.

Now being one of many web based system, they're facing increased competition and struggling to win customers and advertising revenue with less than 1m unique monthly visitors.

It seems Comcast have passed on purchasing them. Joost do have a decent underlying technology solution which could be utilised by an emerging IPTV player rather than developing their own.

Joost is very cool

Joost have launched their service in beta, these are the guys that set-up Kazaa and then Skype. It's an IPTV system that uses P2P. There's a description of how it all works on the UKNOF site (Manchester/UKNOF7).

It's currently in beta and works on invites where every now and again beta users get to invite other users.

Quality is actually pretty good though navigation is a bid odd and needs getting used to.

It's going to be big.

Tandberg TV go for $1.39bn

Ericsson is trying to buy Tandberg for $1.39bn, though ARRIS may yet up their bid.

Tandberg used to specialise in videoconferencing systems, though have moved in to the IPTV world and that's where the big money is going to be. Everyone will be watching TV through an internet connected set top box and everyone wants to be in that space.

Cisco bought Scientific Atlanta for the same reason.

Though IPTV is in its infancy, it's the future and everyone knows it - though the business models (and infrastructure) are still big unknowns. However the big players know they've got to do something now so they're in a position to grab the market when it does take off.

It's a big gamble, but one that is likely to pay off in the long term.