Internet TV Renaissance and Subversion

"Internet TV can be said to be another disruptor of the old model." Zhang Dazhong, deputy director of the Shanghai Radio and Television Station, told reporters that the features of the national access, open cooperation, and new operating models of Internet TV make it a digital Another major industry innovation drive beyond TV and IPTV.

After confirming the triple play pilot city at the beginning of last month, three Internet TV licenses were issued to CCTV in late last month, three radio and television organizations in Shanghai and Hangzhou, and Shanghai Radio and Television and other agencies obtained the national complete license for “integrated broadcast control and content service”. , Can carry out Internet television and 3G mobile TV integration broadcast control, operation and content service business across the country.

Director of the Institute of Policy Studies of the State Administration of Radio Film and Television, director of the New Media Institute, Director of the New Year, said that the significance of licensing lies in the effective management of the market through integrated licenses. The three licenses can be moderately competitive and cover the entire country, hoping for the future. The Internet TV technology platform must be perfect and the business model must be effective.

Cross-sectoral cross-industry new industries

The Internet TV business is a digital TV service emerging globally. TVs with Internet TV function rely on Internet technology, and rely on broadband access services. They are characterized by visual and audio multimedia and interactive personalization.

Gran Research Analysts said that Internet TV is based on the public network as the transmission network, and TV as the receiving terminal to provide users with Internet content services. Internet TV is different from IPTV, it is not limited by geographical restrictions, as long as it has embedded TV The client (developed by a company with an internet TV integrated service license) can enjoy internet TV services anywhere in the internet.

SARFT currently adopts the "integrated service + content service" management model for Internet TV. Internet TV terminals must cooperate with platform integrators who have obtained integrated licenses and embed the latter's clients.

Zhang Dazhong stated that it has been 3-4 months since the acceptance of the technology and the issuance of licenses, but behind it is the accumulation of new media platforms such as IPTV that have been operating nationwide for more than five years. According to China’s Internet TV operating model, the network, the terminal , applications and content, all need to integrate service providers to come together, this is the embodiment of the country's will.

In some respects, Internet TV is a surpassing one. For example, Internet TV has achieved a trans-territorial and unbounded service.

According to Zhang Dazhong, under the Internet TV model, television stations must be transformed into content service providers, and a county-level small TV station may also become a film and television organization that broadcasts programs throughout the country. Broadcasting and television organizations are no longer painted in prison, but cannot move. Break geographical restrictions and gain more space.

Dong Dong also believes that local radio and television companies need to become content providers on Internet TV platforms to stimulate their institutional and content innovations.

"Internet TV also broke the industry's restrictions." Zhang Dazhong said that the contents of Internet TV will be open to more partners, the entire service integrates telecommunications and radio and television, games, film and television and value-added services and other industries.

According to Li Huaiyu, CEO of BesTV, Internet TV integrated operators must cooperate with terminal manufacturers such as TV manufacturers and telecom operators. This is similar to Apple's internal and external cooperation model. BesTV has established a foothold in IPTV, broadband TV technology innovation in previous years, and has developed The proprietary intellectual property client, whose background is actually a huge TV service platform operating system, can realize end-to-end audiovisual services.

Innovation is the fundamental driving force for industrial development

“The Internet TV service is not a business that can be suddenly started, but it needs a process of accumulation.” Zhang Dazhong said that BesTV, an operator of Internet TV operator SMG, has undergone a long-term operation accumulation process through the operation of IPTV, digital TV and Internet video gained previous experience and resources.

Li Huaiyu introduced to reporters that the Internet TV technology system built by BesTV includes content service platforms and integrated broadcast and control platforms. Among them, the content service platform fulfills content operation functions such as production, review, and release; and the integrated broadcast and control platform has content integration management. , integrated broadcast control platform, operation support platform, TVDN service platform, television terminal middleware TVOS and other five systems.

SMG's BesTV has started to operate IPTV services nationwide from 2005 and obtained the nation’s first IPTV operation license. It has accumulated hundreds of thousands of hours of copyright content, covering popular TV dramas, finance, sports, and NBA. In 2009, SMG's mobile TV and broadband TV were integrated into BesTV's operations, and BesTV entered the "three-screen convergence" stage of IPTV, mobile TV, and PC network TV.

Zhang Dazhong said that BesTV will generally buy all new media rights and be able to broadcast on television, computers and mobile phones. The annual purchase cost of IPTV copyright content exceeds 200 million yuan.

In the aspect of Internet TV platform construction, Li Huaiyu disclosed that BesTV has completed the construction of an integrated monitoring and control platform for Internet TV and a content service platform. The first stage of the Internet TV integrated broadcasting and control platform that can be put into use can support 5 million users to watch Internet TV. Peak concurrent online users 1 million people, provide on-demand video and video download services, program content video library supports 100,000 hours of content storage, and supports more than 50 content service providers access, Internet TV users can provide satisfactory network TV services.

For example, BesTV's TVOS middleware technology for Internet TV can support more than ten mainstream TV chips at home and abroad. Any branded TV in China can quickly realize Internet TV business functions in a short period of time. The TVDN content service network technology adopts P2P. CDN and other technologies, while supporting telecommunications, Unicom, education, cable and other access networks.

At present, Internet TV can achieve visual effects close to the effect of DVD. Li Huaiyu revealed that in addition to responsible for CDN network transmission and content purchase, the high-quality bandwidth protection required by Internet TV will be solved together with TV manufacturers and telecom operators. Subsidies through advertising and value-added applications can also be divided into patterns.

This is different from the IPTV model. IPTV network transmission and billing are the responsibility of the telecom operators, and they perform user management together with radio and television. The Internet TV billing and user management are all responsible for broadcasting and television. Also more diverse, such as advertising, content payment and value-added applications.

At the same time, Internet TV services will also be shared with IPTV. For example, BesTV has more than a dozen resident service teams all over the country. Cooperation with TV manufacturers such as Konka, Hisense, Haier and Skyworth are all open.

The industry chain will break out

"Internet technology, television experience." Zhang Dazhong said that this is the feeling that Internet TV needs to give to users. The birth of Internet TV is a hugely influential innovation. Terminal equipment needs to have a better user experience and also need to operate. Business has better service.

In CNTV stakeholders' view, in the Internet TV industry, the role of TV terminals is even greater, and the combination of terminals and content will erupt into new innovative forces.

Zhang Dazhong said that Internet TV will greatly promote the intelligent development of televisions. Internet TV has added an online media processing chip to televisions, enabling televisions to have capabilities such as network processing and video decoding. Many users had previously passed computers. The interface is output to the TV to watch the pictures in the computer, the online video and the locally stored video. After the birth of the Internet TV, the user no longer needs an extra computer. The TV itself already has this capability, and the TV starts to be intelligent towards the computer. Direction in development.

Behind the Internet TV is an open platform. All kinds of content and service providers can access it. In the future, you can play online games and put various Internet entertainments at home. For example, you can achieve three generations of grandparents on different screens." "Stealing food," Grandpa can steal food on TV, and both father and son can steal food in front of computers and on mobile phones. Behind these screens is the same service provider. Zhang Dazhong said with great interest.

Li Huaiyu told reporters that there is a firewall mechanism between Internet TV and the Internet. Some of the audited Internet content can be played on Internet TV. Users can also obtain weather, road conditions and other Internet information services.

Through the payment controls in the Internet TV, the online payment service is embedded. Users can use the remote control to achieve TV consumption, such as the payment of domestic utility bills, online payment for e-commerce platform, online shopping, TV supermarkets and more e-commerce applications. And so on. At present, BesTV has cooperated with various service providers such as UnionPay to further expand Internet TV online payment, video terminal e-commerce and other services.

Moreover, demand for flat-screen Internet TVs is increasing for the Internet, broadband industry, and consumer demand for large-screen TVs. Internet TVs will need to use high memory, high-performance CPUs, and network interface capabilities to further stimulate the development of the hardware industry and broadband services in China. The needs laid the foundation for the development of broadband cities, next-generation Internet of Things (NGN) and next-generation broadcast television networks (NGB). These are important components of triple play.

"The future TV remote control needs to be reconstructed." Zhang Dazhong said that the pulling action of Internet TV will bring enormous imagination space. For example, Internet TV creates a TV payment system that cooperates with UnionPay to bring TV billing system to the industry. Solved the problem of TV payment. In the future, TV advertising will be as accurate as Internet advertising. The display effect of TV advertising plus accurate Internet digital technology will make the advertisement show a new situation.

Ten million users are the immediate targets

"The scale of tens of millions of users developed by Internet TV is not a big issue." Dong said early on that the development resistance of Internet TV is smaller than that of IPTV. Based on the public network to provide services, unlike IPTV, it is a private network service involving local landing. Question. Payment and advertising are all feasible on the business model.

The recent bandwidth upgrade plan of telecommunications network operators has enabled China's central cities to generally have Internet bandwidth of 1 to 3 trillion. Cities such as Wuhan, Shenzhen, Xi’an and Shanghai have vigorously promoted “fiber to the home” and “urban optical network”. Has promoted the development of Internet TV.

Li Huaiyu introduced that the advancement of chip technology and the drop in prices have accelerated the upgrading of TV terminals. The advancement of terminal chip technology will enable the Internet TV's computer capabilities, streaming media processing capabilities, and search capabilities to be stronger.

In terms of Internet TV, Hisense, Konka, Tsinghua Tongfang, and Changhong have all cooperated with Shanghai Radio and Television and other licensed organizations to embed relevant broadcast control platforms and content services.

Lu Lin, sales director of Samsung China Shanghai, told the newspaper that Samsung is also very optimistic about the development of Internet TV in China. It has been waiting for the policy to be clear in order to be able to formulate the correct market policy to force Internet TV.

According to data from Yikang, a market research company, from January to May 2010, the proportion of domestic Internet TV sales to flat-panel TV sales has rapidly increased, and it is now close to 10% - TVs with internet access have sold nearly 700,000 units. There are 690,000 Internet LCD TVs and 10,000 Internet plasma TVs. The retail volume of all flat-panel TVs is 7.32 million.

"Several million user levels are not enough, and they must reach 10 million." Zhang Dazhong is so positioned on the scale of Internet TV that his investment level is no less than IPTV, and the goal of Internet TV is to have millions of hours of content. Billion users and the transmission of high-definition content.

Zhang Dazhong disclosed that BesTV will start the commercial use of Internet TV in the third quarter. The related person in charge of Hangzhou Huaqi said that it will also start trial commercial of Internet TV in the near future.

In the early years of Dong, Internet TV is complementary to IPTV and digital TV. It is one of the user's multiple access platforms. All three methods have advantages and limitations and are complementary and coexistent.