Interactive software maker Liberate Technologies is
pitching new software products that help cable operators manage what, in some cases, are half-built digital media delivery platforms.
Stung by a big drop in digital broadcasting investments by the cash-crunched
cable and satellite industries, the interactive television player is responding with products to help fill delivery gaps.
The San Carlos, Calif.-based company unveiled a new suite of products that
it says will help increase consumer satisfaction, lower operational costs,
and maximize return on infrastructure investment.
Called Digital Services Automation, the software is built to help cable,
satellite, and telecommunications companies create, configure, deliver, and
manage a range of digital video, voice, and data services over high-capacity
digital networks.
As set-top boxes increasingly become a staging area for delivering video on
demand, voice and data services to consumers, Liberate is positioning itself
as a middleware “traffic cop” to help manage the digital streams.
By throwing in software that also helps manage call centers, customer
service and technical support, Liberate hopes to help cable and satellite
operators launch new services that they can actually support.
And it’s not stopping there. Liberate also said it would join with
entertainment licensing and merchandising company Signatures Network to
build new music video delivery systems.
The idea is to give digital television customers new ways to personalize
their own music television experience, kind of like personal playlists built
from a range of channels and programs.
Signatures Network holds merchandising and marketing rights to more than 125
top music artists and entertainment properties. The two companies said they
would team up to make personalization a core feature for delivering music
videos to digital television customers.
The service can be deployed on either a subscription video-on-demand basis
or via pay-per-view events.
Dell Furano, CEO of Signatures Network, said the new product strikes a
balance in offering artists new ways to benefit commercially from their live
performances while retaining creative oversight, and gives fans access to a
limitless amount of great personalized content.
Liberate president Coleman Sisson said the music industry needs more
advanced ways to distribute its vast amount of content, while the on-demand
sector needs more programming if it is to deliver on the promise of a
multitude of virtual TV channels.
The new products help serve everyone’s interests in the creative mix, “from
the performers who deserve strong protection of their work, to the cable and
satellite operators hungry for new material, to the passionate fans
themselves who will be able to freely choose the shows they wish to watch at
any given Time,” Sisson said.
Liberate is providing demonstrations of its new digital content middleware
this week as the Kagan Media interactive TV conference kicks off in New
York.
Herve Utheza, vice president of product marketing for Liberate Technologies,
describes the new software as a kind of a traffic cop for the multi-media feeds and
multiple formats that digital television systems are struggling to sort out.
The release comes as iTV tech companies struggle to withstand a drop in
investments as cable and satellite companies put plans for digital systems
on hold amid a media recession.
