As
SeaChange International launches Adrenalin, its new back office
product, this week at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in New Orleans, the company
will also be pitching its international experience in delivering content
to multiple screens as an important selling point for the new system,
which is designed to help operators expand their TV Everywhere
initiatives.
At SCTE SeaChange will be
providing on-demand and broadcast streaming demonstrations of its fourth
generation Adrenalin software delivering content settop boxes, iPads,
Android smart phones, PS3 game consoles and other devices.
The
first release of Adrenalin won't occur until early 2011 but in recent
months, SeaChange has also started working with a number of
international operators to provide content to multiple devices,
including U.K. cable operator Virgin Media, where SeaChange's technology
is being used to deliver content to three screens. Other international
companies, including StarHub in Singapore, 3 Italia and Vodacom, are
using SeaChange to deliver content to mobile devices.
These
deployments don't involve the full Adrenalin product but some of these
international operators are planning to deploy Adrenalin and the
deployments show, SeaChange executives argue, that they have developed
workable multiplatform solutions that can be easily upgraded to the full
Adrenalin solution.
"This is something that
is very real," noted Steve Davi, senior vice president of software
engineering at SeaChange. "We are already working with operators to
provide content to three screens."
In the case
of Virgin Media, the U.K. cable operator is using SeaChange's
multi-screen technology and managed service infrastructure for video
delivered on its Virgin Media Player.
Virgin
Media XL TV and broadband customers can watch hundreds of hours of
television programs from ITV, LIVING TV Group, Disney, Cartoon Network,
National Geographic, Discovery and MTV Networks UK & Ireland on
their PCs, laptops and mobile phones.
The new
product has also been designed with an open service oriented
architecture that offers operators an easy upgrade path from SeaChange's
current back office product Axiom to Adrenalin, "without a forklift,"
Davi adds.
The product builds on a number of
SeaChange acquisitions over the last two years, including deals to
acquire the back office provider eventIS, mobile video back office
player Mobix Interactive, and VividLogic, which has solutions for
delivering video throughout the home, Davi explains. "We brought those
technologies together for the Adrenalin product," he said.
SeaChange's
launch of Adrenalin comes at a time when all the operators are looking
to deliver more content to more devices and a number of vendors are
looking to provide them with software and technology for multiplatform
plays.
Just last week thePlatform, a Comcast
subsidiary that is already working with operators to deliver content to
the web as part of their TV Everywhere initiatives, launched a new
platform mpx that will deliver content to all three screens--settop
boxes, PCs and mobile devices.
"The operators
are all looking for ways to deal with the over-the-top challenge and
everyone who is providing back office technology in the TV space is
looking to expand into solutions that will deliver content to PC and
mobile," Davi said.
