LOUISVILLE, Colo.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CableLabs® hosted another in a series of enhanced TV (ETV) interoperability events October 4-8 that provided industry suppliers with an opportunity to test pre-production and development versions of hardware and software applications.
Representatives from 21 companies, ranging from manufacturers, application developers, and implementers to cable operators, worked together to test the latest engineering changes to the ETV and OpenCable™ Content Definition Format (CoDF) Specifications. These attendees also were able to evaluate the interoperability of ETV applications and ETV user agents compliant with the I05 ETV specifications, as well as candidate features of the I06 version of the ETV specifications.
“These efforts demonstrated a significant amount of progress for the industry on I06 as well as on the CoDF specs,” said Don Dulchinos, Senior Vice President of Advertising & Interactive Services at CableLabs.
Companies that participated in the interop included: Alticast, Backchannel Media, BigBand Networks, Comcast, Cox, Ensequence, EnableTV, Fourthwall Media, Inc.; HSN, icueTV Inc.; Ligos Corporation, Microsoft, PVI Virtual Media Services, LLC; RCDb, S3 Group, Softel USA, Starz, Strategy & Technology, Time Warner Cable, Unisoft, and Zodiac Interactive.
Collectively these companies brought varied capabilities to this interop, such as ETV applications, user agents, streamers and schedulers, test environments and authoring tools. As with past CableLabs interops, the week included one day of demonstrations by the participants for an audience of cable operators.
George Peden, Ensequence Director of Services, was very pleased with the convergence of the ETV User Agents in the interop: “We brought the award-winning Showtime Sports Interactive EBIF application to the interop and we were able to get it working successfully across all of the user agents.”
On Thursday during the interop, a record number of industry guests from numerous cable operators and network programmers were treated to demonstrations showing some exciting and creative ways to use EBIF™ to enhance the consumer’s viewing experience.
“This interop is very timely since Comcast and other operators are going to market now with EBIF-based interactive applications, both on our own and in support of Canoe Ventures’ interactive applications,” said Steve Reynolds, Senior Vice President, Premises Technology, at Comcast, and chair of the CableLabs Executive Technical Team overseeing the development and extension of the EBIF platform.
CableLabs’ interoperability events provide vendors with an informal, laboratory setting in which they have the opportunity to test their latest products within CableLabs’ headends and testing environment, determine compliance with industry specifications and the ability of their products to interoperate with other devices in an end-to-end system.
Information on all CableLabs activities focused on advanced advertising technology, along with information on industry standards, may be found at www.advancedadvertising.tv. Vendors working on advanced advertising technology and formats should contact Sheila Keller, s.keller@cablelabs.com, Vendor Relations Program Coordinator at CableLabs, for information on how to participate in future interops.
Founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry, Cable Television Laboratories is a non-profit research and development consortium that is dedicated to pursuing new cable telecommunications technologies and to helping its cable operator members integrate those advancements into their business objectives. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains additional web sites at www.cablenet.org, www.ebif.tv and www.tru2way.com.
Advanced Digital Cable™, CableCARD™, CableHome®, CableLabs®, CableNET®, CablePC™, DCAS™, DPoE™, DOCSIS®, EBIF™, Go2BroadbandSM, M-Card™, OpenCable™, PacketCable™, and tru2way® are marks of Cable Television Laboratories, Inc.
CableLabs
Mike Schwartz, 303-661-3766
m.schwartz@cablelabs.com
LIGOS JOINS ZODIAC PARTNER PROGRAM, WILL LEVERAGE EBIF PLAYER IN MULTICHANNEL OPERATOR DEPLOYMENTS WORLDWIDE
Partnership Will Further Use, Value of Interactive, Enhanced TV Applications
VALLEY STREAM, NY - (August 3, 2010): Zodiac Interactive (www.zodiac.tv), an industry-leading and Emmy® award-winning developer of software for interactive television (iTV) with a current installed base of more than 12 million set-top boxes (STB), today announced that Ligos Corporation has joined the Zodiac Partner Program.
Through this partner program, Ligos will utilize the Zodiac Interactive EBIF User Agent in the development of Ligos’ ETV Suite, a visual EBIF authoring and playout system that provides tools for creating and delivering interactive content to cable subscribers. The partnership represents an advancement of the collaborative efforts between Zodiac and Ligos, who together have previously developed and deployed digital video Mosaic, an enhanced program guide with multiple navigable thumbnails of live video channels.
“The Ligos ETV Suite enables multichannel operators to build and deploy sophisticated applications for advanced advertising, RFI, video-rich program guides and more,” said Ligos President & CEO, Ricky Cowart. He continued, “We are very excited about working with Zodiac through their partner program, as it will enable Ligos to offer a complete, interoperable EBIF toolkit for operators seeking best-of-breed solutions for this next-generation interactive platform.”
The Zodiac EBIF user agent is fully compliant with CableLabs’ EBIF specification, and enables operators to deliver various applications such as t-commerce, addressable and targeted advertising, and TV widgets such as telescoping to long-form content, voting, polling, click-to-call, caller ID, movie guides, and local search.
Brandon Brown, Zodiac’s CEO stated, “With EBIF clearly becoming the industry standard for iTV and advanced advertising, coupled with the significant advancements made by Canoe Ventures and CableLabs, the Zodiac player will further the deployment of standards-based interactive television. The addition of Ligos into Zodiac’s Partner Program further enhances the ability of both of our companies’ to bring next generation services to operators and by extension, end users.”
About Ligos Corporation
Since 1997, Ligos has been a leading provider in solutions that enable the delivery of digital video and advanced television experiences. The company’s expertise spans multiple platforms and networks, and their products have revolutionized the digital home, professional video production and networked video industries. Ligos’ unique set of proficiencies in video processing enables the personalized video offerings of tomorrow by extending the capabilities of today’s standards and platforms. In conjunction with its industry partners, Ligos has made a worldwide impact on how the industry delivers content to consumer subscribers, and how they interact with it.
About Zodiac Interactive
Zodiac Interactive is an industry leading and Emmy winning developer of software for interactive television. Zodiac’s PowerUp™ Framework is cross-platform software that unifies and enables advanced TV applications across multiple set-tops. The core of PowerUp, with its open APIs and libraries, makes it easy for operators to develop and deploy advanced TV services, such as user interfaces, EBIF, EPGs, tru2way, VOD, Web-Services, and other features demanded by operators today. For more information, visit www.zodiac.tv.
Interactive Television 2.0 and PowerUp are trademarks of Zodiac Interactive. EBIF and tru2way are trademarks of Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. Other company, product and service names mentioned herein may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.
Platform for EBIF™ authoring and playout to be shown at CableLabs® Winter Conference
SAVANNAH, GA - (February 4, 2010): Ligos Corporation, a leading provider in solutions for advanced television, has announced that it will demonstrate its ETV Mosaic system at next week’s annual CableLabs® Winter Conference as part of the EBIF™ Ecosystem area. ETV Mosaic is a visual EBIF authoring and playout system that provides tools to create and deliver sophisticated interactive content to subscribers, and is aimed at multichannel operators, content owners and solution providers adopting the EBIF (Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format) CableLabs Project specification for interactive applications.
ETV Mosaic’s graphical environment enables designers to create dynamic interactive content using a workflow similar to composing presentation slides. The system provides all of the required functions – video and graphics input, compositing, encoding, authoring, ETV carousel and stream output – into a single, compact server platform. In addition to a visually rich output video stream, the system generates the corresponding interactive EBIF application for use with the industry’s leading ETV User Agents and with standards for content definition (CoDF), advanced advertising and messaging (SaFI).
Using ETV Mosaic, content developers can build and deploy applications for video-rich program guides, polling applications, commerce, advanced advertising, RFI, VOD and premium channel promotion, customer care and billing, and TV Everywhere initiatives. Ligos will be showing a number of these interactive applications at the Denver conference next week.
ETV Mosaic is the latest groundbreaking product from Ligos Corporation, whose mission is to extend standards-based video processing technology in order to deliver highly personalized video services over open platforms. Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Savannah, GA, Ligos has been a leading provider in solutions that enable the delivery of digital video and advanced television experiences. ETV Mosaic is available now, and multichannel operators and content providers are invited to visit us at the conference or contact us through our website at http://www.ligos.com, or by phone 1-912-236-8993 for more information.
CableLabs is a trademark of Cable Television Laboratories, Inc.
A product or technology demonstration at a CableLabs event does not represent a CableLabs endorsement of that product or technology.
Cable industry’s first EBIF program guide enhancement ships to major U.S. cable operator for 2010 deployment
SAVANNAH, GA - (January 12, 2010): Ligos Corporation has announced that it finished 2009 by closing a deal with one of the nation’s largest cable operators for a set of Ligos’ EBIF-based ETV Mosaic systems. EBIF (Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format) is a standard for interactive television applications, and ETV Mosaic enables the creation and delivery of interactive presentations for program guides and much more on EBIF-enabled systems. The design win represents a significant affirmation of Ligos’ ETV initiatives, set to expand throughout 2010 as EBIF and other industry-standard interactive platforms expand across tens of millions of set-top boxes this year.
ETV Mosaic produces an enhanced visual program guide with multiple navigable thumbnails of live video channels. With their remote control, the subscriber at home can navigate and highlight individual tiles and hear the accompanying audio, and can tune to that channel. Ligos’ ETV Mosaic system integrates all of the required functions – stream input, compositing, metadata, encoding, EBIF, ETV carousel and stream output – into a single, compact server platform. Since 2006, Ligos has led the industry in providing the next-generation “digital mosaic experience” for multichannel operators worldwide with its Mosaic product. This video-rich interface has increasingly become a must-have feature to create portals featuring news, sports, movies and Video on Demand, as well as special event programming such as playoffs and the Olympics. And with its support for dynamic content scheduling and advertising, Ligos Mosaic has provided operators the opportunity to generate new revenue streams.
ETV Mosaic, however, is even more flexible and powerful than its predecessor, free of the limited support provided by guide middleware. With the ETV Mosaic, operators can implement custom layouts enhanced with interactivity that goes beyond visual guide channels. With features such as scrolling text crawls and the ability to utilize external data resources through the product’s API, ETV Mosaic is an advanced presentation engine for the delivery of fully-featured interactive television applications. The system automatically generates the corresponding audiovisual and navigational EBIF dataset which is compatible with leading EBIF User Agents as well as industry-standard interfaces for addressable advertising and messaging. In addition, ETV Mosaic’s unique integrated ETV carousel allows the system to function in a standalone capacity, thus reducing overall cost and complexity for multichannel operators.
For content providers, ETV Mosaic’s integrated EBIF authoring provides the tools needed to deliver sophisticated interactive content to viewers and potential customer subscribers. The system’s graphical environment lets designers create content in a fashion similar to – and as easy as – composing presentation slides. Through its multiple module support, and by seamlessly combining pre-rendered graphic elements with less complex EBIF elements, content is optimized to load quickly and function smoothly across both new and legacy STB platforms. And ETV Mosaic supports the standard specifications for ETV content definition and delivery, meaning content can be created and packaged in-house, and delivered to any carousel system at the headend.
ETV Mosaic is available now, and multichannel operators and content providers are invited to contact us through our website at http://www.ligos.com, or by phone 1-912-236-8993 for more information on features and pricing.
About Ligos Corporation
Since 1997, Ligos has been a leading provider in solutions that enable the delivery of digital video and advanced television experiences. The company’s expertise spans multiple platforms and networks, and their products have revolutionized the digital home, professional video production and networked video industries. Ligos’ unique set of proficiencies in video processing enables the personalized video offerings of tomorrow by extending the capabilities of today’s standards and platforms. With diverse partners such as Intel, Microsoft, Sony, SeaChange and Rovi Corporation, Ligos has made a worldwide impact on how the industry delivers content to consumer subscribers, and how they interact with it.
World’s most widely deployed solution for video-rich program guides now coming to the EBIF Platform
SAVANNAH, GA - (July 7, 2009): Ligos Corporation today announced the ETV/EBIF version of its award-winning Mosaic interactive program guide system. Based on the most widely deployed solution of its kind worldwide, Ligos’ new ETV Mosaic is aimed at multichannel operators and solution providers who are adopting CableLabs’ EBIF (Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format) standard for interactive applications and those seeking best-of-breed applications in which to showcase this next-generation platform.
Displayed to the subscriber as a tiled “video montage”, a Mosaic channel shows multiple thumbnails of high-quality live video streams on a single TV screen. The viewer uses their remote control to navigate and highlight individual tiles and hear the accompanying audio, and can directly tune to that channel if something captures their interest. MSOs currently use Mosaic to group similar programming such as News, Sports, Children’s, Special Event and VOD, and to incorporate advertising and service promotions to generate new revenue streams.
“Our new ETV Mosaic makes it possible for more providers to deliver this viewing experience to their subscribers,” said Mark Koziol, CEO of Ligos Corporation. “This is only the first of our plans for the EBIF platform. Further out we foresee incorporating personalized data feeds to further enhance Mosaic channels, and we’re planning other compelling applications that will add value to the ETV experience for both providers and their subscribers.”
Until now, Mosaic has primarily been integrated with the leading program guides of providers such as Macrovision, Microsoft and Cisco Systems. Ligos’ ETV Mosaic now opens this same video-rich experience to the 15 million EBIF-enabled subscriber set-top boxes planned for 2009, a number projected to double next year. Further, the ETV Mosaic application has been highly optimized for those STBs in order to load quickly and to be compatible with both of the industry’s leading ETV User Agents from BIAP Inc. and TVWorks.
ETV Mosaic integrates all of the required functions – stream input, compositing, metadata, encoding, EBIF and stream output – into a single, compact server platform. An easy to use graphical design environment is provided to create dynamic channel layouts, and removes the complexity of the EBIF specification by automatically generating all of the audiovisual and navigational requirements of the resulting output channel. ETV Mosaic is currently finishing qualification within one of the nation’s largest cable operators, and will be available to other providers shortly. Multichannel operators and solution providers interested in the ETV Mosaic are invited to contact us by phone at 912-236-8993 ext. 101, or through our website at http://www.ligos.com.
Screen capture of an example EBIF-based VOD Barker Channel featuring 8 titles, context sensitive program data and a large central promo tile, generated with Ligos’ ETV Mosaic.Screen capture of an example EBIF-based VOD Barker Channel featuring 8 titles, context sensitive program data and a large central promo tile, generated with Ligos’ ETV Mosaic.
About Ligos Corporation
Since 1997, Ligos has been a leading provider in solutions that enable the delivery of digital video and advanced television experiences. The company’s expertise spans multiple platforms and networks, and their products have revolutionized the digital home, professional video production and networked video industries. Ligos’ unique set of proficiencies in video processing enables the personalized video offerings of tomorrow by extending the capabilities of today’s standards and platforms. For more information on Ligos Corporation and Mosaic products, visit its website at http://www.ligos.com.
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