Espial TV Browser Powers Hitachi Connected TV Experience

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011
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OTTAWA, Ontario — Espial (TSX:ESP), a leader in On-Demand TV solutions, today announced Hitachi (Tokyo:6501; NYSE:HIT) is shipping their latest Connected TV models into the Japanese market powered by the Espial TV Browser. To assist with their goal of being one of the premium TV suppliers to the Japanese Market, Hitachi has incorporated the Espial TV Browser which is included in the following Connected TV models shipped to only Japanese market: Hitachi P42-XP07(PDP), P46-XP07(PDP), P50-XP07(PDP), L32-XP07(LCD), L37-XP07(LCD), and L42-XP07(LCD).

  • Working with Espial, Hitachi is the first manufacturer to ship a Connected TV in Japan.
  • Espial TV Browser is the first WebKit-based browser to support the following standards and web portals: BML, AcTVila with full VOD download and VOD streaming capabilities, Yahoo Doga, Wooonet(Portal site). In addition, users can input the url so they can visit the website of thier choice.
  • The Espial TV Browser is capable of operating in both HTML and BML modes. This reduces ROM resources since it’s one-codebase for two browsers instead of two code bases for two browsers.
  • The architecture of Espial TV Browser provides the best performance for web page loading and scrolling. As well, it provides intuitive 2D navigation by remote control.

“We were impressed with the performance of the Espial TV Browser at first sight. Hitachi is committed to open standards and we believe that WebKit is the ideal foundation for the web TV experience” noted Kenji Katsumata, General Manager, Visual Technology Solutions Digital AV Products Division, Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co. Ltd. “The Espial TV Browsers offers a powerful platform for us to extend our capabilities to web video capabilities in the future based on HTML5 video and Adobe Flash10.1.”

“We are pleased to help Hitachi take a market leadership postion in the Connected TV experience for Japanese consumers” said Yukio Kanemori, Japan Country Sales Director, Espial. “We look forward to working with them to continue bringing the full web experience to Hitachi TVs.”