Tamblin Launches i-ZoneTV On-Demand, i-ZoneTV Gallery, i-ZoneTV Response

--Forms Return-Path Partnership with Opera Telecom

UK-based interactive TV tools provider, Tamblin, timed several announcements to coincided with the IBC show in Amsterdam:

• The company formally launched "i-ZoneTV On-Demand," a library of pre-designed, pre-tested interactive TV templates, designed to enable smaller broadcasters to develop and publish ITV applications rapidly and inexpensively. The library includes templates for competition, quiz, informational and voting apps: according to Tamblin, broadcasters simply select the templates they need from the library, paying on a per-usage basis, and customize them by inserting text, images and their own design layouts. Tamblin says that many of the templates available through i-ZoneTV On-Demand have already been successfully deployed in the UK, using the company's ITV content and template management system, i-ZoneTV Core (note: the latter has been used to publish over 60 ITV services in the past 18 months, including services for Channel 4's Big Brother; Sky's The Simpsons and Nip-Tuck; ITV's Hell's Kitchen, X-Factor and Pop Idol; and Five's Back to Reality and The Farm): the company claims that the system can support any type of platform requirement, including broadcast graphics, IPTV, OpenTV, MHEG, MHP, Liberate, XML, WTVML, mobile and the Web. Broadcasters can also grow their template libraries with their own template designs.
• It launched two interactive TV tools--i-ZoneTV Gallery and i-ZoneTV Response--which allow broadcasters and production teams to use mobile phones as a return path (and thus enable interactive TV for analog viewers). According to the company, i-ZoneTV Gallery is a content and template management system for broadcast graphics systems that enables rapid deployment of text-to-screen applications. Production teams can either select from a library of templates or design their own and use them immediately, the company says. Applications can then be scheduled for broadcast, used live or synchronized to the required program. The tool comes with a range of pre-designed templates for a variety of types of interactive TV application, including voting, quizzes, competitions, chat, SMS/MMS crawlers and games. i-ZoneTV Response, meanwhile, allows producers to aggregate, analyze and filter all data captured from SMS, MMS, the Web, and--if required--set-top-based ITV services. It incorporates a real-time moderation functionality, which Tamblin says can process thousands of messages every minute and which provides what the company describes as an "intuitive" interface that editors can use to check messages before broadcasting them. According to Tamblin, the tool works with any telecom provider.
• It said that it has integrated Leitch Technology's Inscriber Inca RTX with i-ZoneTV Gallery. Inca RTX is a real-time 2D/3D graphics, video and animation platform which Leitch touts as enabling broadcasters to easily develop custom dynamic graphics and effects. "Our integration with Leitch's Inca RTX brings an important enhancement to i-ZoneTV," Tamblin commercial director, Mark Janes, said in a prepared statement. "Encouraged by our previous success, we are expanding our products to help broadcasters, producers, advertising agencies and brands maximize the potential for user interaction via the TV, not just the red button. Our current research indicated that Inca RTX is the only character generator that offers a full development environment into Tamblin's extensive content and template management system, i-ZoneTV. It was particularly important to find a flexible solution that offers our clients access to many of the i-ZoneTV product features for non-linear TV interaction. As part of our new i-ZoneTV Gallery product, broadcasters can deliver the next generation of stunning text/graphics-to-screen applications and games using an industry-standard Inscriber character generator."
• It announced a partnership with Opera Telecom to provide broadcasters and production teams with a dynamic return path through SMS, MMS and IVR via Opera's Dragon System. According to Tamblin, the partnership means that its new i-ZoneTV Gallery and i-ZoneTV Response tools can provide global interactive TV services based on a mix of on-demand data aggregation through SMS, MMS, IVR, the Web and ITV. "Having launched the next generation of text-to-screen and content management for broadcast graphics systems, Tamblin can now provide its customers with dynamic return path data through Opera's Dragon system," Tamblin's commercial director, Mark Janes, said in a prepared statement. "For a long time broadcasters and producers have been held back by their local technology platforms. Now interactivity can be added at any time, using the right mix of user interaction and program production values."

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