mediaroom

Because the [itvt] editorial team has been on the road the past few weeks--as well as working on TVOT NYC Intensive 2011--we are covering stories in this issue in round-up/summary format. We anticipate that it will take us a few more days to catch up with all the recent news: so if your company has sent us a press release or briefed us on an announcement, and you don't yet see your news covered in this issue, please bear with us.

Nebraska-based telco, Allo Communications, said Wednesday that it has teamed with 180Squared, a company best known for providing software and integration services for Microsoft's Mediaroom IPTV platform, to launch a Mediaroom-based IPTV service to its customers in western Nebraska (note: last year, Microsoft launched virtualization support for Mediaroom, in a bid to make the platform more cost-effective for smaller operators such as Allo to deploy--see the article published on itvt.com, May 28th, 2009). The service, which is delivered over a fiber network, offers among other things 74 HD channels, remote DVR management, on-screen caller-ID and integration with Allo's voice and Internet services.

Because the [itvt] editorial team has been on the road the past few weeks, we are covering recent news stories in summary/round-up form. We anticipate that it will take a few days for us to catch up with all the recent news: so if your company has sent us a press release or briefed us on an announcement, and you don't yet see your news covered in this issue, please bear with us. We apologize for any inconvenience to our readers.

Portugal Telecom last week launched Meo Interactivo, an app store for its Microsoft Mediaroom-powered IPTV service, Meo. According to the company, the app store will aggregate the various interactive TV applications/widgets that are already available for the Meo service, as well as offering various new applications, including apps for Facebook, Picasa, Flickr and Oceanlook (note: the latter is a Portuguese site that bills itself as a portal for Ocean lovers). Applications will be organized into categories, the company says.

Here is a round-up of some other recent interactive TV-related stories that we didn't have room for in this issue:

AT&T on Tuesday unveiled My Multiview, a new interactive TV app for its Microsoft Mediaroom-powered U-verse TV IPTV platform that allows viewers to select the channels for their own Multiview (multiscreen mosaic) display (note: U-verse TV launched Sports, Kids and News Multiview apps in the fall of 2009, and this year has offered special Multiview apps for a number of major sporting events).

AT&T on Tuesday unveiled its plans for interactive TV, VOD, online and mobile coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Among other things, the plans call for the telco to offer the first-ever Spanish-language interactive TV application to run on its Microsoft Mediaroom-powered IPTV platform, U-verse TV.

The [itvt] editorial team is on the road this week, so we are covering most stories in round-up/summary form, and we anticipate that there will be some additional interruptions of our regular news publishing schedule beyond that. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers.

A Hungarian company called Gravity R&D contacted [itvt] Monday to alert our readers to the international unveiling of its new Gravity Impress recommendations technology, running on the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform, at the NAB show in Las Vegas this week. The technology, which the company says has been fully integrated with Mediaroom 2.0, is being demo'd in Microsoft's booth (SL220).

AT&T has announced plans for multiplatform coverage of the 2010 Masters Golf Tournament on its Microsoft Mediaroom-powered U-verse TV IPTV service, on mobile phones, and on its AT&T Fan Zone and AT&T Entertainment Web sites. The company says it will provide golf fans with over 110 hours of live coverage and on-demand content, and that it will be the only wireless carrier delivering live and on-demand Masters programming to mobiles--via the AT&T Mobile TV, MobiTV and AT&T Mobile Video services.

UK-based set-top box company, Pace, on Wednesday launched a new set-top platform that uses Microsoft's Mediaroom IPTV software. According to the company, its engineering team developed the customizable platform in order to enable operators to quickly and easily roll out IPTV, hybrid broadcast/broadband and OTT services.

Canadian telco, Telus, has launched a new version of its Telus TV service in Western Canada that is based on the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform. The company says that the service is initially available in and around Edmonton and in 40 or so communities in British Columbia and Alberta, and will be expanded over time. Customers of Telus's earlier implementation of Telus TV, which is powered by Minerva Networks' IPTV platform, will have the opportunity to upgrade over the coming months, the company says. "We're excited that Telus has chosen Microsoft Mediaroom as the platform for their next-generation Telus TV service," Andreas Mueller-Schubert, general manager of Microsoft's TV and Video Platforms Business, said in a prepared statement.

Microsoft on Wednesday launched version 2.0 of its Mediaroom IPTV platform, billing it as "enabl[ing] TV service operators to provide their TV services to more subscribers than ever before, delivering more content to more screens than the previous version of Mediaroom--both inside and outside the home."

AT&T on Tuesday announced the launch of two free interactive TV applications on its Microsoft Mediaroom powered IPTV platform, U-verse TV: Offers On Demand, an app that allows customers to redeem a coupon code on-screen for discounts on movie rentals; and Caller ID on TV. The launch of the new apps brings the number of free apps that have been rolled out on U-verse TV, since its initial launch, to 20--with 12 of those apps having been launched this year alone. "These apps make U-verse services even more useful and interactive for our customers, and that's exactly what every app should do," Jeff Weber, VP of video services for AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, said in a prepared statement.

[itvt] has just published in-depth interviews with Jeff Miller, president and CEO of ActiveVideo Networks, a company that specializes in technologies for cloud-based interactive TV and whose customers include Cablevision and Time Warner Cable, and with Amir Littman, co-founder and VP of business development at 180Squared, a company best known for providing software and integration services for Microsoft's Mediaroom IPTV platform.