News Corp.-owned interactive TV and conditional access technology provider, NDS, has been named by Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), as its exclusive developer of interactive TV games and enhanced TV applications for the Asia-Pacific region. The companies say that their deal will result in the deployment of interactive content for TBS’s Cartoon Network on a number of Asia-Pacific digital TV platforms. As part of the deal, NDS is supplying TBS with a range of pay-per-play games–the first of which is entitled “Powerpuff Girls Crystal Crisis” (note: the game invites viewers to help the Powerpuff Girls save Townsville from Mojo Jojo by collecting enough crystals to power up a “super-ray-gun”; in order to gather the crystals, the girls must share their powers, so that at least one of them can become airborne: viewers use the remote to collect the crystals and avoid bad guys)–for the Cartoon Network in Australia. The games are being updated on a monthly basis.
The deal also calls for NDS to supply TBS with enhanced TV applications to support its promotional activities. In the latter part of last year, the Cartoon Network’s “Eyeballs3: Triple Play” watch-and-win promotion in Australia included an NDS-built enhanced TV component, dubbed “Red Eye”: viewers were invited to watch the Cartoon Network closely at specified times to spot a series of red eyeballs that appeared briefly on-screen during programs: when they pressed the red button while a red eyeball was on the screen, they were awarded “EyeCodes,” which they could collect in order to win such prizes as a travel voucher, a shopping spree or a home entertainment system. “There will be more exciting new ITV games and promotions coming up as the partnership [between NDS and TBS] grows,” Sue Taylor, VP and general manager of NDS Asia-Pacific, said in a prepared statement.
In other NDS news:
The company says that its end-to-end solutions have been chosen by Tata Sky, an 80:20 joint venture between TATA Group and News Corp.’s STAR Group, for its planned launch of a DTH satellite-TV service in India in mid-2006. NDS’s deal with Tata Sky sees the company supplying the latter with its VideoGuard conditional access technology, which will allow it to offer multiple programming and pricing packages; and with its MediaHighway middleware and its Value@TV interactive infrastructure, which will allow it to offer a range of interactive TV applications. In addition, NDS says, a team of NDS engineers based in Bangalore will play a key role in the design, delivery and service support of the deployment. (Note: in related news: OpenTV announced last month that another Indian satellite-TV provider, Essel Group-owned Dish TV, plans to use its middleware to power ITV services.
The company says that Austria’s largest telecommunications company, Telekom Austria, has chosen its Synamedia secure IPTV and VOD solution and architecture–together with its VideoGuard content protection and DRM technology–to power its new IPTV service, aonDigital TV. The service was launched last year to a base of “friendlies” in Vienna, and is scheduled to be rolled out to a larger customer base in Vienna early this year. Other companies that have deployed NDS’s Synamedia IPTV solution include BBTV in Japan, Sistema in Russia, CYTA in Cyprus, Viasat in Sweden, Auna in Spain and SuperSun in Hong Kong. “Telekom Austria’s choice for NDS solutions was welcomed by all our content partners,” Telekom Austria’s VP of marketing, Stefan Tweraser, said in a prepared statement. “We are very proud of our aonDigital TV service. It offers a good portfolio mix of broadcasting channels, video-on-demand comprising both Hollywood and Austrian-specific content, very interesting features like photo slide shows on the TV set, and much more.”