TANDBERG Television Powers Video-Enabled Search-and-Discovery Web Portals

New MediaModeler’ Content Management System enables telco operators to offer compelling online video experiences, generate revenues and drive 3-screen television strategies

Atlanta .- TANDBERG Television, part of the Ericsson Group (NASDAQ:ERIC), today announced the launch of its new MediaModeler’ Content Management System, an advanced solution designed to enable telco operators to increase customer satisfaction and retention as well as monetize their web portals with a compelling online video experience. With the new powerful application tool-kit operators can provide subscribers with a more personalized user experience, and richer search and discovery features, enabling converged services across TVs, PCs and mobile devices. The system will be demonstrated at NXTcomm (Las Vegas, June 17-19, 2008) in booth SU7416.

According to recent research from The Diffusion Group, Pay TV viewers are spending more time watching broadband ’over the top’ video. Specifically, 40% of broadband users are watching at least an hour of video per week on the Internet. Of those, approximately 30% are watching 25% or more of their TV online. Web-based video portals enabled by the MediaModeler Content Management System will provide those broadband users with enhanced search, discover and scheduling capabilities in a video-enabled environment that blends content from their television service operator as well as the open web.

“By 2012, more than 100 million households will be capable of watching broadband video on their big-screen, high-dollar, high-definition TVs, and home theater systems,” said Colin Dixon, Broadband Media Practice Manager of The Diffusion Group. “To capture these households, IPTV providers must leverage innovative broadband video strategies in order to differentiate their offerings from today’s incumbent Pay TV operators. The new MediaModeler Content Management System from TANDBERG Television is one such innovation ’ it enables blended video experiences in which subscribers can select the content they want to watch and the platform upon which they want to watch it, all through a single, customized user interface.”

“The Internet-connected PC is the digital hub for hundreds of millions of consumers. Connecting the PC Internet video experience to an existing television experience capitalizes on existing consumer behaviors and provides a clear opportunity for telco operators to generate revenue from their web portals,” said Joe Franzetta, EVP & GM of the Broadband TV Business Unit at TANDBERG Television.

The MediaModeler Content Management System is uniquely designed with a flexible database structure that supports fully customizable metadata profiles. In addition, the system is capable of automatically enhancing metadata associated with ingested video assets by interfacing with a range of 3rd party metadata services and Web 2.0 sources. These two features form the core of the MediaModeler system and allow operators to build rich search and discovery video portals by simply adding support for new sources of metadata. Easily integrating the rapidly expanding universe of metadata that characterizes Web 2.0 is essential to developing new, innovative video features.

“The MediaModeler system powers a richer video experience, thereby driving increased video advertising inventory,” continued Franzetta. “Since the system is aware of assets available to the viewer through the operator’s service, an operator can create end-user features that surface this content for a viewer to choose, whether the content is on linear TV, on an operator’s VOD offering, on video sharing sites, or on premium Internet video sites, thus putting the control of when and where to watch this content into the viewer’s hands.”

The demonstration at NXTcomm will focus on the following features of the MediaModeler system: asset creation, content and feed ingest, library management, custom metadata definition, metadata enhancement from 3rd party sources, line-up management, search and filter, and video playout. A sample consumer web portal will highlight the best practices of a converged video experience, including end-user features that subscribers will increasingly demand be part of their Internet TV, IPTV or Mobile TV services.