Boxer MHEG Announcement Welcomed by IMPALA

LONDON, UK — Giri Valliappan, Director of Market Development with IMPALA, the International MHEG Promotion Alliance, has welcomed the recent announcement by Sweden-based pay-TV group Boxer that it has selected MHEG-5 as the interactive middleware to be included in all products marketed to receive its TV packages.

“Our selection of MHEG-5 is in no small part based on the fact that Boxer has won the license to provide pay-TV services via digital terrestrial television in Ireland when the system launches next year. With MHEG-5 to be deployed there by RTE for some of their services this makes complete sense for us,” explains Peter Johnsson, Manager, TV Technology, Boxer TV-Access AB.

“In addition we want to reach a unified technical specification that allows receiver products to flow between the markets in which we operate although at the moment neither Sweden nor Denmark use MHEG-5. Furthermore, it is by far the most deployed API in the DTT world with millions of users as well as the fact that it is pre-installed in the majority of IDTVs sold in Europe,” continues Johnsson.

“This is a tremendous further validation of the effort put in to the development of MHEG-5 and its rollout across the market. It also highlights the confidence that key suppliers are now placing in it and its ability to provide services that viewers actually use,” says Valliappan.

MHEG-5 is a public standard with country or region-specific profiles. Both free-to-air and pay-TV broadcasters are now looking into and deploying MHEG-5 as a low-cost middleware solution for rollout over terrestrial, satellite and cable platforms. IMPALA’s role is to provide guidance and advice to ensure the standard is adopted and implemented correctly and to expand its reach globally.

The founder members of IMPALA are Strategy & Technology (S&T), Cabot Communications and EchoStar Europe.