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Type | Privately held, fully owned subsidiary of the NAGRA Kudelski Group |
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Industry | Digital television |
Founded | 1994 |
Headquarters | Cheseaux, Switzerland, OpenTV based in San Francisco, USA |
Products | Television operating systems, middleware and advertising |
Revenue | $120 million (for the year ended on December 31, 2009) |
Employees | 600 |
Website | www.OpenTV.com, [1] |
OpenTV is a global software technology company for interactive and digital television. OpenTV was founded in 1994 through the merge of Thomson Multimedia and Sun Microsystems. Its primary business involves the sale of set-top-box operating systems and software as well as advanced advertising solutions.
On March 28, 2010 OpenTV became a fully owned subsidiary of the NAGRA Kudelski Group - Nagravision - and was officially delisted from the NASDAQ, where it was previously listed under the symbol OPTV.[1] The name NAGRA is often used for their content protection and encryption systems for digital television operators.
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OpenTV 2 middleware
OpenTV's flagship product is OpenTV 2 (formerly known as OpenTV Core), a widely deployed digital television middleware. OpenTV 2.x software technology contains a hardware abstraction layer to enable hardware independence, TV libraries, a broadcast stack (DVB-T/DVB-C/DVB-S, ISDB, ATSC...), a selection of application execution environments, and Personal Video Recorders (PVRs) to create a digital television environment for set-top box.
OpenTV 2 middleware has shipped more than 160 million set-top boxes worldwide. It passed the 100 million mark in February 2007.[2] 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), TrueVisions (Thailand), Viasat (Nordic), HOT (Israël), Net Serviços de Comunicação (Brazil), Zee Dish TV of Essel Group (India), TV Cabo (Portugal), Cabovisão (Portugal), Digiturk (Turky), Etisalat (UAE), NTV-Plus (Russia), Liberty Global UPC Broadband (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 from Pace, ADB, Amstrad, Daewoo, EchoStar, Grundig, Humax, Hyundai, Matsushita, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, Sagemcom, Samsung, Cisco/Scientific Atlanta, Sony, Toshiba and Thomson (now Technicolor).
OpenTV virtual machine execution environment
OpenTV applications are written in C, using the 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).
The OpenTV 2 SDK is available on the NAGRA OpenTV Application Community web site.
OpenTV 4 middleware
OpenTV 4 client middleware leverages the Linux OS capabilities.[3] It supports HTTP Live Streaming (also known as HLS) adaptive streaming with NAGRA PRM for secure over-the-top delivery of both live and On Demand content. The software was deployed at Jazztel in Spain in Q4 2011.
OpenTV 5 middleware
OpenTV 5[4] 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 product is designed for portability, modularity, and security. It includes a broadcast and service information (SI) stack (DVB-T/DVB-C/DVB-S, ISDB) with an advanced digital video recorder (DVR) and home networking module (Digital Living Network Alliance - DLNA) for sharing media content across the home, while enabling adaptive Internet video adaptive bitrate streaming capabilities (Progressive download, HTTP Live Streaming, Microsoft Smooth Streaming). The solution also supports on demand (Video on demand) and IPTV. The middleware components are implemented as Linux services, each in a separate process. It uses standard Linux for inter-process communication (via D-Bus), which insulates services and facilitates adding third party modules. 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 SVG / HTML environment and TV centric API (CCOM), OpenTV 5 provides a JavaScript application framework (JSFW) for rapid UI and business logic development. The framework offers libraries to accelerate common tasks such as UEX menus / branding, Service Delivery and back-office integration, PVR management, VOD portal listings, or online community access. OpenTV 5 is performance optimized for embedded television systems and can scale from a thin TV set-top-box devices up to a residential gateway solution.
STMicroelectronics was the first to announce availability of OpenTV 5 drivers for the STi7105 and STi7108 and also imminently on Orly, ST's latest-generation powerful broadband system-on-chip IC.[5] Broadcom has also developed OpenTV 5 drivers for their system-on-chip product family.
OpenTV advertising
OpenTV supports interactive advertising and advanced advertising. OpenTV purchased CAM Systems in 2005, an advertising, traffic, and billing package for a US cable. The EclipsePlus product provides system for allocation, scheduling, traffic, verification, and billing of television advertising. The solution is deployed at Comcast Spotlight, Time Warner Cable, New York Interconnect / Cablevision, Bright House Networks, Suddenlink Communications, Charter, Midcontinent, UPC Broadband among other operations.
OpenTV Advertising pioneered addressable advertising with local ad insertion, ad targeting at the head-end as well as ad insertion from the set-top box. The product line also offers on-demand advertising, ad telescoping using VOD and PVR, enhanced TV for consumer call-to-action and audience measurement solutions for ad campaign effectiveness.
In October 2011, NAGRA acquired Sigma Systems’ SCTE-130 Subscriber Information Service platform (SIS) business for respone management and audience qualification as to deliver the right message to the right audience.[6]
The EclipsePlus line of campaign management solutions schedule more than 100 million spots per month, and manage some $2.5 billion of annual advertising revenue (March 2012).[7]
See also
External links
- NAGRA - Transforming the consumer's media experience
- OpenTV Application Developper Community Portal
- OpenTV Middleware solutions
- NAGRA - Advanced Advertising solutions
- Customer viewpoint about Advanced Advertising
References
- ^ "Kudeslski Group Completes Acquisition of OpenTV" March 29, 2010 - Cheseaux, Switzerland
- ^ Clover, Julian. "OpenTV found in 100 million enabled devices" BroadBandTVNews.com. February 20, 2008
- ^ "EchoStar Europe Integrates OpenTV’s Linux Client Solution from Nagravision" September 11, 2010 - EchoStar
- ^ "OpenTV 5 Product Sheet
- ^ "STMicroelectronics Sets Fast Route to Market for NAGRA’s OpenTV 5 Set-Top Box Middleware" Geneva, December 06, 2011 - STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM)
- ^ "Nagra and Sigma partnered on advanced advertising" October 3, 2011 - Cheseaux, Switzerland, and Toronto, Canada
- ^ "NAGRA-OpenTV and Time Warner Cable Media Extend Advanced Advertising Partnership" March 5, 2012 - Cheseaux, Switzerland