Following the success of IPTV in the northern city of Harbin, Shanghai Media Group’s BestTV has brought TV-over-DSL to Shanghai, with Siemens and UTStarcom the lead integrators. John Moulding reports

Expansion plans

SMG has already signed contracts with both the country’s major fixed line telecoms operators: China Netcom (China Network Communications Corporation, or CNC) in the north and China Telecom Corporation in the south. And it is already working with both these companies to deliver television, VOD and network PVR to subscribers. Shanghai Telecom (part of China Telecom) is the network provider in Shanghai and China Netcom provides the DSL access in the northern city of Harbin. This latter deployment was introduced commercially last May. Shanghai Media Group is an ambitious multimedia content owner and distributor that owns broadcast frequencies and 11 analogue TV channels in addition to Pay TV channels distributed via cable TV systems. With its IPTV license, the company views DSL as the access technology that can help it reach beyond its Shanghai base and across China to become a national Pay TV operator. The company is not wedded to IPTV and will exploit cable TV to distribute its content, but with far fewer regional telecoms companies than cable operators, DSL is viewed as the fastest route to achieve national reach quickly.

IPTV subsidiary

SMG has established a subsidiary dedicated to IPTV called BestTV and this is also the brand name being promoted to subscribers in Shanghai. But the company’s first foray into IPTV was in Harbin where over 50,000 subscribers are now using the service. According to Peter Li, vice president of finance at BestTV, “Our current business model is to collaborate with telecoms operators using their DSL networks and Harbin happened to be the one that led in terms of DSL infrastructure development.” Commercial IPTV services were launched in Shanghai in January and the BestTV deployment is currently limited to two districts and around 5,000 subscribers. Shanghai Media Group acts as the content aggregator and headend operator and has worked with two primary technology partners who are providing system-wide capabilities and integration in one district each: Siemens and UTStarcom.

Shanghai Daning

There is also a third IPTV platform in the city that has been sponsored and partly funded by the local government, and which has been put together by another integrator, Shanghai Daning Net Co. Ltd. This service - referred to as SiTV (Shanghai Interactive TV) - also uses Shanghai Telecom’s DSL network, while the content comes from national broadcaster CCTV (China Central Television) and SMG, with SMG again holding the IPTV license. This time however, it is Shanghai Daning that aggregates the content and operates the headend. These three competing IPTV platforms - all using the same telecoms access network and sharing common content partners - illustrate China’s determination to explore the technology and business options for television over DSL. Samuel Chang, Shanghai Daning’s president and CEO, believes the introduction of interactive and on-demand TV services in Shanghai will have such an impact that they will even raise house prices where available. “Somebody will buy your house because they want the television service. You will be able to find the programmes you want to watch without watching TV all day,” he says. “You can charge more because the television is better.”

Time-shifting

Chang says there are 15,000 hours of on-demand content available on the SiTV system and says 31 broadcast channels feature time-shift functionality for live programming, like pause. The public TV channels (CCTV) are also made available on-demand for later viewing. Shanghai Daning developed the middleware and set-top boxes for the SiTV system in Shanghai while SkyStream has provided its Mediaplex headend equipment and provides MPEG-4 Part 10 (AVC/H.264) encoding plus MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 Part 10 transcoding. It is expected that there will be over 100 channels of TV available on this service across the greater Shanghai region. Content will include sports, movies, opera, soap operas and talk shows and both VOD and network PVR services will carry additional charges to subscribers. Samuel Chang says HDTV could be introduced this summer.

Siemens SURPASS

Shanghai Media Group is more directly involved in both the other IPTV systems in Shanghai, however, where it operates the headends as well as providing content and owning the IPTV license. The first, in what is described as the up-market district of Pudong, has been overseen by systems integrator Siemens, which has supplied its SURPASS Home Entertainment solution in a complete end-to-end package, complete with menu system designed according to the wishes of Shanghai Telecom. This platform uses Myrio middleware (now owned by Siemens), while Siemens Home and Office Communications Devices is also supplying the set-top boxes - the Gigaset M358 IP set-top, which has been adapted for the Chinese market. TANDBERG Television is providing the MPEG-4 Part 10 encoding on this system with its EN5930 encoder (for standard-definition television).

Unified service

This Pudong platform differs from the SiTV service in at least one important respect: the degree to which television is being integrated with communications services. The Siemens/SMG/Shanghai Telecom IPTV platform includes fast Internet access, online gaming and videotelephony in addition to its broadcast TV, VOD and PVR applications. The other IPTV platform has been developed in the Minghamg district of Shanghai, with California-based UTStarcom the lead vendor this time, putting the platform together and providing the set-top boxes. UTStarcom has provided its mVision end-to-end IPTV system (which was re-branded RollingStream in January). This solution is being trialled in more than 40 locations across China and is already used by Softbank Broadband in Japan for its BBTV IPTV service.

SMG operates one headend in Shanghai and the planned national IPTV services will be managed from the same location. According to Minnie Huang, chief technology officer at BestTV, the company is using both MPEG-4 Part 10 encoding (supplied by TANDBERG Television) and MPEG-4 Part 2 encoding (using Envivio video compression technology). “We feel that there is a lack of mature vendors for MPEG-4 Part 10 so we have adopted both encoding technologies in Shanghai,” she explains.

SMG uses MPEG-4 Part 2 in Harbin (Envivio again) and started with that technology in Shanghai but Huang expects a migration to MPEG-4 Part 10 over time. Both the Siemens and UTStarcom districts provide around 50 channels of broadcast TV and approximately half of those are SMG content, divided between free-to-air and Pay TV offers. Free-to-air CCTV channels account for most of the other live television. Consumers can subscribe to the service at the various Shanghai Telecom service centres or by telephone, and according to Li, mass marketing of the service will begin in the middle of the year when IPTV is expanded across the city. He confirms that there are around 5,000 subscribers today and that the target for 2006 is 100,000 home penetration.

Separate infrastructure The Siemens and UTStarcom platforms provide one of the most advanced network PVR systems anywhere in the world today, over any access technology. All 50 broadcast TV channels are made available on-demand with the usual fast-forward and rewind capabilities. On the UTStarcom system in Minghamg this trick-play also extends to live television, enabling real-time streams to be paused and rewound. It is expected that this capability will also be added to the Siemens platform. “Network PVR has proven to be an attractive feature,” notes Li at BestTV. “Time-shifting is one of the things that stands out from cable. Movies, mini-series and sports like the English Premier League soccer are proving popular on-demand assets. People just go into the menu and select the titles and time of the programme - it is a backwards facing EPG (Electronic Programme Guide).” Networked games

The SMG/China Telecom Shanghai system supports networked games, so that users can play chess etc. with their relatives. This is live today and currently without charge. The company plans to introduce Karaoke to the platform in the second half of the year too.