espial

Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue:

Canadian cable MSO, Rogers Communications, said Monday that it will offer a new line of Cisco HD DVR's (the Explorer 8642HD) that will include a model with the largest DVR hard drive (500GB) in Canada, allowing customers to record up to 62 hours of HD or up to 280 hours of SD content. "We understand that for our customers, entertainment is about the experience for the whole family and at the center of it is often the PVR," John Boynton, Rogers' EVP of marketing, said in a prepared statement "The new Rogers Cisco Explorer 8642HD PVR is designed with the whole family in mind so that they can each enjoy their own entertainment on their time. No longer will they have to deal with record-delete issues. They can watch what they want, when they want."

Since February 3rd, [itvt] Daily News has been on hiatus, while the [itvt] editorial team produced the TV of Tomorrow Show 2010--and then took a few days off to recover. This is the third of eight round-up articles, in which we are covering some of the more significant developments in the multiplatform/interactive TV space that took place during our hiatus:

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.

Canadian digital TV software provider, Espial, last week announced the latest release of its Evo TV Service Platform IPTV middleware. According to the company, the new release offers:

Espial, the Canadian DTV software company that last year acquired US IPTV and VOD 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), announced Thursday that it has signed a reseller agreement with Power & Tel, that calls for the latter to resell the Espial MediaBase VOD platform (a product that the company acquired through the Kasenna purchase) to US telcos. Power & Tel, an independent distributor of technologies for the telecommunications and cable industries worldwide, will offer MediaBase as part of its end-to-end IPTV solution.

Espial, the Canadian digital TV software company which last year 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), will today announce the release of version 9.0 of the MediaBase VOD platform that it acquired through the Kasenna purchase. According to the company, Espial MediaBase 9.0 extends the platform's support for cable operators and offers various new features and benefits, including:

Espial, the Canadian DTV software company which last year acquired US IPTV and VOD 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), will announce today that Japan's Buffalo, Inc. has licensed its Evo Client middleware for its recently launched LT-H90DTV hybrid set-top box, and is also using its support, development and integration services.

--Motorola to Resell the Espial Evo TV Service Platform

Canadian IPTV middleware provider, Espial, has acquired Kasenna, a
US-based provider of IPTV and VOD technologies that has raised $90
million in funding since its launch in 2000, for an aggregate of
4,722,224 Espial common shares (i.e. around $6.5 million). According
to Espial (which saw its first-quarter revenues decline year-over-year
from CAN$2.2 million to CAN$1.3 million), combining its operations
with Kasenna's will result in a number of strong synergies, including:

• An increased number of tier-1 video service provider customers, a
  combined footprint of over 100 customers worldwide with no overlap,
  and a combined 2.4 million-plus IPTV licenses in deployment for one