Plasma Magenta & JAME Author successfully used in first satellite transmission using OCAP

SysMedia, leading specialist in subtitling solutions and content management and production systems for interactive TV and teletext, has announced that Plasma MagentA and JAME Author, licensed from the Fraunhofer Institute for Media and Communication (Fraunhofer IMK), was recently used as a core part of the successful first satellite transmission of an OCAP (OpenCable Applications Platform) application.
Starz Encore Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Media and the largest provider of premium movie services in the US, recently completed the first out-of-laboratory broadcast of an OCAP application from its uplink facility. This was then successfully downloaded by CableLabs, the non-profit research and development consortium of the US cable industry that is behind OCAP. This was the first time that an operator had embedded OCAP functionality within a broadcast in the US and is a major step forward for the interactive television industry in the US. OCAP is a middleware layer specification, based on MHP that has been developed by CableLabs to provide a platform-independent interactive TV framework.
SysMedia used its Plasma Magenta content production system and JAME Author to create the application at the request of Strategy and Technology (S&T), via UniSoft, S&T's and SysMedia's US representative. UniSoft was contracted by Starz Encore Group.
JAME Author is a complete MHP/OCAP-compliant authoring tool for creating enhanced TV services that outputs broadcast-ready content. Kevin Lingley, SysMedia's International Sales Manager, said: "We created the interactive application using Plasma Magenta and JAME Author for this test. The application was essentially a two-day movie schedule plus in-depth background information."
The application was then scheduled and integrated into the transmission stream using S&T's TSBroadcaster object carousel. An ADB i-CAN set-top box was used to decode it. The box included an OCAP stack supplied by Osmosys.
Colin Prior, Business Development Director of SysMedia, added: "This is a clear indication of the power of Plasma Magenta and JAME Author as a tool for creating MHP and OCAP-compliant interactive content and applications. SysMedia is tremendously excited to have been involved in this groundbreaking project. With the US cable industry looking to advance the rollout of OCAP, this ground-breaking broadcast demonstrates that OCAP-based interactive TV services have arrived."
(GB)