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 Video on Demand
IMagic and nCUBE team up for ADSL VOD
December 2001 - January 2002

At the beginning of October nCUBE Corporation and iMagicTV agreed to develop and market their products as an integrated solution for the delivery of digital television services. The companies also announced that Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) and Media Corporation of Singapore (MediaCorp) will use nCUBE's n4 streaming media appliance coupled with iMagicTVs DTV Manager software to deploy video-on-demand (VOD) and other interactive television (iTV) services in an upcoming trial.

NCUBE's hypercube interconnect architecture provides extensive scalability, reliability and flexibility for applications such as broadband VOD, NVOD, television time-shifting and network personal video recording (nPVR). nCUBE and iMagicTV will focus their initial joint efforts on developing an integrated personal video recorder (PVR) solution, featuring nCUBE's nVS 3.5 network PVR software and iMagicTV's Virtual VCR software. nCUBEs nVS 3.5 software supports nPVR through real-time encoding and scheduled capture functionality.

As part of a nPVR solution, iMagicTV's Virtual VCR software will allow users to record programs in a service provider's network and play them when wanted. This can be done without the need to upgrade to a new version of the set-top box currently delivering television services over broadband. Now under development, Virtual VCR will allow the user to record multiple programs simultaneously, record a full program even after it has started, and record future programs via an interactive program guide and/or remote control. Service providers can define the service through an administrative interface to meet the needs of their customers.

Utilising the nCUBE n4 streaming media appliance, nCUBE's nPVR system is able to record a week's worth of television programming for up to 200 digital channels simultaneously. The system uses servers in the network to provide the same services that client-side PVRs provide, including VCR control (pause, rewind, fast forward) over live television, and the ability to record and store multiple television programs. The companies will develop solutions targeted towards telecommunications companies and independent service providers offering digital television, pay-per-view (PPV), VOD and Web-based content over broadband networks.

For the SingTel and MediaCorp iTV trial, nCUBE will provide its n4 streaming media appliance, which allows subscribers to view a wide range of on-demand television and movie options with full VCR functionality, including pause, rewind and fast-forward capabilities. iMagicTVs DTV Manager software will serve as SingTel and MediaCorps multi-channel television and VOD management applications for the trial.

SingTel and MediaCorp have jointly launched a six to eight month interactive trial to 300 households in the areas of Ang Mo Kio, Bishan and Thomson in Singapore. VOD will be delivered over an Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) infrastructure at 3 to 5 Mbps. SingTel and MediaCorp will also initially offer television commerce, e-mail, Internet access and information services. SingTel and MediaCorp are also keen to provide a service where users are permitted to record programs, but only when the rights to do so have been granted by the content owner.

"We are looking forward to continuing our work with iMagicTV in the integration of our VOD and nPVR solutions," said Michael Pohl, President, nCUBE. And we applaud SingTel and MediaCorp's efforts to bring advanced interactive services to Singapore."

SingTel is highly regarded as a leading-edge telecommunications company, eager to deliver innovative services to their customers. We are extremely excited about our trial with SingTel and MediaCorp, said Marcel LeBrun, President and CEO, iMagicTV. In addition, we believe this alliance with nCUBE will assist us in advancing the capabilities of Virtual VCR, as well as our other interactive television applications."

nCUBE provides scalable streaming media solutions to all broadband networks. Its core product line, the n4 streaming media appliance, can scale from 100 Mbps to 128 GBps of streaming media from a single system. Customers and partners currently include: Alcatel, AT&T, Bertelsmann, Enron Broadband Services, Cisco Systems, Charter Communications, Gemstar-TV Guide, Liberate, Motorola, Scientific-Atlanta, RealNetworks, Telewest Communications and Time Warner.

In addition nCUBE is involved in numerous industry forums and standards bodies including the ISO/IEC MPEG committee, Digital Video Broadcasting, Society of Cable Television Engineers and Internet Engineering Task Force.

iMagicTV of Canada provides software products and related services that enable telephone companies and other service providers to deliver multi-channel digital television and interactive media services to their subscribers over a broadband network infrastructure. iMagicTVs software can be deployed over high-speed broadband networks including ADSL, VDSL, wireless, Ethernet and Fibre to the Home (FTTH) technologies.

IMagic demonstrated its broadband solutions as the NTCA Business Briefing, and the USTA Annual Exhibition and Convention. iMagicTV is a member of both organisations.

The company demonstrated its deployed broadband television software solution, DTV Manager at both events. DTV Manager is the company's flagship product - an end-to-end software solution for the management of multi-channel television, Video-on-Demand and other interactive services.

NTCA's Business Briefing, entitled, Video Over Copper: The Cable TV Alternative, took place at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown in Indianapolis, Indiana, on October 4 and 5th, 2001. This event examined the emerging trend of a single service providers delivering multi-channel broadcast television, video-on-demand, pay-per-view, and high-speed Internet connectivity over existing telephone networks.