New app offering for pay-TV operators powered by Opera
Amino Communications, leaders in IPTV, is to partner with web company Opera Software in the delivery of the new Amino TV App Store for its Live Home Media Centre – powered by Opera Software’s Opera TV Store application platform, and providing hundreds of free apps in a simple to integrate new service layer for pay-TV operators.
Showcasing at IBC 2013, the Amino TV App Store offers great “lean-back” content accessible by a standard TV remote, including Vimeo, Dailymotion channels and a wide range of gaming, entertainment and infotainment apps – all pre-certified by Opera for immediate use.
An Amino API enables the app store to be easily integrated with a wide range of middleware solutions, delivering a seamless user experience when moving between middleware and apps. Operators can also customize the app store experience for their customers – selecting which apps to provide, adding their own apps and creating an app storefront with their own branding.
This is the latest enhancement to the Live Home Media Centre, which has been shortlisted for the Connected World TV awards at IBC. Combining dual-core processing power with multi-screen distribution, the Live device delivers content seamlessly to TVs, smartphones and tablets around the home.
The Opera TV Store HTML5 application platform offers audiences a rich selection of entertaining HTML5-based apps optimized for connected TV, from video apps, music and games to social media, news and utilities. The new breakthrough Opera TV Snap technology, which transforms online video content into ready-to-run TV apps for the Opera TV Store in less than a minute, has also attracted more than 100 app submissions since its market launch in July.
Amino CEO Donald McGarva said: “Operators are constantly looking for ways to enhance their service offerings to attract and retain customers. Our new Amino TV App Store – powered by Opera – delivers a great ‘lean-back’ TV experience with the opportunity to grow and develop great content over time.
“Opera is a long-standing partner of ours and we were very impressed with both the ease of integration and quality of content which we believe will deliver a compelling new entertainment service layer for our customers.”
Aneesh Rajaram, Senior Vice-President for TV & Devices, Opera Software, said: “We are excited to see a long-term partner like Amino join us in bringing the Opera TV Store solution to the operator market. This new cooperation means a lower barrier to entry and faster time to market for pay-TV operators seeking to offer a TV application platform with lots of entertaining content for their consumers.”
The Opera TV ecosystem offers more than just the Opera TV Store, with the Opera TV web browser and Opera Devices SDK powering the web experience on hundreds of millions of devices for more than 50 customers, including Sony, Samsung, Philips, TiVo, TCL, Sharp, Loewe, Boxee, Freesat+, Vestel and Altech.
Visitors to IBC can see the Amino App Store at Amino’s stand – hall 14, booth 120 – in the Connected World area. Opera Software will be in the same hall at booth 111. To arrange a commercial or media meeting with Opera Software, contact zlauder [at] opera.com.