Invitel Delivers Network PVR, TimeShift-TV & VOD Services Using Espial MediaBase

OTTAWA — Espial® (TSX:ESP), a leader in the delivery of digital TV software, today announced that Invitel Hungary (previously Vivendi Telecom) has successfully launched and is now expanding its on-demand services using Espial MediaBase VOD servers. Espial MediaBase provides Invitel’s customers with on-demand TV services such as Video on Demand, Network-based Personal Video Recording (NPVR) and TimeshiftTV (TSTV). Invitel is the second largest service provider in Hungary and offers telephony, Internet and data services to residential and business customers.

Invitel started offering its InviTV service several months ago to complement its core telephony, Internet, and data services. Invitel is using Espial MediaBase to drive Video On Demand, Network PVR and Timeshift TV services, sometimes known as Catch-up or Startover TV and Delayed or Replay TV. A single hardware and software infrastructure helps reduce hardware servers, storage, space requirements and costs, along with overall operating costs of the system. The system integrator for this deployment was Smart Com d.o.o., a key regional partner for Espial.

“As we begin to scale our InviTV subscribers, we’re pleased to have chosen Espial MediaBase. This platform meets our requirements for scalability, application performance and service continuity” said Aron Javorniczky, Head of TV Services at Invitel. “As well, Espial MediaBase is a key ingredient in our service differentiation strategy – it allows us to offer a leading edge number of Timeshift TV and Network PVR channels. With this service mix, we’re confident we can build InviTV into a premium brand in the marketplace.”

“We are very pleased to be part of this deployment with Invitel, even more so, to see the rapid growth in customer demand so early in their deployment,” noted Robert Hopkins, Vice President of Sales for Espial in EMEA. “The Invitel success builds on our tradition of building lucrative on-demand services for our customers using Espial MediaBase. With Network PVR (NPVR) & TimeShift-TV support, operators can now offer an even richer set of services using a unified video network infrastructure. In addition to movies-on-demand, subscribers can access recordings of their favourite shows and also pause, rewind and fast-forward live, broadcast TV. As content owners come to recognise the benefits and security of NPVR, we expect to see increasing demand for Network PVR and TimeshiftTV services.”