ADB, SeaChange International Announce Exhibit Plans for IBC

Geneva-based Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB) on Tuesday announced the line-up of demo's it is planning for its booth (Stand 5.B48) at next month's IBC show in Amsterdam. According to the company, the demo's will show "how it is helping its customers to meet the challenges of delivering an enhanced consumer TV experience with linear and on-demand entertainment services across hybrid networks," and "how it is enabling television, Internet and personal content to converge and be accessible where consumers enjoy it most: on their flat screen TV." "We expect content convergence to be a major theme of IBC 2009, particularly addressing how network operators handle the inevitable interaction between TV, other CE devices and the Internet," ADB CEO, Francois Pogodalla, said in a prepared statement. "Trends in multimedia consumption and consumer tastes mean it is now time to start preparing for a new consumer TV experience in every home. This concept requires set-top boxes that interact with the television network, the broadband Internet and all local devices including PC's, games consoles and mobile phones, enabling people to access all the content they want on the TV and home theater system. At IBC 2009, we will show how our high performance and hybrid set-top boxes enhance the consumer TV experience and reduce total cost of ownership to enable operators to deliver this new television experience while minimizing capital and operating costs. We'll demonstrate how our proven software expertise delivers the combination of performance, stability and user-friendly interfaces that ensure content convergence remains a television experience, and not a 'techie' PC endurance."

According to ADB, its IBC demo's will include:

• DivX-encoded content on its ADB-3810TW hybrid DVB-T/IPTV set-top box. Consumers can access DivX files from their PC and play them on television, the company says, and pay-TV operators can enhance their VOD offering with DivX content, which includes old and niche movies that are not always available in other formats.
• Bringing a full range of Web services to the TV screen. In partnership with the Stream Group, the company says, it will demo the latter's Solocoo applications, including apps that allow access to YouTube and Twitter, and that allow users to chat on Facebook and recommend TV shows to their friends.
• Its set-top boxes and multi-room DVR applications enabling content sharing around the home, using DLNA and UPnP home networking.
• Its enhanced 3D graphics engine, which it claims enables operators to provide easy-to-navigate content libraries and EPG's, and provides support for interactive TV graphics and fluid motion, as well as offering a full suite of 3D animation effects on platforms that were previously limited to 2D. "Consumers have grown accustomed to watching professional and user-generated video on the Internet, and to chatting with friends
• through social networking sites," Pogodalla continued. "They are familiar with elegant user interfaces on popular media players and phones, and enjoy ever-improving graphics on game consoles. Not surprisingly, expectations of what television should look like are changing--and there is a huge opportunity for platform operators that meet these expectations." ADB says that it will showcase its 3D effects on its ADB-5810TX HD DVR for digital terrestrial, which it bills as supporting a wide range of multimedia interactive applications, such as a photo editor, an MP3 download app and player, and games, and as offering push-VOD capabilities.
• Its "set-back box" for the US cable market, which is designed to mount on the back of a flat-panel TV and to operate with the TV remote control.
• Various capabilities it offers for hybrid environments: "Hybrid technology is complex from a software management perspective and adding new applications must be achieved without compromising the overall service reliability," the company explains in its IBC press materials. "The IP software stack has to be implemented in parallel with other software such as MHP middleware, DRM's and DLNA implementation of home networking. One of ADB's strengths is managing this complex group of software, components to ensure the set-top-box is optimized for the growing range of tasks it has to perform."

VOD, IPTV and advanced advertising technology provider, SeaChange International (Stand 1.E30), also announced its IBC demo plans Tuesday. According to the company, its interactive TV-/VOD-related show presence will include:

• A demo of unified three-screen video delivery, which will use the company's TV Navigator middleware platform to show how cable and IPTV operators can seamlessly deliver video content to TV's, desktops and mobile devices, while maintaining a common and consistent experience. The company says that the demo will show numerous personalized applications, customizable user interfaces, and compatibility with a range of set-top boxes.
• A demo of its Axiom on Demand open content delivery platform, which it says fully automates "the intensive behind-the-scenes" VOD processes, including content propagation, subscriber and stream management, and performance reporting and monitoring, while also serving as the foundation for adding the company's range of content-navigation, gaming, DVD and ad targeting applications.
• A demo of its AdPulse on-demand advertising platform.