If you are not part of the media landscape, chances are you have not heard of IPTV. But you’ve probably been using it for years.
And it’s likely you’ll use it more in the future. IPTV is growing rapidly, with new providers and services popping up alongside traditional iptv fournisseur with more IPTV offerings.
But what is IPTV? What does IPTV mean? How it works? And how can you use it to improve your TV experience?
We have the answers.
What Is IPTV?
Let’s start with the basics. What is IPTV exactly?
IPTV stands for “Internet Protocol Television”. The “IP” in IPTV is the same as that of your IP or VoIP (voice over IP) address. All of this means that television programming is communicated using the Internet protocol.
To understand what this means, you need to know a little more about how non-IPTV works. With cable or satellite TV, broadcasters send signals and viewers receive them – you can only watch what is broadcast. Unless you have some sort of recording device, you cannot dictate what is on when. Just log in when you can and see what’s available.
IPTV abonnement is different. Instead of transmitting content via light pulses in a fiber optic cable or radio waves from a satellite, IPTV sends broadcasts and movies over your standard Internet connection. (You may be using a cable or satellite Internet connection, but these are independent of the ones that typically carry your TV signals.)
Instead of broadcasting a range of programs on a specific schedule, most IPTVs use video on demand (VOD) or time-shifted media – we’ll discuss it, and a third format, in a moment.
There is a complicated network architecture behind it all that makes it work, including a lot of transcoding from traditional signals to IP compatible signals. But the important thing is that you don’t have to watch what is broadcast. You can tell your provider what you want to watch, and they’ll send it to you immediately.
If you used a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu, it’s the same idea, but with TV instead of movies or syndicated shows.
IPTV Services
Although IPTV is definitely growing, it’s still a pretty niche market. Services like Netflix and Hulu offer many TV shows (when they can get the rights to them) and video on demand is growing fast.
These are the other IPTV formats, where there is significant potential to change the way people watch TV, that have yet to take off.
Catch-up TV is becoming more and more popular. Downloading apps for providers like FOX, CBS and NBC allows viewers to see the shows they missed without the effort required to set up and record something via a decoder like a TiVo.
NOW TV, TVPlayer and Epicstream are all advancing in the live IPTV market, but they are still not as common as the more popular VOD services.
Sport seems to be the fastest growing area of television for IPTV. There are many subscription sports plans that you can watch on your computer or stream to your TV whenever you want.
