Microsoft hasn't buried its old TV ambitions, but has instead revamped the whole concept into something that it calls as
IPTV. Company's idea is to provide a service for telecom companies where they could offer their DSL
(and other types of broadband services, naturally, even though cable companies aren't probably too interested of the concept..) subscribers a set-top box that would connect to their TVs and broadband Net connection instead of traditional cable network, and stream TV content over the IP networks.
Microsoft just announced a deal with
Telecom Italy to run trials of the IPTV in Italy to selected group of Telecom Italy's customers.
Thomson has developed the set-top boxes used in the service and will start distributing the units under two of its brand names -- Thomson and
RCA. Boxes support variety of video
codecs, including the traditional
MPEG-2 alongside with Microsoft's own
WMV9 and
MPEG-4 (advanced profile and H-264).
Source: News.com
Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 11 Sep 2004 10:02
