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Foxtel's Digital Vision
Coming at an estimated cost of over AUD$600 million, the digitalisation
of Foxtel is well underway. NDS Group has been engaged to provide
conditional access and an electronic programme guide, Pace will
take a lead role in supplying set-top boxes and middleware will
come from Open TV. Pace and NDS also have involvement in the development
of PVR technology for the pay-TV provider, while on the network
side, Telstra is installing cable head-ends and a new digital play-out
centre is under construction in the Sydney suburb of North Ryde.
Speaking at this year's Australian Broadcasting Authority Conference
in Canberra, Patrick Delany, Director of Digital for Foxtel, said
the launch of Foxtel Digital in early 2004 is not about technology,
it's about entertainment.
"It's about building a platform upon which entertainment and people
making choices can thrive," he says. "You will not need a new TV
set for Foxtel Digital. We will simply turn up and swap your box
if you're an existing subscriber, install your return path and you're
off.
 "There
will be better quality pictures and sound. It will be 'DVD-lite'
in the crispness of the picture and Dolby sound. We will have over
100 channels at launch which is a larger number of channels compared
to our current 47."
The tool to navigate through this expanded universe of channels
is the NDS-developed electronic programme guide which will be based
in that used by Foxtel sister network, BskyB of the UK.
According to Delany, "This guide will allow subscribers to really
have a look and see what is on any television channel on Foxtel
for up to eight days in advance.
"You'll be able to categorise by channel, you'll be able to categorise
by programme start time and then sift through movies and different
genres. So, it's an excellent navigational tool and one that is
absolutely essential when you have so many channels."
Also essential to the Foxtel Digital offering will be the 'Box
Office', a bouquet of movie channels that will offer first-run,
time delayed and near video on demand (NVOD) programming, including
pay per view.
"The Box Office will be very important to Foxtel," says Delany,
"especially in the context of the DVD revolution that is going on.
There's a tendency to think that one technology or one product has
to always over-ride another. I think that many products can live
within their own zone and be good for the area that they specialise
in. We think Foxtel Box Office will fit a very wanting part of the
market where you'll be able to choose the movie that you want to
watch without having to drive to the video store for a similar price
and with a similar quality that DVD has. I don't think for a second
that it's going to mean the end of DVDs or the end of videos, but
we hope that we will take a little bit of the market."
Added to this offering will be a variety of interactive capabilities
which, Delany says, will concentrate mainly on the context of the
pictures. He maintains the interactivity will be all about entertainment,
not transactions. The interactive offering will, again, be similar
to that currently running on the UK's BskyB. These include games,
messaging, multi-view sport with access to match data and highlights,
as well as a mini EPG of news channels and near news on demand.
As is the case with the Foxtel Box Office, this will be achieved
by aggregating several channels of vision into the one application.
Once the digital roll-out is completed, Foxtel hopes to crown its
offering with the introduction of hard disk-based Personal Video
Recorders (or PVRs).
The Foxtel PVR will be very similar to the NDS XTV. The XTV allows
authorized viewers to: access both live and stored content, watch
one program while recording another; record two programs at once;
fast forward, rewind, pause for live and recorded content; order
a program directly from the operator's EPG; automatically schedule
updates to avoid missing favourite programs; control which content
to record or pause; record a single program or multiple episodes
of a series.
"We think that PVRs are a little bit like Holden's Monaro," says
Delany. "It's an aspirational tool that we'll be introducing after
launch and it really does give the ultimate in choice and control
for our subscribers. It allows easy storage of your favourite shows.
They'll be no more of this joke about the eight year old being able
to set the timer on the video better than an adult."
The final element of Foxtel's digital conversion, under ACCC conditions,
is allowing newcomers and established broadcasters access to the
platform (at a price).
"We've offered the [terrestrial] broadcasters the opportunity to
participate in terms of retransmission," says Delany. "The outcome
that we think will be desirable from that is that it will allow
consumers and subscribers to access both over-the-air and subscription
channels through our EPG with ease. "Our subscribers will have more
choices and we think that adds up to a better value equation. It
means there'll be new ways in which they can engage with channels
and we think it puts them closer to ultimate control over what they
want to watch, when they want to watch it."
- Phil Sandberg
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