© 2009 Avail-TVN

TelcoTV — Dallas, TX; November 6, 2006 - Espial® IPTV, the leading provider of IPTV middleware and applications, today announced that IPTV service provider Auroras Entertainment has added Espial’s Evo® IPTV Service Platform as supported middleware for its IPTV service. Auroras will be offering a complete end-to-end solution for telcos based on Espial’s pre-integrated solution that includes both Espial’s market-leading Evo® Client and Espial’s newly launched Evo® Server.

Espial’s Evo® Server is a massively scaleable, continuously available, and truly open IPTV service platform. Developed from the ground up to optimize scale, performance and total cost of ownership, Evo Server breaks new ground in empowering service providers to deliver winning IPTV services. Evo Server’s features include support for multicast live TV, high performance EPG data management, asset management and diagnostics, packaging and pricing, ad server statistics, and data management for subscription audio, VOD, Radio TV, DVR, and PPV.

Auroras Entertainment offers a combination of services and technologies that enables telecommunications providers to deploy entertainment services to their customers over their existing broadband IP networks. The Auroras solution offers service providers an end-to-end solution that can be fully operational within 60 days and provides up to a 90% capital expense reduction over a self-provisioned headend system. The Auroras solution includes aggregated national content encoded at MPEG-4 AVC, digital music, affiliate rights management, local channel encoders, and video-on demand.

“With Espial’s Evo IPTV Service Platform, we are now able to offer our customers the option of a full turn-key Evo-based solution from headend to set-top box,” said Diane Smith, Auroras’ Chief Executive Officer. “Espial’s integration tools and SkinTonesTM, which can be fully customized and branded by our customers, enables us to provide a flexible solution for our customers and for them to offer their subscribers a superior quality experience.”

Auroras is demonstrating their Evo-based IPTV solution at TelcoTV (booth 1023) via a working system that also includes Tilgin set-top boxes, Verimatrix’s software-based content security technology, and Pannaway DSL access equipment. The multi-booth demonstration is connected to an Auroras satellite antenna outside the building, which will be receiving and distributing 40 channels of live MPEG-4 digital content, the same system configuration already deployed by three of Auroras’ telco customers.

“The Auroras deployments demonstrate the scalability, reliability, flexibility, and quality of experience that customers expect of Espial products,” said Jaison Dolvane, Espial CEO. “And it shows that our new Evo Server offering has already been tested and validated by leading operators.”

Espial’s products are being deployed to over 500,000 IPTV subscribers and the company was recently named the #1 IPTV client middleware vendor by market research firm ABI (link). With key customers such as Auroras, NTT, Belgacom, OnCommand, LodgeNet, and partners including Siemens/Myrio, Motorola, Sumitomo, Tilgin, Amino, Dasan, Thomson, and Philips, Espial’s leadership in IPTV and consumer services spans over nine years. Over 2.5 million consumers have already experienced Espial technology, from hotel interactive TV and VOD services through OnCommand and LodgeNet, to interactive interfaces in BMW vehicles and Hitachi TVs, to leading deployments with Telcos in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

Espial’s Evo® IPTV Service Platform is in high demand by carriers rolling out IPTV services. Evo’s modularity, turbo-fast performance, and openness have attracted service provider customers across the globe and driven Espial’s IPTV revenue growth to 100% annually over the past three years. Evo is the only IPTV platform available that allows operators to purchase best-of-breed components separately or as part of a pre-integrated client-server middleware solution.

Espial provides IPTV middleware and applications that are modular, fully skinnable, turbo-fast, and truly open. Espial’s Evo® IPTV Service Platform, which can be purchased as best-of-breed components or as part of a pre-integrated client-server solution, includes Evo® Client, Evo® Server, Evo Future-Proof FrameworkTM (FPF), and applications such as SkinTonesTM, Electronic Program Guide, Video on Demand, Content Portal, Games, Triple Play, and Web Browser. Espial products have been integrated with or deployed by more than 100 vendors and operators including Auroras, Siemens, Motorola, Sumitomo Electric Networks, Amino, Thomson, Philips, UPC, Tilgin, LodgeNet, OnCommand and S-Net Systems.

Auroras Entertainment provides a combination of services and technologies that enables service providers to deploy entertainment services to their customers over their existing broadband IP networks. The Auroras solution offers service providers up to a 90% capital expense reduction over a self-provisioned headend system. To provide these services, Auroras receives over 160 standard and high definition channels of video and over 40 digital music channels at its master headend. This content is encoded utilizing MPEG4 AVC and encrypted with 128 bit AES technology. This groomed content is delivered via satellite to the service providers’ site, where an IPTV Gateway is deployed. The content is then passed over the service provider’s network to a set top box in the subscriber’s home where the content is decrypted and viewed. The service includes Digitization and Transport Rights, wholesale Affiliate Rights, a complete Video-On-Demand Component, IP Set Top Boxes, and complete 24/7 on-call and on-site customer support.