Bonjour, mon nom est Francois Bedard et je fais mainteant partie de l’équipe de LVL studio depuis le début de janvier. J’assume les fonctions de directeur, solutions médias & marketing numérique. Je serai responsable du développement des services professionnels média et marketing au plan local, national et international. Je suis très heureux à cette équipe car je suis maintenant en mesure en réaliser un de mes plus grands rêves : réaliser & produire des expériences de marques multiplateformes. Le web a beaucoup évolué depuis 13 ans lorsque j’éditais mon site internet qui se consacrait à la télévision.

Maintenant que, la démographie, les technologies, la bande passante et les investissements en marketing sont au rendez-vous et convergent tous ensemble : l’usager / consommateur est encore plus en controle de ses choix et de son processus de sélection.

After almost 8 months of waiting, we’re opening our award winning A3 MMORPG !
A3 has won First prize for multiplayer application at FITC in Toronto in 2005 - and we’re few months away of launching a new multiplayer game service inspired by this game and especially its universe. It’s free, so enjoy ! And please don’t hesitate to send us comment in order to help us improve the overall experience.

Surprise about seeing LVL into multiplayer gaming ? Multiplayer gaming is a great TV experience… especially in HD … Enough details for you now.

http://a3.lvlstudio.com

At this week SAT’s Interface series of conference in Montreal, I presented for the first time to a general audience PURPLE, LVL’s personal entertainment guide. This project has been pursued in a stealth mode of development for the last 12 months or so, and we felt it was time to begin our promotion campaign, especially to validate end user interest.
Results: A very warm welcome. Our concept of providing a packaged, simple and powerful way to navigate and access content available over a network on the TV set really made a hit.
The more progress we’re making on PURPLE, the more excited we become about using it on a daily basis !

By the way, PURPLE comes from PURE PLAY. You won’t be surprise to know that we’ve choosen this name if I tell you that PURPLE is nothing more than a service navigation system for IMS !

Expect more info on our blog in the coming weeks on PURPLE.

NOTE: A special thanks to everybody that took time to attend yesterday’s session.
And Jacques, it was really great to meet you after a long long period of time !
Very impressive work you’ve done over the last few years at Algolith.
Visit Algolith’s web site

I was attending Broadband Worldwide Forum few weeks ago in Vancouver and a persistent question was always popping : iptv is great, but what about youtube ? Any plans to bring youtube on the plasma ?

What ??!?!? Listen, people who are buying expensive HD set cares about HD content. interactive (console gaming, VOD, nPVR and PEG) or linear (sports, movies, HBO series, etc…). If you really wanna find a consumer electronics device to port youtube on, please look at the mobile !

Is this because it is getting more and more easier to port services to multiple connected devices that you MUST make everything available on ALL devices ?

We’re better working on a broadband delivery service of HD content with STB/Media gateway type of device to display content from a PC/Network storage device on the HD set. There’s a need. People are willing to pay for that. A lot of people need to justify their new 7K 50 inches PLASMA …

After a long summer without posting, I’m back online and ready for what is looking like an awesome 4th year at LVL. On the 31st of August 2006, LVL has celebrated its 3rd year. What a year it was ! Last year was really a year of massive growth - thanks to our seasoned team of managers, we were able to keep the focus on our mission : designing compelling communication and entertainment online services for the display constraint devices.

For this year, LVL will leverage its IPTV expertise and presence in the marketplace to expand its activities in the mobile space. Our goal with this move is to get one step closer to provide a truely end-to-end convergent services design and development capacity to telecom and media companies worldwide.
I’m gald to welcome new partners and employees that brings subject matter expertise for mobile to LVL and very excited to see them also very excited about joining LVL !

It seems that I’ve announced our colors for the new season

Impossible to tell yet. But let’s put it that way, it is probably both.
And it really depends on who’s answering this question.
Is IPTV a streaming media thing ? absolutely not.
Is IPTV a broadcast engineering thing ? absolutely not.

After 3 days, it was interesting to be finally in contact with the projected plans for some telcos around the world for IPTV. Industria, a large (…) IT and Telecom company in Iceland showed a visually well done presentation of their projected service. Telus, our IPTV partner-client in Canada has done a great job in showing for the first time its TELUS CENTRAL strategy, recommended and created by LVL team. We can’t say much right now but expect a revolution, nothing less with this approach. And Telefonica closed the last session for this year IPTV World Forum, with a pretty fair job of unveiling their IPTV plans.

Best IPTV service for 2006 IPTVWF, Thales - France Telecom. Second, Orca Interactive.

Final verdict : small show. iptv for starters. a lot of me2. telcotv needs to be different from what cable does. Because cable is doing a great job on delivering digital video. IPTV is disruptive for telcos because at the end of the day, we are talking about content. not access or pipe.

note: i’m yet to digest my first ham & cheese pie I had last dinner…

Last session is about to end.
“State of IPTV deployment around the world”.
And the results ? It is growing at a tremendous pace… with a non-tv focused !
Video content is mandatory, as are other important features such as enhanced EPG, multidevice interoperability and…. multiplayer games !
That is a great news for us, as it is a confirmation that we are heading in the right direction.
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France Telecom, SKT, Malaysian Telecom, BT to only name these fews are rolling out impressive first generation IPTV services. And they are successfull. The TV industry people were very scheptical since day one about IPTV success in the marketplace. They are stunned. Not because it is a successso far, because the traditional model of delivering tv feeds is close to an end. Forget linear programming, Forget standard definition. Forget advertising as we know it. The technology has been there for some time now, and large telco operator are responding big time to cable’s entry on their turf; voice.
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What’s funny though, is that there’s several distension inside the IPTV market on wether IPTV should be an open or a closed environment. IPTV success so far has relyed on open-platforms, and offering niche content for specific audience. No mass media. No blockbuster. No sky-rocketing profit neither !
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There’s as many bad stories on open source deployment than they are on commercial deployment.
Openness as a key success driver must not be defined in terms of the technology, but in terms of content, of global reach and on personalization.
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These are all great news for us. Why ?
Our purePlay applications really empowers subscriber to use and create their personal tv offering, using the tv as a display engine and pumping on all type of awesome great content, from interactive multiplayer games to HD programming. By learning from the usage habits of a subscriber, the purePlay PEG applications availbale on multiple device are simply what broadband service operator are looking for. now. and tomorow also.
I’m actually really pround of the place we have taken so far in that space… we will see how it will unfolded in the next couple of months.
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a note about yesterday’s Fashion TV party.
i would never have bought the drink we got served last night.
beside of that, very quiet evening.

first time in london, uk.
first impression ? sad. Everything around Heathrow seems to be grey and sad.
Hopefully, as soon as we got off M4, i was struck by the londonian architecture. And very kindness of londonians too. I saw light finally. After a quite long plane journey, and a boring taxi ride from the airport.

now the show. very small expo floor. very popular conferences however. you wanna be here for conferences.
a bit too european driven, but let’s face it, IPTV is not an american driven market. And that’s is very interesting and encouraging if I can say.

conclusion of day 1 : IPTV is not just about TV. It must be more than a new way to transport existing TV services. May someone finally got something from the last 10 years ?

conclusion of day 1, personal : i’m dying. got a cold. need to sleep.

Last session is about to end.
“State of IPTV deployment around the world”.
And the results ? It is growing at a tremendous pace… with a non-tv focused !
That is a great news for us, as it is a confirmation that we are heading in the right direction.

France Telecom, SKT, Malaysian Telecom, BT to only name these fews are rolling out impressive first generation IPTV services. And they’ve been successfull at that. The TV industry people were very scheptical since day about IPTV success in the marketplace. They are stunned. Not because it is a successso far, because the traditional model of delivering tv feeds is close to an end. Forget linear programming, Forget standard definition. Forget advertising as we know it. The technology has been there for some time now, and large telco operator are responding big time to cable’s entry on their turf; voice.

What’s funny though, is that there’s several distension inside the IPTV market on wether IPTV should be an open or a closed environment. IPTV success so far has relyed on open-platforms, and offering niche content for specific audience. No mass media. No blockbuster. No sky-rocketing profit neither !

There’s as many bad stories on open source deployment than they are on commercial deployment.
Openness as a key success driver must not be defined in terms of the technology, but in terms of content, of global reach and on personalization.