Ocean Blue Software is completing development of new software to allow set-top boxes to connect to broadband, opening new opportunities for interactive "red button" services. The company is part of the UK DTG standards design group finalising broadband support for MHEG-5, the system behind red button services on digital TV.
(PRWEB) May 4, 2007 -- Ocean Blue Software, the specialist digital TV software developer, is completing development of new software to allow set-top boxes to connect to broadband, opening new opportunities for interactive "red button" services. The company is part of the UK DTG standards design group finalising broadband support for MHEG-5, the system behind red button services on digital TV.
The new MHEG return channel will provide, for example: interactive voting, shopping and video-on-demand, even web browsing on the TV. The standard is likely to be ratified by the DTG this year which will pave the way for manufacturers to produce set-top boxes with support broadband and PSTN dial-up.
"Availability of full interactive services on digital TV, such as Freeview in the UK, has been limited due to the lack of a return channel on most platforms," said Ken Helps, founder and CEO of Ocean Blue Software. "Over 80 per cent of UK homes will have broadband by 2010. It makes sense to tap into that bandwidth to provide additional services to digital TV viewers."
"The failure of the Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) to gain traction in the market means the ISO version of the MHEG-5 software standard is now a viable solution for digital terrestrial broadcasters," added Helps. "This has allowed us to start the development of the first fully interactive middleware, incorporating the forthcoming standards for a return channel."
The market for DVB-T broadcasts continues to grow, particularly in Europe. The advancement in the MHEG-5 software standard will now attract the attention of emerging broadcasters, in countries such as: France, Russia and Poland. The EuroMHEG standard creates numerous business opportunities and revenue streams for broadcasters and content developers. The majority of European countries are still considering software technology for their set top boxes. A world coverage map is available at http://www.dvb.org/graphics/internal/Adoption-Map_DVB-T.jpg
Technical Information.
Ocean Blue's Voyager software system MHEG-5 & DSM-CC is the standard mandated middleware solution for Freeview digital TV receivers. Voyager is the result of more than 10 man-year development project and is fully tested and in production. The MHEG-5 & DSM-CC software was developed in the standard C programming language and is thus portable to many different operating systems and hardware computing platforms.
Ocean Blue's Sunrise is a suite of integrated software products, which provides all the functionality for receiving both analogue and digital video and audio on digital set top boxes and televisions.
Ocean Blue's Surfsoft (a Freeview Playback standard version is available) system software is a content management systems that has been saved on a hard disk-based digital TV device. Surfsoft's many features and functions include time shift, trick modes, search, retrieve, save, record, timed recording and pause.
More information on MHEG-5 and DSM-CC support in Ocean Blue's Voyager software is available here: http://www.oceanbluesoftware.co.uk/voyager.shtml
For further information please contact:
Ken Helps
Ken.Helps @ oceanbluesoftware.co.uk
0117 9722753
www.oceanbluesoftware.co.uk
Peter Linton
peter @ medialink.co.uk
0118 984 3386
www.medialink.co.uk
###
Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/U3VtbS1QaWdnLUZhbHUtUHJvZi1NYWduLVplcm8=
|
