ISMA Holds European Summit in Push for IPTV Open Standards; Addresses IPTV System Interoperability Globally.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Driving the integration of open standards for IPTV, the Internet Streaming Media Alliance is organizing the ISMA International IPTV Summit to focus European companies on working toward end-to-end interoperability and scalability issues. The half-day symposium on Sept. 12 in Amsterdam is the second in a series of meetings hosted by the independent trade association that addresses the need for globally accepted open standards to further the development of IPTV.

The ISMA International IPTV Summit in Amsterdam will be an interactive forum of senior engineering and business development executives. Research group MRG, Inc. will provide an analysis of existing IPTV standards and selected companies will report on their standards-based deployments. The discussion will focus on the organization's direction for future work. There is no charge to attend but reservations are required.

With its specifications deployed worldwide and a core expertise in IPTV, ISMA began organizing this series of international Summits in response to a survey it commissioned earlier this year that indicated a clear need for market-driven, open standards to support the deployment of scalable, best-of-breed systems. The European Summit follows on the success of a similar event ISMA hosted in Chicago this past June, with a third meeting planned for Asia.

"We are still struggling through the infancy of the IPTV industry and both vendors and their customers are laboring under the costly and time-consuming inefficiencies associated with proprietary systems," said Yuval Fisher, ISMA secretary and chief scientist at Envivio, Inc. "For the industry to reach its potential, we need to come together with the conformity programs and interoperability that will ensure faster product development, expand market opportunities, reduce risk and allow best-of-breed product integration," he said.

Understanding the diversity in the industry, ISMA looks to integrate existing standards and best practices that solve industry needs, but also has the capability to develop technical specifications as necessary. Its flagship ISMA 2.0 provides end-to-end interoperable streaming and storage of MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 and MPEG-4 AAC. ISMACryp 1.0 and 1.1 specifications cover end-to-end content protection. The trade association also holds regular interoperability testing, has a structured product conformance program, and has an active market awareness program around open standards and products, which implement ISMA specifications.

The Sept. 12 ISMA International IPTV Summit starts at 8:30 a.m. with a complimentary networking breakfast and ends with lunch. It will be held within a few blocks of the RAI Centre at the Holiday Inn Amsterdam, Biana van Dijik, De Boelelaan 2. Information is available from ISMA Executive Director Michael LoBue, CAE, by phone, 415-561-6276, or by email at [e-mail]. A summary of the ISMA commissioned IPTV survey is available at www.ISMA.tv. The full 100-page report is available to members only.

About ISMA (Internet Streaming Media Alliance)

Founded in 2000, ISMA (www.ISMA.tv) is a global alliance of industry leaders dedicated to the adoption and deployment of open standards for streaming rich media such as video, audio and associated data over Internet protocols. It promotes standards-based solutions that offer greater choice, flexibility, extensive cost efficiencies and higher quality of service. ISMA achieves this by providing the industry with technical specifications based on non-proprietary and existing standards; testing solutions that enable multi-vendor, multi-platform interoperability; and a product conformance program. ISMA collaborates with other trade associations and standards bodies to promote interoperable solutions across the entire content delivery spectrum.