Show highlights include:

• Featuring 15 platform operators debating the best methods and models for distributing video around the home and beyond
• Involving trade bodies, industry associations and vendors discussing strategies and technologies for wireless content delivery
• Hearing from analysts and consultants evaluate the benefits of the different platforms competing to offer the ultimate connected home experience
• Understanding the technological, regulatory and standards barriers for full multi-platform, multi-device converged content services
• Learning how satellite, cable, and telco service providers are connecting devices and services around the home and beyond
• Leading content players and broadcasters speaking
• Free exhibition only passes available
• Over 300 speakers from telecoms, cable and mobile operators and leading content owners
• Asia's leading IPTV event - with over 4000 visitors anticipated to attend and over 150 exhibitors (over 1500 people and 80 exhibitors at the 2nd IPTV Asia Forum 2006)
• Cohosting and coexhibiting six leading conferences: The IPTV World Forum Asia, TV over Net Asia, IP Cable Asia, MEM Asia, Messaging Asia and Mobile TV Asia Summit
• Industry party in one of Singapore's leading venues - Forbidden City, Clarke Quay

For your FREE exhibition pass please click here

For the Connected Home Asia 07 Brochure please click here

Confirmed speakers include:

Hou Zi Qiang, Independent Non-Executive Director, China Netcom	River Lee, Project Manger of Digital Home Service Research, Chunghwa Telecom	Hemang Mehta, Product Management Director, Microsoft TV, Microsoft Corporation
Italo Milanese, Senior Project Leader, Telecom Italia	Sukhum Chaolilitkul, Senior VP of Network Group, TT&T	Jukka Helin, Director, TV, Content & Digital Home, Teliasonera

Preparing for content without borders

Asian consumers are renowned for their eagerness to adopt new infotainment technology and this, combined with the general digitisation of the region, greater broadband penetration and the increasing uptake of digital TV all combine to ensure that the Asian marketplace will provide a testbed for the home networking and service convergence that is expected globally. The urban, middle-class Asian home of the future will be characterised by:

* Access to a broadband pipe, whether cable, DSL, fibre or broadband wireless
* Access to a digital television service including movies and television on-demand
* Broadband Internet access providing a choice of broadband VOD service providers that are competitive to television platforms
* VoIP telephony delivered from a traditional telecoms carrier, cable operator or over-the-top broadband, Skype-type provider
* Increasingly high-bandwidth mobile telephony, with data services and broadcast TV and VOD to the phone
* The existence of at least one, and possibly multiple PCs in the home
* The presence of gaming stations designed for multimedia uses, possibly with their own wireless Internet connectivity
* Access to personal stored content, including television, home video and photos residing on network servers or in-home digital recording devices
* Multi-room digital TV, often with access in every room to storage and recording functionality
* The presence of portable digital recording devices that can play video and music files in or outside the home

The sheer number of services entering the home, the number of access networks that carry them, and the variety of devices used to receive content delivered over broadband (or narrowband) networks, is set to explode. As content security and rights management become more sophisticated, content that holds monetary value will become more fluid. Content owners will stop viewing the customer premise as a network termination, and instead treat it like a hub, where content arrives and sometimes crosses onto other networks for redistribution to different devices owned by new consumers. Peer-to-peer content distribution will become the norm as the region moves towards 'content without borders'.

Asia is heading towards a consumer-centric experience that gives a central role to the digital home. The connected Asian home of the future is where content is received, recorded, moved, downloaded, ripped, consumed, redistributed. Within its confines, content will be repackaged to suit new networks (video is transcoded, for example). Rights will be re-written within trusted devices that act as the gateways between one network and another. Content protection will be persistent and Digital Rights Management solutions will be required to interoperate. It is an almost daunting prospect and throws up multiple threats and opportunities for content owners, platform operators, network owners, Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) developers and Consumer Electronics (CE) device manufacturers.

The Connected Home Asia will seek to make sense of these dramatic developments. This one-day conference will outline the threats, opportunities and challenges facing all the major stakeholders outlined above, and clarify the most important areas of business and technological development. With constant reference to the Asian marketplace, it will try to plot the likely evolution of this advanced connected home, beginning with the current Pay TV, broadband Internet and telecoms environment seen today and the early moves towards greater content mobility. Key themes the conference will address are:

VIDEO SERVICES IN THE HOME

* How Pay TV content is becoming more mobile, both within and beyond the home. The Connected Home Asia will assess the role of the Digital Video Recorder as a repository from which content can be downloaded onto other devices, including the PC, laptop computers, mobile DVRs, gaming consoles and even mobile phones.
* The emergence of the PC as a home gateway device, reflecting the fact that the public broadband Internet (as opposed to managed private networks like cable or IPTV) is, at last, becoming a viable distribution mechanism for premium television and movie content - certainly when delivered as on-demand files.

* How the delicate relationship between the television and PC is evolving. Once, these devices represented two very different industries (TV and IT) that were antagonistic towards each other. But when there is money to be made, surprising friendships can develop! There are clear signs that Pay TV operators want to make their content available on PCs, and for PC content to be transferable to their set-top boxes. The conference will assess the business and technology implications.

* Is there any retail or rental future for hard media like DVD? Will all content be delivered on-demand via broadband networks - and even burnt straight onto disk (via DVR/DVD turner type devices) for consumers to archive? How will this new distribution opportunity be monetised?

* The development of multi-room video, served from a single access network point. This includes multi-room TV and multi-room DVR functionality (whether the video record and playback functions are off an in-home device like DVR or a network server).

* The role of the digital connected home in the development of legal, peer-to-peer video services.

* Developments in video content protection including persistent security for stored assets, CA-to-DRM bridges, Digital Rights Management innovations, DRM interoperability and standardisation efforts

VOICE & DATA IN THE HOME

* If the PC has a greater role to play in video delivery, does the set-top box gateway have a greater role to play in voice and data services - and what might it be?

* The emergence of VoIP and what it means in the home. Today VoIP is generally a PC-based application or is delivered on 'virtual' IP handsets but the way users interact with their IP gateway will develop rapidly. IP telephony through the TV screen is coming; so are DECT wireless phones that route via a broadband modem into the IP access network. IP telephony user interfaces and applications, together with the possibilities for converging voice with data and video services, will be thoroughly addressed at The Connected Home Asia.

* The role of IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) in the evolution of connected homes, covering services, user interfaces and devices

CONVERGING MEDIA & COMPETING NETWORKS

* Can one home network cover all multimedia needs or will we continue to see multiple networks within the home? Network and platform operators want to encourage converged media networks but does the CE industry see it the same way?

* How far can a networked home really converge when there are an increasing number of access networks into the building - including cellular and WiFi?

* How significant are gaming consoles as a media access or storage device in the consumer home? With Internet browser functions, storage capacity and maybe broadband wireless (like WiFi) access, are they a threat to other broadband access providers targeting the connected home?

* What role can mobile phones play as a gateway device within connected homes? Content may be downloaded into phones from in-home media hubs, but can it move the other way? Are cellular networks destined to play a redistribution function for content that has been transcoded and repurposed, or is there multimedia content they can deliver?

* What networking technologies will shape the Asian home of the future? Wired versus wireless. Wireless technology developments and economics. Wireless for video? Wired technologies and economics including broadband via internal telephone lines or domestic power sockets.

* Customer premise equipment, installation and home networking strategies for triple-play providers. What works for Asia?

RESEARCH

* Content consumption, storage and distribution patterns in the Under-23 age group in Asia. What does it tell us about the future digital home? What devices do they use, how do they use them, what is their propensity to pay - and how much?

* What do older Asian consumers want? Is multi-room TV, VOD, Replay TV, connected PCs and cheap phone calls the extent of their ambition?

* What are the big sellers in the Asian CE market today - and what does it tell us about multimedia consumption patterns? What are the big sellers within the home and what does that indicate about the home of the future? * What is the market for selected customer premise equipment (set-top boxes, DVRs, home gateways, multimedia hubs, modems etc) in key Asian markets between now and 2010?

Co-located Conference Streams: