Alticast, Strategy & Technology and UniSoft Demonstrate Interactive TV Applications for ATSC at NAB 2015

Companies Leverage ATSC to Enable Broadcasters to Deliver new Interactive TV

and Advertising Applications

Alticast, Strategy & Technology (S&T) and UniSoft are partnering to demonstrate how the companies combined technologies enable broadcasters to deliver ATSC Interactive applications by overlaying graphics onto their video content.  This combined tool set and complete framework brings together TV and web technologies to give broadcasters the means to deliver a new generation of iTV services and advanced advertising applications. The demonstration will take place at S&T (N1122) and Alticast’s booth (N1223), April 13-16, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

This joint demonstration takes advantage of the triggers provided in ATSC that enable broadcasters to synchronize applications with programming content.  The demonstration includes an Alticast enabled set-top box (STB) running the company’s TV Ready User Agent (TVRUA), which provides a robust browser and application life cycle control for managing applications.  S&T’s tools insert ATSC triggers into recorded and live content, and Alticast has integrated the ability to recognize these triggers and facilitate the launch of web-based HTML5 applications.  These applications can be delivered from web servers to the screen providing a broadcast solution for interactive TV.

S&T’s new OnScreen Publisher and the Alticast TVPlay application store can be used by application developers to create, manage, monitor and release applications for broadcaster use.  These web-based applications can provide interaction to the viewer, and collect input response so results can be aggregated and reported back to the broadcaster.  Tablet and mobile interactions can also be designed as part of the application.

UniSoft has worked together with S&T and Alticast to produce a complete turnkey solution, which is being made available to the broadcast stations for creating and delivering interactive applications. Reality TV voting, campaign polling and advertising call-to-actions are examples of the types of interactive applications broadcasters could deploy. 

“The new iTV capabilities of ATSC are huge for broadcasters who are eager to offer a more interactive TV experience for viewers and advertisers,” said John Carlucci, President and CTO of Alticast U.S.  “Together with our partners S&T and UniSoft, we are showing broadcasters how our joint solution enables them to take advantage of ATSC to deliver a range of interactive TV and advertising applications.”

“We are delighted to be working with Alticast to bring this demonstration to NAB. The use of OnScreen Publisher and our trigger insertion toolsets has enabled us to provide a compelling demonstration of the interactivity that ATSC makes available to broadcasters,” said Adrian Fowkes, Engineering Director at Strategy & Technology.

"Interactive application on broadcast TV is a great way of enhancing viewing and generating additional revenue for the stations.  It is a pleasure to work with Alticast and S&T on this endeavor, " said Guy Hadland, CTO of UniSoft Corporation.