OpenTV which claims to be the world's leading interactive television company has announced that it now has agreements with eight local partners to port its interactive software to digital TV set-top boxes designed specifically for the Chinese market. The latest agreement with Shenzen-based Coship Electronics Company Limited, which currently controls a significant percentage of the satellite and cable receiver market in China, further strengthens OpenTV's technology leadership position in the 100 million-home television market.

Additional major local Chinese set-top box manufacturing partners include Beijing Beida Jadebird, Shanghai Guangdian (SVA), Beijing Nokia Citic, Sichuan Jiuzhou, Beijing Compunicate, Shanghai DigiVision and Beijing DSP.

OpenTV provides end-to-end interactive TV solutions, including set-top box middleware, content and professional services that are localized to meet specific market requirements. OpenTV's solutions provide support for Chinese characters and character entry to local set-top box manufacturers and all approved conditional access vendors throughout China. This support gives local partners an opportunity to quickly build expertise for new and innovative services being deployed to the local market. In fact, Coship and Jiuzhou recently supplied OpenTV-powered set-top boxes to enable CCTV's interactive TV service of the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

OpenTV MD Asia Pacific region Jeff Brown said, "We believe that continued support from manufacturers, along with the combination of OpenTV's localised interactive TV solutions and its more than three years of commitment to the Chinese market, will further speed the deployment of advanced interactive television content and applications in China. We are excited to be working with partners who share our vision for high-quality, mass-media interactive TV services in China."

OpenTV's interactive television technologies, content, applications and services have been selected by many of the Asia Pacific region's leading industry participants, including: Austar in Australia, Jupiter Telecommunications Co., Ltd, in Japan, Beida Jadebird Huaguang, CBSat, CCTV, Henan Cable and Shanghai Cable in China, Sky Television in New Zealand, and consumer electronics manufacturers Sony Corporation and Matsushita. OpenTV has partnered with more than 18 manufacturers in Asia in Mainland China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea.

OpenTV's interactive television technologies work with at least four conditional access systems approved by SARFT in China and the company actively participates in the developments of digital interactive TV standards organized by SARFT in China. OpenTV is also a member of Japan Cable Laboratories, which supports development of digital cable TV technology standards in Japan, and is the only interactive TV company to provide a product that meets BML standards in Japan.


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