Visible World Using itaas' Remote Headend Service

itaas, an Atlanta-based company that provides a variety of products and services to the interactive TV industry (for an in-depth interview with the company's senior management team, see [itvt] Issue 6.35), says that its Remote Headend service is being used by Visible World, a provider of technologies and services for targeted TV advertising. The Remote Headend service, which is available 24/7, is designed to allow ITV application developers to access a full digital headend without leaving their facility, thus, according to itaas, saving them a substantial amount of money by removing the need to purchase headend equipment or rent off-site lab facilities: itaas provides all the hardware, software and support, installing a remote virtual hub at the ITV developer's premises, which is connected to itaas' headend via a dedicated high-speed data connection (the connection would typically be a virtual private network link over the Internet). According to itaas, its remote headend service allows application developers to access all the key functionality of the headend: among other things, the company says, they can boot and operate production set-top boxes in fully interactive mode, test and run client applications, access DNCS API's, and test with encrypted video streams. Broadcast and VOD content can be inserted at the remote virtual hub. "We are extremely pleased with itaas' remote headend," Visible World CTO, Gerrit Niemeijer, said in a prepared statement. "It has provided us with a very flexible and efficient way of testing our application with a variety of different system configurations."