China's Jilin Cable Network Using Espial MediaBase to Power Range of VOD Services

Espial, the Canadian digital TV software company that in 2008 bought US IPTV and video-on-demand technology provider, Kasenna (note: the deal valued Kasenna, which had raised $90 million in funding since its launch in 2000, at around $6.5 million), said Wednesday that Chinese cable operator, Jilin Cable Network, has selected its Espial MediaBase VOD platform to power a range of on-demand services. Espial acquired the MediaBase product line through the Kasenna purchase. According to Espial, Jilin, which serves 3 million subscribers in northeast China, is using MediaBase to offer VOD, TV on-demand, network DVR and timeshift-TV services to hundreds of thousands of subscribers, using more than 60 time-shift TV channel captures. Espial says that the operator is planning an "aggressive" expansion that will see it extending these services to its entire subscriber base over the next few years.

According to Espial, one of the factors in Jilin's selection of MediaBase was that the platform can capture live TV and make it available for almost instant viewing. In addition, the company says, the operator required a VOD system that could work with limited backbone network bandwidth. Espial says that MediaBase addressed this requirement via its multi-tiered, multicast content delivery networking features. It also says that Jilin needed a VOD system that could be tailored--both at the software and hardware layers--to the number of subscribers and the viewing habits of each region it serves; and that MediaBase addressed this requirement via a flexible licensing model and by using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) servers and storage. Espial claims that these MediaBase features allow Jilin to reliably, cost-effectively and efficiently distribute content and provide on-demand TV services to users in several cities, including Jilin, Yanji and Changchun. Another important consideration in Jilin's selection of MediaBase, according to Espial, was that the operator's preferred system integrator is Huawei and the platform is tightly integrated with Huawei's business management solution for cable operators. "Jilin Cable Network's selection of Espial MediaBase was based on its high performance, excellent scalability and broad set of on-demand services," James Chou, Espial's country manager for Greater China and director of sales for Asia, said in a prepared statement. "As well, by using off-the-shelf hardware, Espial was able to tailor the server and storage exactly to their requirements for each service region. These are essential capabilities to meet China's digital TV market requirements."