OpenTV adopts Alticast for MHP compatibility

OpenTV will integrate MHP software from Alticast into its core middleware for interactive television, according to informitv.com. It is a move that is of real significance for the DVB -MHP community, as it offers further evidence of the iTV industry embracing open standards, even for companies that had opted for proprietary solutions in the past.

In contrast with the Java-based open standard MHP, OpenTV software is a proprietary solution. Applications developed for MHP can be authored once and run on any DVB -MHP compliant set-top box on any platform.

The Alticast AltiCaptor extension to OpenTV Core will offer network operators an MHP solution that is fully compliant with DVB standards in Euope and Asia . The OCAP standard gradually being adopted by the cable industry in the United States is also based on MHP via the Globally Executable MHP (GEM) specification.

The integrated solution from OpenTV and Alticast will provide network operators with access to the capabilities of OpenTV Core for the management of their set-top boxes and enable standards-based MHP applications to run in the same environment. It will also allow set-top box manufacturers to add MHP capabilities to products that already support OpenTV Core.