--Service will Use YooMedia's New Datacasting Service
YooMedia has signed a partnership agreement with a company called Electra (note: the latter--which is led by a team of interactive TV veterans that includes PlayJam and Optimistic Entertainment co- founder, Jasper Smith, ex-head of Telewest Broadband, David Caswell, and ex-European CTO of Gemstar-TV Guide, Jonathan Drazin--has developed a technology that it says can be used to give instant access from any digital terrestrial channel to rich, multimedia interactive content; the company claims that the technology achieves this without a "significant increase" in set-top box cost, and consumes considerably less bandwidth than other interactive services) to develop a collection of free and premium ITV services for the UK's free-to-air digital terrestrial platform, Freeview.
According to the companies, the new services, which will be accessible from any channel, will feature richer functionality, graphics and sound than current Freeview ITV services. Content for the services will be delivered by a newly launched datacasting service from YooMedia, and the technology required to receive the service will be licensed to consumer electronics manufacturers for incorporation into set-top boxes, DVR's and integrated digital television sets. YooMedia and Electra say they also plan to collaborate on developing advanced dating and fixed-odds gaming services for the new service. "We are delighted to announce our first datacasting service on Freeview, working in partnership with Electra," YooMedia group managing director, Neil MacDonald, said in a prepared statement. "We developed the datacasting service to provide a sophisticated and state of the art interactive delivery mechanism for the rapidly expanding digital market. Freeview is the fastest growing digital TV platform in the UK with over five million households. Many industry commentators believe that Freeview will emerge as the largest single platform over the coming years and we believe that the time is right for high quality interactive services to be made available on it."
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