Opera’s HbbTV 2.0 SDK is now shipped on the first Freeview Play devices in the UK
Opera TV announced that Humax’s new set-top boxes, unveiled last week, will be the first live deployment of its HbbTV 2.0 SDK. Humax’s new set-top boxes are the first Freeview-Play-enabled devices. The Freeview Play service on Humax set-top boxes uses the latest HbbTV specification, giving U.K. viewers easy access to both linear and on-demand content, including catch-up TV services such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, Channel 4’s All 4, and Channel 5’s Demand 5.
In September 2015 at IBC, Opera announced it was the first company to offer the ready-to-deploy Hybrid Broadcast and Broadband TV (HbbTV) 2.0 SDK to TV OEMs and set-top box manufacturers. HbbTV 2.0 is based on HTML5, aligning it with modern internet standards, which enables broadcasters to offer their viewers advanced experiences for digital streaming over linear programming.
A strong partnership, deep-rooted in modern technology, comes together to enable Freeview Play
“The Opera TV SDK has been deployed on millions of Humax set-top boxes since 2011,” says Graham North, Commercial Director, Humax, “Opera and Humax were once again quick to adapt to new market developments, making us the first to bring consumers advanced products with superior performance.”
Opera’s HbbTV 2.0 SDK is built on top of Opera’s TV SDK, which is highly optimized for Smart TV and set-top box hardware and supports a wide range of standards and use cases. The SDK brings the industry’s latest HTML5 capabilities to TV, and includes Opera’s Unified Video Architecture (UVA), which supports all major video streaming standards in use by content owners, allowing for playback of popular consumer OTT services.
“We’re delighted today, as our agility in building a complex, industry-first product – and our strong partnership with Humax – has resulted in a win for consumers and the industry at large,” says Aneesh Rajaram, Senior Vice-President for TV and Devices at Opera. “Opera TV continues to work hard to empower content owners, device manufacturers and service providers to offer the most compelling proposition for their consumers. And, with HbbTV 2.0 now live in the market, we expect more OEMs and set-top box manufacturers to deploy this standard in the coming months,” Rajaram adds.
About HUMAX
HUMAX, founded in 1989, is a global leading gateway provider, delivering high quality Video Gateway, Broadband Gateway, Digital Set-top Box and Digital Video Recorder over 80 countries in PayTV and Broadband industries. The company headquarters and R&D center are based in Korea, with 18 overseas offices including U.S, U.K, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Japan, India, Australia and Brazil. HUMAX recorded $1.4 billion of revenue in 2014 and employs more than 1000 people across the world. For more information, please visit www.humaxdigital.com.
About Opera TV
The Opera TV portfolio powers rich web experiences on tens of millions of Smart TVs, set-top boxes, Blu-ray Disc players and chipsets for more than 60 customers, including Sony, TiVo, Samsung, Amazon, Swisscom, TCL and Sharp. Tap into the complete suite of tools for creating compelling connected-TV experiences. The Opera TV ecosystem spans the Opera TV Store app platform with hundreds of entertaining apps tailor-made for TV, Opera Devices SDK (software development kit) for creating and rendering HTML5-based user interfaces, and the Opera TV browser for reaching the full web. Opera TV offers solutions for OEMs, pay-TV operators, broadcasters and content publishers. With the Opera Mediaworks advertising platform, Opera TV can help monetize and drive traffic to content through an end-to-end advertising solution. Visit www.opera.com/tv/ to learn more.