Pdf: Programme

Audio, videos and slides of this seminar are available in the multimedia section.

Television on the Internet, that is the proliferation of TV services to users provided with "network" access, is the result of the convergence of television broadcasting into typical communication paradigms of the Internet network.

Thanks to the intrinsically bi-directional nature of communication in network in fact, users can take advantage of a new broadband interactive service and of innovative fruition modalities such as video on demand and programme schedule personalisation. These new capacities embody to the maximum extent an on-demand, personal and interactive instrument as an outstanding phase of the cultural metamorphosis from which it is expected the birth of new television, contaminated by the personalisation of services that on the Internet constitute a rule, and closer as ever to the demand and interests of the user. 

This seminar is focused on the three "main technological options" (so-called by the International regulatory institutions) for  TV services on the Internet:

• WEB-TV on the public Internet, where it is difficult to guarantee the quality of the information transport but on the other hand the user can access a global programme schedule browsing among television services of any content provider without the mediation of network operators;
• IP-TV on the IP network of the own network operator. This allows the operator to guarantee the quality of the information transport and also decide the contents to be broadcasted and their relative restriction accesses and pricing policies, thus obtaining part of the revenues from traditional broadcasters;
• IP-TV on NGN (Next Generation Network) allow users to access programme schedules on a global scale, thanks to the generalised interoperability among users, content providers, service providers and telecommunication operators.  This last scenario is although reserved for a future evolution of telecommunication networks towards a multiservice network typology.

Jacques Le Mancq, marketing director of the service and media server platform "Smart Vision" at Thomson, will discuss the above mentioned scenarios.

Subsequently, Alberto Morello, director of the Centro Ricerche e Innovazione Tecnologica della RAI, will illustrate an essential problem in broadcasting television on the Internet: the technological options of a hybrid receiver (decoder or television) capable of accessing both digital terrestrial and/or satellite TV services and IP services (IP-TV and WEB-TV) thus integrating management and presentation to the user.

The presentation of the volume "Television on the Internet: architectures and technologies " by Fondazione Bordoni will follow.

During the day, demonstrations of television services on the Internet will be available