Interactive TV and addressable advertising technology provider, Navic
Networks, says that its HyperCast Network, a backoffice solution for
delivering and managing interactive TV advertising content across
platforms and operators, is now compatible with the US cable
industry's ETV/EBIF standard (which is designed to enable interactive
TV applications--primarily bound apps--run on low-resource legacy
set-top boxes, and thereby to have a national footprint). According to
the company, in addition to now supporting EBIF user agents and
delivery systems, HyperCast is compatible with other backoffice
systems, using SCTE-130 standard interfaces. "HyperCast was
developed from the ground up as a cross-operator service platform for
the delivery and operation of multiformat advertising content,"
Matthew Emans, Navic's VP of product management, said in a
prepared statement. "Our goal was to develop a distributed services
architecture that addresses the need for nationally targeted interactivity
without isolating the individual operators from the control and function
of their systems and their data that they enjoy today." News of
HyperCast's support for industry standards was hailed by prominent
ITV advertising expert, Tim Hanlon, EVP of Denuo, Publicis Groupe's
new media subsidiary: "The television industry desperately needs a
coordinated cross-platform solution for targeted advertising that
harmonizes the disparate technologies used by network operators," he
said in a prepared statement. "HyperCast is a real breakthrough on this
front, and quite possibly ushers in a new era for TV advertising."
According to Navic, HyperCast supports both EBIF-enabled
deployments and Navic's HyperGate deployments with common
application functionality from a single set of tools and interfaces. It
supports both EBIF user agents and Navic user agents that are available
for Cisco (Scientific-Atlanta), MDN (Flash), TVWorks and tru2way
platforms, the company says. Navic says that HyperCast is able to
coordinate the delivery of EBIF-based advertising and aggregate
responses with those of Navic advertising applications for fulfillment,
targeting and reporting purposes. According to Navic, using the
centralized Web-based tool, local and national advertisers, MSO's and
programmers can now manage all aspects of their interactive
campaigns--planning, operation, distribution, fulfillment and
reporting--from a single location. Both EBIF and Navic interactive
applications can be managed using HyperCast, the company says, and
the platform integrates with third-party authoring tools and other
backoffice systems via SCTE-130 standard interfaces. Navic bills
HyperCast as managing content authorizations and approval tasks for
each campaign as necessitated by the stakeholders, and as working
within local operator infrastructures and processes. Once campaigns
have been approved, the company says, HyperCast ensures delivery by
coordinating schedules across time zones and distribution channels, and
then provides reporting across platforms and MSO's for a national view
of campaign exposure, results and fulfillment.
