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TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 1 -12/2012
software for each type of interface.
And now it gets exciting. Depend-
ing on whether the picture is displayed
on an iPhone, a laptop or a big-screen
TV, different data transfer rates are
required. “Our software automatically
adjusts itself to the user’s display”, we
learn from Steven Shan, “We deliver
nine different speeds.” Steven Shan
lists them for us:
● 50 kB
is the streaming speed for
simple mobile telephones known by
PPTV as Feature Phones. The picture
quality is sufficient for the small dis-
play screens used by mobile phones
● 150 kB
is for simple Smartphones
with larger displays
● 300 kB
is for real Smartphones
● 500 kB
is used if the viewer is
watching PPTV channels on his laptop
or PC
● 800 kB
is used for iPhone or iPad
users
● 1.4 MB
is used for TVs with nor-
mal sized TV screens
● 2.3 MB
is used for big-screen TVs
● 4 MB
for HDTV
● 8 MB
for big-screen HDTVs
The last four categories are the most
interesting for us since these involve
OTT. “These high data transfer rates
are only used if the PPTV software is
already integrated into the TV.” In 2009
PPTV began developing this OTT tech-
nology and in 2010 the first TVs began
appearing on the Chinese market in-
tegrated with PPTV’s OTT function. In
2011
there were already 2.5 million of
these OTT compatible TVs on the mar-
ket; for 2012 PPTV is expecting this
number to increase to 6-7 million. “The
entire market in China accounts for
roughly 40 million TV sets each year,
10%
of them will be OTT compatible.”
When it comes to HDTV, PPTV’s busi-
ness model looks a little bit different
1.
Vincent Tao has been CEO of PPTV since
2009.
Before that he worked at Microsoft.
2.
Steven Shan is Vice President and
General Manager of PPTV’s Multiple
Terminal Business Unit. He’s showing the
PPTV application on an iPad; there’s also a
matching version for the iPhone.
compared to its SD video offerings.
With these high data transmission
rates, we’ve entered into cooperation
with Internet service provides”, ex-
plains Steven Shan to us. “For this rea-
son with HDTV we are switching to a
PayTV model.” PPTV is making HDTV
available as a PayTV service. “Most
ISPs can still handle data speeds from
1.4
to 2.3 MB. Faster speeds requite a
fiber-optic connection.”
PPTV founder Bill Yao has found an
interesting strategy here: you start
with free services, offer more and more
value to the services until you reach a
point where the customers are willing
to pay for the services. It’s a strategy
that many Internet startups have used.
The Japanese investment firm Soft-
bank has recognized the potential with
PPTV; in 2011 Softbank acquired a 35%