(5 April 2008 4:30 pm)

NEW DELHI: While addressing the plight of the content providers in the "3rd IPTV India 2008,” Shemaroo Entertainment director Jai Maroo said that what was expected from the service providers was a secure encrypted transmission in which decoding and hacking would be difficult.

"Piracy exists. That is a fact and it will remain. We are not asking for 100 per cent security. That would be unfair to the service providers. What we want is a platform where we can be assured that a common person would find it difficult to make copies of our content," Maroo said.

Although IPTV has a number of benefits and could end up being for the masses, it was accepted by the industry stalwarts that initially it would start off as a niche content.

"We have a bit of hope in availing high definition content and at the same time we see a bit of scope in distributing them. The problem that we currently face is that there is very little content available and even fewer technical experts capable of transforming the content in the PC to TV," acknowledged Airtel chairperson and general manager (technical) Puneet Garg.

It was pointed out during the course of the day that the 'killer applications' were video-on-demand and interactivity and that playing on these lines could develop a market for IPTV.

"Everyone is trying to make their service as interactive as possible. Take for example 'KBC'. You can send an SMS and by the end of the show you could end up winning some money. But cable and DTH has interactivity limitations compared to IPTV and that is where IPTV should cash in," Maroo said.

Putting forth the ISPs point of view was ISPAI president Rajesh Chharia.

"We have a problem in our hand. In order to reach out to the masses, ISPs have a role and we can do that either through copper wires or through spectrum. Unfortunately for us, both are out of our reach," said Chharia.