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Microsoft's MSTV product has failed miserably as an OS in the current crop of thick client digital set-top boxes (the newest of which will all probably have PVR).

Currently the de-facto standard of choice for delivering Video On Demand to set tops is Mpeg 4 using SeaChange and nCube servers. (these servers require huge investments to a cable company) delivered to a variety of set-top boxes. I'd guess that this is actually the market that MS is trying to break into since it's failed miserably on the client side.

The whole iDTV sector is starting to show real convergence between DTV and IT, and there are plenty of opportunities, you've picked young field with massive upside.

We (Kingston Interactive Television) are showing what can be acheived with IP over Broadband. Interactive Digital Television, Internet Television, and finally Video-On-Demand.

IMHO the whole Interactive Digital Television model is shifting from a broadcasting towards a VoD model.

In your shoes, VOD sounds idea, I would suggest you checkout nCube
and their Customer List. I know they include the BBC and ourselves. They are the world leader, by a considerable margin in the field of Video on Demand systems.

nCubes use Transit, a flavour of Unix designed for Video Content management.

I'd also suggest you develop your skills in RTSP(RTP),IP,MPEG.

This service (I'm the Software Architect), have launched the worlds largest Video on Demand over IP.

We have been doing this for two year now, I keep submitted links, each time we have a development, but slashdot have never seen fit to publish.

Some links:

"Kingston Interactive TV

Financial Times

Kingston Communications

Video Server Case Study

BBC joing broadband television platform

This case study reveals more details about the platform.

I've had an N-Cube for years:

www.nCube.com

Catcha' later,
Paul.

I'd say nCube is in a pretty closely related industry. They build servers to stream high quality digital video. (They also build equipment to insert ads into TV shows, but that's a little different.)

If you think about it, the set-top boxes that receive digital video aren't all that different from game consoles (or Tivo boxes or WebTV boxes, for that matter). A future Nintendo game console could potentially receive streaming video--all it really takes is a demodulator (cable, satellite, etc.), an MPEG-2 decoder (HW or fast SW) and the right conditional access equipment. To keep up with Sony, Nintendo might even have to build or acquire a server that competes directly with nCube. Sony already makes lots of cable head-end equipment, set top boxes, and game consoles.

I can't imagine that Nintendo would limit their ability to compete in the video market over something this easy to avoid. Look for a totally different name.

I'd say nCube is in a pretty closely related industry. They build servers to stream high quality digital video. (They also build equipment to insert ads into TV shows, but that's a little different.)

If you think about it, the set-top boxes that receive digital video aren't all that different from game consoles (or Tivo boxes or WebTV boxes, for that matter). A future Nintendo game console could potentially receive streaming video--all it really takes is a demodulator (cable, satellite, etc.), an MPEG-2 decoder (HW or fast SW) and the right conditional access equipment. To keep up with Sony, Nintendo might even have to build or acquire a server that competes directly with nCube. Sony already makes lots of cable head-end equipment, set top boxes, and game consoles.

I can't imagine that Nintendo would limit their ability to compete in the video market over something this easy to avoid. Look for a totally different name.

apparently NCube shifted focus to multimedia streaming, or something else.

Are they still in business? Ah, yes, they still do

-dB

I think nCUBE might have a slight problem with the name.

Won't Ncube be pissed?

They make servers for streaming live media (at broadcast quality).