OpenTV Brings Its High Definition Television Technology to Sky Italia
Italy's Largest Pay Television Provider Delivers HD Experience of UEFA Champion Leagues Final and 2006 FIFA World Cup With OpenTV's Advanced HD Television Platform
SAN FRANCISCO, June 1 - OpenTV Corp. (NASDAQ:OPTV), a leading provider of enabling technologies for advanced digital television services, today announced that SKY Italia, the largest pay television provider in Italy, has launched high definition services on OpenTV's advanced digital television middleware platform. SKY Italia started deploying HD-capable set-top boxes in early May, setting the stage for Italy's first HD transmission on May 17, 2006, of the UEFA Champion Leagues Final. SKY Italia subscribers will also be among the first to experience the upcoming 2006 FIFA World Cup in HD. Additional HD channels will be available on the platform from early July.
OpenTV has delivered to SKY Italia its advanced set-top box software to enable HD programs and HD-capable applications on both Pace and Amstrad set-top boxes. These set-top boxes will support both high definition and standard definition channels broadcast in MPEG-4 / MPEG-2 using DVB-S2. DVB-S2 is a new modulation scheme that enables a higher bit rate than was previously possible on a satellite network. The SKY Italia High Definition product supports 720p and 1080i video formats and also includes HDCP (High Definition Copy Protocol) for secure content delivery over the digital HDMI connections.
"OpenTV is powering several large-scale HD launches and digital roll-outs across Europe, with SKY Italia being one of the first to deliver the excitement of sports programming in HD," said Ben Bennett, Senior Vice President and Managing Director EMEA at OpenTV. "We look forward to further enhancing our relationship with SKY Italia and we are 100% committed to delivering the most advanced digital television solutions to this important OpenTV customer."
"High definition is the ultimate way to enjoy television. We are very excited about our launch, especially with the FIFA World Cup only weeks away. OpenTV was a natural choice as a high definition partner as we have launched our initial digital service together in addition to our PVR service, mySKY, which came to market at end of 2005," said Mark Williams, COO of SKY Italia.
About SKY Italia
SKY Italia, the Italian satellite platform fully owned by News Corp., was officially launched in July 2003. The platform currently broadcasts over 160 TV, audio, interactive and pay per view channels ranging from sports to cinema, news, entertainment, documentaries, children, music and much more. As of March 2006, SKY has more than 3,700,000 customers with 95% of the subscribers that have chosen the premium packages that include cinema and/or sports. For more information, please visit www.skytv.it.
About OpenTV
OpenTV is one of the world's leading providers of technologies and services enabling the delivery of digital and interactive television. The company's software has been integrated in over 67 million digital set-top-boxes in 96 countries. The software enables enhanced television, interactive shopping, interactive and addressable advertising, games and gaming, personal video recording, and a variety of consumer care and communication applications. For more information, please visit www.opentv.com.
Source: OpenTV Corp.
CONTACT: Barbara Cassidy of OpenTV, +1-415-962-5000, or
bcassidy@opentv.com; or Ray Yeung, yeung@braincomm.com, or Matt Hantz,
hantz@braincomm.com, both of Brainerd Communicators, Inc., +1-212-986-6667
Web site: www.opentv.com/
