Ziggo, the largest cable operator in The Netherlands with 2.2 million digital TV subscribers, has picked ActiveVideo Networks' CloudTV virtual set-top box platform to deliver an advanced VOD user interface from the network.
Under the agreement, Ziggo will use the CloudTV H5 platform to initially deploy video-on-demand navigation and guide functionality -- including enhanced search, discovery and previews -- to existing set-top boxes. The deal represents ActiveVideo's first win with a major European operator.
"Service providers deploying advanced navigation, guides and other content need long-term, flexible solutions that will support any current or future device," Ronald Brockmann, ActiveVideo's managing director for Europe, said in a statement. "The selection of CloudTV will allow Ziggo to deliver rich, engaging services without replacing existing set-top boxes."
ActiveVideo made the announcement at IBC2012 in Amsterdam, where the vendor will show off the CloudTV portfolio of products. Demos are set to include the HTML5-based user interface ActiveVideo developed for Comcast, which the MSO is currently testing in Chattanooga, Tenn.
The CloudTV platform has been deployed to about 10 million set-tops and devices with Cablevision Systems, Oceanic Time Warner Cable in Hawaii and other operators, as well as on Philips-brand Internet TVs.
San Jose, Calif.-based ActiveVideo last month scored a legal victory against Verizon Communications, after a federal appeals court upheld the monetary damages awarded to the vendor in its patent litigation with the telco. ActiveVideo sued Verizon in 2010 over four patents, after the telco filed suit against Cablevision - ActiveVideo's biggest customer -- alleging patent infringement.
In 2009, ActiveVideo acquired Avinity Systems, a Netherlands-based provider of tools for TV service providers to deliver Web content. Brockmann was director and co-founder of Avinity.
