Three interactive TV technology providers--Ireland's DigiSoft, the UK's Strategy & Technology, and Finland's Icareus--are teaming to offer what they claim is a complete, end-to-end MHP research solution. Dubbed "iTV Box" and described by the partners as "an easy-to-use solution for experimentation or full, professional DTT demos all in one portable box," the new solution is comprised of Icareus' iTV Suite MHP authoring tool (which the company claims requires no programming skill to use), DigiSoft's DigiHost ITV management platform (which allows real-time deployment and updates of applications), an MHP object carousel, encoder and MUX from Strategy & Technology, a DVB-T, DVB-C or DVB-S modulator with RF output, sample MHP applications, and a Web-based mechanism to keep the solution updated. The partners say that the package allows the authoring and development of MHP applications, integration with live content providers, message gateways and payment processors, and playout on real broadcast infrastructure to standard off-the-shelf MHP set-tops. They claim that the only additional equipment needed to start creating demos through iTV Box is an off-the-shelf MHP DTT set-top and a laptop for the authoring tool. According to the partners, iTV box will also shortly provide customers with membership of DigiSoft's research developer group, full support for future technologies such as hybrid MHP/IPTV and Ethernet or ADSL/DSL return channel, and a Java-coded xlet input option.
In a prepared statement emailed to [itvt], DigiSoft's SVP of sales, Fintan McKiernan, explained why the partners decided to collaborate on iTV Box: "In the clearest indication yet of the future growth of the DVB MHP standard in Europe, there has been a striking increase in the level of interest in MHP from third-party players who are neither a broadcaster or network operator. Two years ago, we were explaining to broadcasters what MHP was, today however, this new interest is coming from universities, government departments and advertising companies. Not only do these entities want to know more about MHP, they want to experiment at a pretty low level of development in order to build an MHP application and test it end-to-end on a set-top box. Using real broadcast infrastructure to do this sort of research would have cost very substantial sums of money. For broadcasters who would use this infrastructure in a live environment and who could launch revenue-generating MHP applications live on air, there was a return on investment. But for content providers and third-party players who just wanted to research MHP and build real-life case studies, there was no return on investment. Thus the need arose for an ultra-low-cost, real-life test environment to cater for this new and emerging market sector in the MHP market."
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