Offers Subscribers Greater Customization and Control of Television Viewing
| |
Atlanta, GA (NCTA, The National Show), April 10, 2006 - ICTV®, creator of network-based solutions that seamlessly blend the choice and control of broadband video with the quality and responsiveness of television, and OpenTV Corp. (NASDAQ NMS: OPTV), a leading provider of enabling technologies for advanced digital television services, today announced the integration of their interactive platforms and that the two companies will demonstrate a personalized video mosaic for improved video-rich navigation at the NCTA National Show.
The integration of the ICTV HeadendWare® platform with OpenTV’s Core™ 2.0 middleware enables network operators, programmers, and advertisers to increase revenue opportunities and subscriber satisfaction via the delivery of ActiveVideo™ channels to any subscriber with an OpenTV-enabled set-top box. ActiveVideo channels deliver Web video to the television with broadband choice and control and the quality and responsiveness of the TV.
In conjunction with the integration, OpenTV and ICTV will demonstrate a personalized mosaic that delivers greater navigation and Internet-type programming and advertising capabilities to any set-top box enabled with OpenTV middleware. The demonstration will be showcased at OpenTV’s booth #3951 at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) 2006 National Show.
“Viewers have responded extremely well to the video mosaics we’ve built for other platforms,” said James A. (Jim) Chiddix, Chairman and CEO of OpenTV. “The most common request we get from viewers is the ability to personalize the mosaic with their favorite channels. By integrating the combined set-top and network-based resources of our platforms, OpenTV and ICTV are able to show how that can be met on today’s deployed set-tops.”
“At ICTV, we have always viewed network-based and set-top based interactivity as complementary,” said Jeff Miller, president and CEO of ICTV. “By integrating HeadendWare with OpenTV Core 2.0, we can streamline the process for operators, programmers and advertisers to offer ‘active’ viewing experiences that leverage the best attributes of both platforms.”
In addition to providing live video from, and navigation through, multiple channels simultaneously, mosaics can be assembled by subscriber, operator, or programmer choice, or via system response to subscriber viewing habits—all on any digital set-top box. Interactive elements, including Web-driven targeted advertising, can be incorporated within the mosaic screens.
The ICTV “ActiveVideo Distribution Network” (AVDN™) enables operators, programmers and advertisers for the first time to bring successful broadband video programming and advertising models from the Internet to the television, including high-CPM ads that are targeted, auditable and interactive. The ActiveVideo Distribution Network is a usage-based content distribution service which requires no capital investment of programmers or operators. AVDN delivers Web-driven programming and live and VOD streams – all with superior TV quality -- over the existing VOD infrastructure.
OpenTV Core 2.0 is the latest release of the company’s set-top box middleware, the most widely deployed middleware in the world. OpenTV Core middleware provides a common operating environment across different hardware and software digital television platforms, enabling the cost-effective deployment of new services that will help operators respond quickly to changing consumer demands.
