Espial Unveils New Version of its Evo IPTV Service Platform

--Platform Now Supports HDTV Set-Top Boxes

At the IBC show in Amsterdam earlier this month, Canadian IPTV middleware and applications provider, Espial, unveiled the latest version of its Evo service platform. The company says thatthe new version leverages Evo's data-driven architecture to deliver a very small set-top box footprint and a "truly open" framework for managing IPTV services, with standards-based API's for complete customization and integration. According to Espial, specific enhancements to the platform include:

• Advanced binary-compressed EPG data handling that allows more EPG data on the client, while using significantly less memory--thus, the company says, providing "lightning-fast" searches and optimizing network updates and refresh speeds.
• Evo-Browser application support for the latest Internet standards, including HTML 4, JavaScript 1.5, DOM1, DOM2-Events, CSS 2.1, CSS-TV and DVB-HTML. In addition, the Evo Browser now supports the AJAX and Macromedia Flash 7 Web standards, providing what Espial describes as a "flexible and dynamic development environment that helps IPTV operators or third parties deliver rich and sleek walled-garden services and Internet-on-TV."
• A new, skinnable user-interface template, dubbed "Evo-Enchant UI," that operators can easily customize and modify.
• Pay-per-view, telephony services and music channel applications.

In other Espial news: the company also says that it is now supporting the "first wave" of high-definition IP set-top boxes. At the IBC show, the company demo'd the Espial Evo service platform running on the Mood 400, the new HDTV IP set-top box from Swedish set-top box company, Tilgin (formerly i3 micro). Other set-top box manufacturers that have previously selected the platform and that will now be able to use it to support HDTV include Amino, Celrun, Dasan, Kreatel, Mitsumi, Sentivision, Sunniwell, Sumitomo and Yuxing. "We just launched the Tilgin Mood 400, our top-of-the line IP set-top box for advanced MPEG-4 HD entertainment, and are pleased to announce our choice of Evo as the first middleware to integrate with," Tilgin CEO, Jan Werne, said in a prepared statement. "This integration offers operators a customizable and high-performance solution with impressive functionality. Evo allows operators to quickly enable the new advanced features we support on the Mood 400, such as HD graphics, advanced personal video recording, customizable display and DVB-T."

Originally Published: September 27, 2006 in [itvt] Issue 6.96 Part 2

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