Middleware for Digital TV: It's the intermediate software layer that allows the development of interactive applications for Digital TV, regardless of the hardware platform used by set-top box manufacturers.
Ginga: It’s the specification for the intermediary software layer standard (middleware) developed for the Brazilian Digital TV System by Puc-RJ and UFPB.
Interactivity Component: This is the term created by TQTVD to classify each and every application sent by the open Digital TV signal that allows the user to interact with the application using the receiver’s remote control.
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Rio de Janeiro, September 12th, 2008
TQTVD presents “Astro TV” in the Broadcast& Cable 2008
TQTVD was present at Broadcast & Cable 2008, the 17th edition of the main television engineering, radio, and telecommunication event in Latin America, which happened from August 27th to August 29th in Sao Paulo.
In the trade show, TQTVD presented to in receptors industry the middleware AstroTV, the commercial implementation that makes it viable to use the Ginga pattern of interactivity in the Brazilian Digital TV. The middleware AstroTV drew attention at the event, working on demonstrational set-top boxes made by Visiontec, Intel, and Certi.
Also interactive applications were presented, produced by TQTVD Professional Services, ready for the broadcaster to use it. Among the interactivity scenarios presented, the applications developed for TV Globo and SBT, which both are transmitting as experiments, and a karaoke application were the highlights.
Roberto Franco and David Britto present the interactivity in the TQTVD stand.
One of the highlights of the event was when David Britto, TQTVD’s Technical Director and Quality Software’s CEO, was visited by the Minister of Communications, Hélio Costa, accompanied by the Secretary of Communications of Argentina, Lisandro Salas, the Superintendent of Mass Communication Services of Anatel, Ara A. Minassian, and the President of SET, Roberto Franco. At the meeting, David Britto and Roberto Franco presented SBT’s Interactivity Portal in a digital convertor from the partner Visiontec, with the middleware AstroTV inside; they received several compliments by Minister for the pioneer action, considered to be an important step for Brazilian Digital TV.
In the trade show, it also was launched the Partnership Program for Development of Digital TV Interactive Applications, the AstroDevNet.