Skystream has been selected by NTT to provide headend equipment for OnDemandTV, a nationwide rollout of internet protocol based broadcast television in Japan.
OnDemandTV will use the networks of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, which provides telephone and broadband services to more than 60 million subscribers.
The service will offer over twenty broadcast channels as well as an extensive library of video on demand movies. Initially available in the Osaka metropolitan area over a fibre network using MPEG-2 compression, OnDemandTV plans to expand its service on a national scale using ADSL.
At the NAB show, SkyStream is announcing a complete MPEG-4 AVC solution, integrating its headend kit with set-top boxes from ADB, Astri, i3, Sentivision and Thomson. Also on show is a live demonstration of the Disney MovieBeam push video-on-demand distribution service which is powered by SkyStream.
Scientific-Atlanta has chosen SkyStream zBand software to provide a specialized set-top box for business television. This will use satellite distribution for video, together with file delivery for regions where internet access is unavailable.