Jake Ward has written a dynamite retrospective looking at the key developments across Europe in the last year; you can find it on the StreamingMediaGlobal.com site. In addition to talking about how the fortunes of the iPlayer in the U.K. offer a microcosm of the trends and challenges facing catch-up and IPTV across Europe, he also looks at the mobile landscape, particularly the troubles facing DVB-H.

The article also appears in the 2009 Streaming Media Industry Sourcebook, due out in February. For your free copy and a subscription to Streaming Media magazine, click here.

We got such a positive response to the inaugural issue of the European Edition of Streaming Media magazine that we’re going quarterly in 2009, beginning with the 2009 Streaming Media Industry Sourcebook, which will publish in February. It’s our biggest issue of the year, and it includes comprehensive year-in-review articles looking at the most notable developments in 2008, as well as a look forward at what’s likely to come in 2009. It also includes case studies and a slew of how-to and buyer’s guide features, including the following:

• Choosing a Camcorder
• Selecting the Right Nonlinear Video Editor
• Picking a Content Delivery Provider
• The 2009 Video Encoder Shoot-Out
• How to Add Closed Captions to Online Video
• How to Generate Automatic Speech Transcripts in Flash Video
• Making Sense of the H.264 Licensing Labyrinth
• The Live Mobile Video Landscape

Also featured are a roster of case studies from each of the major verticals: entertainment, education, enterprise, government, and advertising. You can subscribe to the magazine here, and if you’re interested in advertising, contact Sjoerd Vogt at sjoerd.vogt (at) in4m.com.

Here’s a video that gives an even better sense of what the Sourcebook is all about.