I found this article in Inter@ctive Week Online, it has a little different spin on our recent press release, including the last two paragraphs.
Mike.com, If you want to hunt down Sean Kaldor, I'll punch him in the month.
ACTV Makes Deal With SA
By Karen J. Bannan
January 25, 1999 6:37 PM ET
Interactive television provider ACTV this week signed an agreement with set-top box manufacturer Scientific-Atlanta that will bring its Individualized Television digital programming capabilities into SA's Explorer 2000 advanced digital set-top box.
The move will let Explorer 2000 users switch between multiple, real-time feeds of audio, video and data, officials said. In effect, consumers can pick their own camera angles, access additional data and listen to a separate audio feed.
"We are excited to be working with ACTV to change the way cable subscribers interact with their televisions," said Michael Harney, SA's corporate vice president and general manager of Digital Subscriber Networks.
ACTV will work to integrate its service via SA's CreativEdge Developers Program. To date, 14 cable operators including Comcast, Cox Communications and Tele-Communications Inc. have purchased or announced agreements to purchase SA's digital network and set-top boxes. Meanwhile, the company signed an agreement with its first broadcast provider, Fox Sports Net, to bring Individualized Television to its subscribers.
SA's major competitor, General Instrument, in 1997 announced a similar agreement to bring ACTV's service into GI's DCT-5000+ set-top boxes.
Last year, set-top manufacturers shipped more than 2.1 million digital set-top boxes, and 5.4 million are expected to ship this year, said Cynthia Brumfield, principal analyst at Broadband Intelligence, a market research firm.
Although analysts said the ACTV-SA agreement is a step forward for digital interactive television, one analyst cautioned that there is still a way to go.
"ACTV's solution requires a huge amount of support from broadcasters for every single program that is transmitted so having a compliant set-top is analogous to having a car with four wheels. It's a mandatory feature if you want to be in the marketplace, but it doesn't mean you've won," explained Sean Kaldor, vice president of consumer device research at International Data Corp. |
