Portugal Telecom Selects Envivio to Power Innovative Internet TV Service

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
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Envivio Three Screens’ High Quality of Service with Support for Microsoft Silverlight, IIS Smooth Streaming and PlayReady DRM Enable Portugal Telecom MEO@PC to Move Quickly from Concept to Rollout

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Envivio Inc. today announced that Portugal Telecom (PT) [Lisbon: PTC; NYSE: PT], the largest telecommunications and broadband service provider in Portugal, selected Envivio’s Three Screens delivery platform to support the commercial rollout of MEO@PC–a complete television service for delivery to PCs. The service relies on Envivio’s complete Internet TV solution, including 4Caster™ C4 encoders configured to deliver content via Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) Smooth Streaming and Silverlight, protected with PlayReady DRM, providing subscribers with high quality video and playback delivered over broadband. After an initial trial period, PT plans to offer subscribers a channel lineup and interactivity that mirrors its MEO@TV service throughout Portugal.

“Subscribers have been thrilled with the experience offered by our IPTV service. MEO has reached 581,000 clients in less than two years,” said Pedro Leitao, board member at Portugal Telecom, “and we want to bring that same MEO experience, enabled by Microsoft MediaRoom, to everyone in Portugal by delivering it over the Internet, reinforcing our multi-platform strategy. Envivio earned our trust during our Mobile TV rollout, proving that they know how to deliver great quality video service at very low bitrates. The close cooperation between Microsoft and Envivio, particularly in enabling the deployment of PlayReady DRM, brought the whole MEO@PC project together, allowing us to complete it in record time.”

“While compelling interactivity and high quality video are essential to pleasing subscribers, content protection is a critical requirement for service providers to deliver the premium video content consumers are demanding,” said Jonathan Usher, marketing director for the Media Platforms Business at Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT). “The development of a seamless interface between Envivio’s 4Caster C4 platform and Microsoft PlayReady Servers means that innovative services such as PT MEO@PC can move forward knowing that all of these components for secure delivery of high quality content are covered.”

The Internet TV headend at PT uses Envivio 4Caster C4 encoders to simultaneously process video at a variety of resolutions. This enables PT to use Microsoft IIS Smooth Streaming adaptive streaming technology for Silverlight, which ensures viewers receive uninterrupted video live play at the highest quality possible given variable network bandwidth and PC processing conditions. The Envivio encoders directly ingest the same sources as Portugal Telecom’s IPTV service, enabling the MEO@PC service to mirror PT’s IPTV channel lineup without requiring additional interfaces.

Microsoft and Envivio have developed a dedicated interface between the Envivio 4Caster C4(2) encoder and Microsoft PlayReady DRM Server to in order to secure delivery of high-value content while ensuring complete transparency for subscribers. The Envivio 4Manager network management system provides complete system monitoring and redundancy management to maintain 24/7 service availability.

“Portugal Telecom is demonstrating a keen understanding of what today’s consumer wants, which is to have access to their favorite TV services whenever and wherever they want,” said Envivio Vice President of Marketing Boris Felts. “Envivio’s Internet TV solution brings the highest quality video experience to PC screens, ensuring that MEO@PC will far exceed consumer expectations.”