ICTV has secured a significant deal for its recently launched interactive content distribution service, the ActiveVideo Distribution Network (AVDN): high-profile meteorological service, AccuWeather, plans to use the new service to launch a channel for cable and IPTV platforms that will provide fully interactive, real-time local forecasts and other weather information. Among other things, the new channel will offer searchable local forecasts, animated satellite-generated weather maps, and local TV weather broadcast programming. "Viewers prefer to have immediate access to and control over the weather information they need, rather than waiting for periodic updates," Jim Candor, AccuWeather’s SVP of new media, said in a prepared statement. "As an ActiveVideo Distribution Network programming partner, we are providing for the first time viewer-controlled access on television to AccuWeather’s complete, worldwide base of information and news reports. The AVDN channel will complement our existing Web presence by creating new opportunities for our content and our advertisers to reach millions of cable and IPTV subscribers, all of whom can manage the information they receive with standard remote controls."
The AVDN is touted by ICTV as enabling operators, programmers and advertisers to bring broadband video programming and advertising models from the Internet–including ads that are targeted, auditable and interactive–to linear television and VOD. The service is based on the company’s proprietary HeadendWare technology, and on a technology dubbed "InStream," which it obtained through its recent acquisition of Switched Media (note: for more on InStream, which allows the processing and manipulation of compressed digital video streams, see [itvt] Issue 6.60). According to ICTV, the AVDN is entirely standards-based and runs within existing Web and VOD infrastructures, acquiring programming and applications from standard Web servers, mixing it with live and VOD elements, and delivering it from the headend as MPEG video (note: the ability to translate interactive applications and programming into MPEG video is a key feature of HeadendWare). It can easily be integrated with existing set-top box-based interactive TV technologies, the company says. According to ICTV, viewers can use their remotes to select an ActiveVideo channel from a standard EPG, and enter a "broadband experience" that integrates video, navigational elements, channel branding, banner ads, and links to multiple video segments. Screens can be manipulated to reflect personal viewing interests and purchasing preferences, and can also be powered by recommendation engines based on viewer preferences, the company says. Ads within this "broadband experience" are, of course, fully interactive, with features such as "telescoping."
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Filed under: Content
