(21 June 2008 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Tandberg Television has launched MediaModeler Content Management System solution.

The solution is designed to enable telecom operators to increase customer satisfaction and retention and also monetise their web portals with an "online video experience."

With this application, tool-kit operators can provide subscribers with a personalised user experience, along with search and discovery features, enabling converged services across TVs, PCs and mobile devices.

According to a recent research conducted by The Diffusion Group, Pay TV viewers are spending more time watching broadband 'over the top' video. Specifically, 40 per cent of broadband users are watching at least one hour of video per week on the Internet. Of those, approximately 30 per cent are watching 25 per cent or more of their TV online.

Web-based video portals, enabled by the MediaModeler Content Management System, aims to provide these broadband users with enhanced search and also help them discover and schedule capabilities in a video-enabled environment.

The Diffusion Group broadband media practice manager Colin Dixon said, "By 2012, more than 100 million households will be capable of watching broadband video on their big-screen, high-dollar, high-definition TVs, and home theater systems."

"To capture these households, IPTV providers must leverage innovative broadband video strategies in order to differentiate their offerings from today’s incumbent Pay TV operators. The new MediaModeler Content Management System from Tandberg Television is one such innovation ’ it enables blended video experiences in which subscribers can select the content they want to watch and the platform upon which they want to watch it, all through a single, customised user interface," Dixon added.

The system is designed with a flexible database structure that supports fully customisable metadata profiles.

In addition, the system is capable of automatically enhancing metadata associated with ingested video assets by interfacing with a range of 3rd party metadata services and Web 2.0 sources.

These two features form the core of the MediaModeler system and allow operators to build search and discovery video portals by simply adding support for new sources of metadata.

Tandberg Television executive VP, GM Broadband TV Business Unit Joe Franzetta said, "The Internet-connected PC is the digital hub for hundreds of millions of consumers. Connecting the PC Internet video experience to an existing television experience capitalizes on existing consumer behaviors and provides a clear opportunity for telco operators to generate revenue from their web portals."

"Since the system is aware of assets available to the viewer through the operator’s service, an operator can create end-user features that surface this content for a viewer to choose, whether the content is on linear TV, on an operator’s video on demand offering, on video sharing sites, or on premium Internet video sites, thus putting the control of when and where to watch this content into the viewer’s hands," Franzetta added.