OpenTV
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| Type | privately held |
|---|---|
| Industry | Interactive television |
| Founded | 1994 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, USA |
| Products | Television operating systems and Middleware |
| Revenue | $110 million (USD) in 2007 |
| Employees | 500 |
| Website | www.OpenTV.com |
OpenTV is an interactive television company founded in 1994. Its main business involves the sale of set-top-box operating systems and software. On March 28, 2010 OpenTV became a fully owned subsidiary of the NAGRA Kudelski Group and officially delisted from the NASDAQ, where it was previously listed under the symbol OPTV.
OpenTV provides television middleware and advertising solution to the pay-tv industry.
Contents |
[edit] OpenTV 2 middleware
OpenTV's flagship product is OpenTV 2 (formerly known as OpenTV Core), a widely deployed digital television middleware. OpenTV Core software technology contains a hardware abstraction layer to enable hardware independence, TV libraries, a broadcast stack, a selection of application execution environments, and Personal Video Recorders (PVRs) to create a digital television environment for set-top box. Latest version is OpenTV 2.4 (January 2012).
OpenTV 2 middleware has shipped more than 160 million set-top boxes worldwide. It passed the 100 million mark in February 2007[1]. The OpenTV 2 middleware was deployed at BSkyB (UK), Sky Italia (Italy), Digital+ (Spain), Télévision Par Satellite TPS (France), Numericable (France), Echostar (USA), Bell ExpressVu (Canada), Foxtel (Australia), Austar (Australia), Sky New Zealand (New Zealand), Showtime (Saudi Arabia), Evision (Dubai), Cablecom (Switzerland), Euskaltel (Spain), Auna (Spain), Starhub (Singapore), True Visions (Thailand), Viasat (Nordic), HOT (Israël), Net Serviços de Comunicação (Brazil), Zee du Groupe Essel (India), TV Cabo (Portugal), Cabovisao (Portugal), Digiturk (Turky), Etisalat (UAE), NTV-Plus (Russia), Liberty Global UPC (Europe), Nova (Greece), Dstv (South Africa), among many other pay-tv operation globally
OpenTV 2 was ported on more than 40 different types of television set-top boxes such as the one Pace, ADB, Amstrad, Daewoo, EchoStar, Grundig, Humax, Hyundai, Matsushita, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, Sagemcom, Samsung, Cisco/Scientific Atlanta, Sony, Toshiba and Thomson (now Technicolor).
[edit] OpenTV Virtual Machine execution environment
OpenTV applications are written in C, using their own compiler, gcco, which outputs o-code which is then run on many set-top-boxes. The OpenTV API wraps all the hardware functions, including data transmission (one-way satellite broadcasts, full bi-directional links such as a modem or hard-wired serial port and high-speed broadband networks).
[edit] OpenTV 4 middleware
OpenTV 4 client middleware leverages the Linux OS capabilities. It supports Apple HLS adaptive streaming for over-the-top delivery of both live and On Demand content. The solution was deployed at Jazztel in Spain in Q4 2011.
[edit] OpenTV 5 middleware
OpenTV 5 is the latest generation of television middleware. It is built on the Linux operating system and internet technologies, such as HTML5 and SVG, combined with core digital television components. The solution is architected for portability, modularity and security. It includes a broadcast and service information (SI) stack with an advanced personal video recorder (PVR) and home networking module, while enabling adaptive Internet video streaming capability. The middleware components are implemented as Linux services, each in a separate process. It uses standard Linux for inter-process communication (IPC via D-Bus), which insulates services and allows for third party modules to be quickly and easily integrated into the solution. This enables television service operators to quickly deploy applications using industry standard tools and programming languages without any fear that new applications will interfere with their core TV services or network infrastructure. OpenTV 5’s porting interface abstracts the driver and middleware interface, reduces the complexity of driver development.
In addition to the raw HTML environment, OpenTV 5 provides an open application development framework, which provides rich building blocks for rapid UI and business logic development. The framework provides libraries to accelerate common development tasks such as UEX menus and branding, back-office integration, PVR management, VOD portal listings, and online community access. All these ready-made building blocks are performance optimized for embedded systems and reduce the development and testing time of new features.
STMicroelectronics was the first to announce availability of OpenTV 5 drivers for their ST7105 and ST7108 platforms[2]. Broadcom also developed OpenTV 5 drivers for their TV System-On-Chip product family.
[edit] OpenTV Advertising
OpenTV supports interactive advertising and advanced advertising. OpenTV purchased CAM Systems in 2005, an advertising traffic & billing solution for a US cable company, specifically Comcast and Time Warner as well as others MSOs. The EclipsePlus product provides system for allocation, scheduling, traffic, verification, and billing. The OpenTV Advertising solution also supports local ad insertion/targeting at the head-end or on the set-top, ad telescoping using VOD and PVR, enhanced TV for consumer call-to-action and audience measurement solutions for campaign effectiveness.
