SeaChange Innovates Cable's Deployed Set-Top Boxes with Nitro Now™ Subscriber Experience

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
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Next Generation Navigation Optimizes On-Demand Tier, Provides Retail Point of Purchase

ACTON, Mass. — The Cable Show 2012 — With the goal of improving the consumer experience on all video-enabled devices, SeaChange International, Inc. (NASDAQ: SEAC), the leading global multi-screen video software innovator, has released its Nitro Now™ subscriber experience set-top software. Nitro Now features a lightweight subscriber portal that dramatically enhances the industry’s deployed QAM-based set-top boxes with a subscriber interface that’s on par with other video-enabled devices, as well as newer and more advanced set-tops. Nitro Now is rolling out with several cable operators in the Americas. It will be demonstrated at The Cable Show (Boston, May 21-23, booth 1933).

Although 25 percent of all video viewing in U.S. broadband households now occurs on platforms other than the TV (i.e. PCs, smartphones and tablets), the TV remains the dominant video-enabled device in the home. Nitro Now delivers a generational leap in TV set-top box capabilities and performance beyond the popular SeaChange VODlink software, which today drives the video-on-demand experience on more than five million deployed set-top boxes. Nitro Now’s feature-rich environment includes fast launch and screen rendering and high-resolution graphics combined with highly intuitive search, discovery and previews that get subscribers to their content selections with fewer clicks.

“Nitro Now is a pre-integrated software-only solution that deploys rapidly to help our customers totally innovate the subscriber experience on their set-top boxes,” said Anthony Landamia, executive director, product management, SeaChange. “The effect is a completely contemporary experience that doesn’t require a single truck roll even for homes that last received a new set-top during the 1990s.”

Unlike competitive options, Nitro Now enables operators to customize the look and feel from end to end with branding, colors and graphics. Further, the Nitro Now experience will integrate with operators’ future IP-based whole-home services developed on SeaChange’s previously released Nitro multi-screen subscriber interface and Nucleus soft box gateway software. By providing an advanced look and feel developed in conjunction with industry-renowned design firms, NitroNow can ensure an operator’s seamless transition from their deployed set-tops to advanced set-tops and multiple devices.

Nitro Now includes SeaChange’s exclusive Watch & Buy T-commerce application, which enables operators to offer subscribers a secure environment for remote control point-of-purchase ordering of content and merchandise related to the movies and TV programs streamed to their set-top box. Options may include content locker downloads, or Blu-ray DVDs, soundtracks and video games shipped directly to subscriber homes.

Landamia continued, “Nitro Now doesn’t compromise on giving operators the capabilities they require to retain subscribers. Whereas the industry has been stunted by competitive what-you-see-is what-you-get navigation and guides, Nitro Now is extensively customizable so operators can implement their brand look and feel throughout.”

Visit SeaChange International at The Cable Show in Boston from May 21-23 for its range of multi-screen video software demonstrations including Nitro Now.