BigPond movies and TV shows will be available on Samsung’s 2010 range of internet-enabled televisions, with the new IPTV services to be rolled out during 2010.
“We are working hard to bring a full slate of BigPond TV [to Samsung televisions] within six to 12 months,” says Chris Taylor, Telstra’s Director of Media. “Telstra is looking to make BigPond TV as accessible to everyone as possible, and will be available in a number of devices. The T-Box will launch later this year, and IPTV is yet another distribution channel.”
As the company that sells the greatest number of televisions each year in Australia, Samsung is well placed to grow the penetration of BigPond’s online movie, music and TV catalogue. Telstra’s isn’t putting all its eggs in one basket however, and the partnership development announcement made at the launch of Samsung’s 2010 3D television range yesterday mirrors the one made just three days ago with that another Korean TV maker, LG.
On the subject of 3D, Telstra’s Chris Walker says there are no immediate plans for downloadable 3D programming, but that the technology was certainly on the BigPond TV development “roadmap”.
This puts the telco a step ahead of the free-to-air network broadcasters, which will struggle with the bandwidth requirements of 3D video. Foxtel, which is 25 percent owned by Telstra and competitive with the forthcoming BigPond TV T-box, looks to be ahead of all players, however, having stated its intention of providing some 3D programming via its cable network by the end of the 2011.
Telstra’s T-box is a high definition digital TV set-top box with PVR functionality that also functions as a media streaming device for accessing internet-based content. As Australia’s largest digital movie storehouse, BigPond TV will be the keystone of the T-box’s web-based entertainment offering.
For BigPond broadband subscribers, downloads to the T-Box from BigPond TV will incur no data charges, meaning users are less likely to charged extra for exceeding their monthly data quota. The same deal will apply to BigPond TV downloads made via the new Samsung televisions.
