IPTV Web Application Development

With Web 2.0 standards and the Internet as a commodity item, catchy visual information has become not just a complimentary feature but a must-have functionality of a web site, which adds to overall interactivity and dynamic character of virtual communication. Today users are attracted by eye-candy visual information or at least they want to have a choice either to flick through text content or to enjoy visually rich content. For this reason, content providers turn to professional web app developers in order to make their web sites more appealing to customers and have IPTV applications embedded.

Moreover, many users are not prone to wait for a desired program to be broadcast and opt for interactive catch up Internet TV or video on demand (VoD) services. Therefore, nowadays software development companies are tasked with various IPTV development projects, which are aimed at enhancing user experience and, consequently, generating more revenues for content providers.

IPTV apps allow to stream video data over IP networks and with the emergence of broadband Internet it has become feasible to provide high-quality video streaming services free or for affordable prices. According to the surveys in 2013 the number of IPTV subscriptions will reach 83 million, while the revenues in the sector of IPTV services will amount to $38 billion.

IPTV services can be divided into the following categories:

• Live streaming, which provides live broadcasts of TV programs.
• Interactive IPTV, which enables to watch TV programs in a catch-up mode.
• VoD services, which allow choosing video content from an online video library.

To provide top-flight feature-rich IPTV applications and ensure the best user experience web application developers have to solve the following IPTV development tasks:

• Create easy-to-use content management and distribution systems. Web application developers have to build IPTV applications in order for video content providers to manage their web site content easily, while giving users the opportunity to take advantage of time-shifting and electronic program guide features and the possibility to extract videos on demand from media content archives. In addition developers have to provide for external content delivery integration, which allows linking the content on the web site to global streaming platforms, generating more potential viewers and sidestepping latency and heavy traffic limitations.
• Protect video content from copyrights infringement and stream hi-jacking. IPTV application content should be protected from unauthorized use by implementing Digital Rights Management and geo-blocking features, while in order to avoid IPTV content to be hi-jacked during the process of IP transmission web developers should introduce advanced encryption algorithm solutions. Furthermore, to protect video content from unauthorized distribution IPTV systems can be embedded with digital watermarking solutions.
• Introduce Web 2.0 interactivity. Today Internet communication has been transformed from a provider’s monologue into users’ dialogues and buffs communities, that’s why IPTV systems have to provide users with an opportunity to leave their feedbacks and share the information with other users. To allow for user-generated content web application developers create IPTV systems with in-build widgets, community and video conferencing features as well as blog integration facilities and custom players in order to ensure highly compelling user experiences.
• Provide easy-to-manage subscription and payment systems. IPTV systems should provide for easy and fast subscription systems and ensure simple payment process, which gives your customers an opportunity to choose from various payment methods.

Several still existing constraints related to IPTV services such as packet loss during the process of video streaming, latency and privacy concerns are undoubtedly overridden by unquestionable IPTV application advantages of interactivity and any time access to the desired video content while bypassing a strictly scheduled broadcasting model of conventional television.