S&T Demonstrates Hybrid Pay TV at IBC

Strategy & Technology Ltd (S&T), the international interactive multi-screen specialists, will be demonstrating and discussing its technologies to bring innovative new services to interactive television and other screen-based platforms at IBC 2014 (Amsterdam, 12–16 September). With growing global interest in hybrid broadcast broadband television, S&T will be showing complete solutions for streaming premium content, interactivity and application development. 

Known worldwide for its excellence in MHEG-5 interactive systems, S&T is now extending that expertise into new content platforms, including HbbTV, HTML 5, mobile and smart TV applications. With the growing use of connected televisions, consumers are increasingly expecting to choose the content they watch as well as where and when they watch it. Meeting this expectation requires an underlying platform for streaming and protecting the content, and giving consumers seamless access to it. 

The S&T solution means that it is practical to develop common applications for smartphones, tablets and smart TVs and other Internet-connected platforms. S&T’s recent acquisition of OnScreen Publishing gives it a development environment that allows designers to create applications via an easy-to-use user interface, without having to necessarily concern themselves with the underlying code. 

“Hybrid pay TV will be the next big revolution,” said David Cutts, managing director of S&T. “Consumers like the idea of free-to-air broadcasting, supplemented with premium pay services. We allow content providers to meet that need, either with our products or through Synapse TV, our managed software as a service (SaaS) offering. 

“A critical part of the technology is securing the content, and in our Bastion system we have a unique and cost effective way of protecting content,” he added. “At IBC we are looking forward to talking to broadcasters, platform operators and content providers from around the world about new services, based around hybrid pay TV delivered to multiple screens.”