Products / Services

New MPEG-4 Content Aggregation Service to Reduce Expense and Speed Time to Market for IPTV Service Providers

Reston, Virginia, March 17, 2008 - Avail Media, Inc. today announced a collaboration with Motorola to deliver MWAVE™ ("MPEG-4 Wide Area Video Entertainment"), a combination of equipment and services that will enable IPTV service providers to rapidly launch new entertainment services over their high speed data networks.

MWAVE is capable of transporting Avail Media's more than 200 standard definition (SD) channels and more than 20 channels of high definition (HD) content for access by operators who want to quickly launch a suite of television services without the capital expense and time constraints of building a complete video headend.

"At Avail Media, we have made a major commitment to secure transport rights to North America's most sought-after content and to establish a world-class national video processing facility for distribution to Motorola subscribers," said Jon Romm, Chief Operating Officer of Avail Media. "We're excited about the opportunity to work with Motorola to speed the rollout of IPTV networks in North America."

MWAVE™ brings together all the elements required to launch competitive IPTV entertainment services to end customers. MPEG-4 content distribution is provided via Avail Media's Avail Connect™ service, which originates at Avail Media's state-of-the-art super headend uplinks in Hagerstown, Maryland, and Toronto, Canada. Avail Media's service is combined with elements of Motorola's extensive IPTV portfolio, including set-tops, encoders, systems integration services, and program management for video hub office components, including third-party middleware and digital rights management.

"MWAVE provides an excellent mix of equipment and services that allows service providers to continue to accelerate their IPTV network launch plans while controlling capex and opex levels," said Doug Means, corporate vice president and general manager, Motorola's Home and Networks Mobility business. "By adding MWAVE to our IPTV portfolio, we can offer our customers the option of either building their own headend or choosing to use a hosted service from Avail. Both options provide access to our video solutions expertise and best in class set top solutions."

Service providers adopting MWAVE™ need only construct their local video hub offices where local content, such as off-air channels, public, educational, and government (PEG) channels, and emergency alert services are merged with the supplied national linear channels to construct a comprehensive channel lineup. To accelerate network build-outs, Motorola offers "pre-packaged" video hub offices so that fully-configured and compatible equipment can be integrated and deployed rapidly in service provider serving areas to offer service in customers' targeted communities.

Motorola is the acknowledged leader in video network solutions, having deployed more than 2,500 digital headends in both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. This leadership extends to IPTV headends and cable video networks. As a result, more programmers in North America deploy Motorola satellite video delivery network solutions than any other solution. Motorola is also a world leader in digital set tops, having shipped more than 60 million cable set-tops and more than two million IPTV set tops.

Founded in early 2007, Avail Media is the emerging leader in providing managed content aggregation services through a fully-integrated, head-end infrastructure for the profitable deployment of IP video. Avail Media is the only company today to deliver to its customers a combined MPEG-4 linear IPTV and Video On Demand (VOD) solution. The Avail Media solution includes a full line-up of live television programming with hundreds of channels, all quality-encoded in MPEG-4, IP-encapsulated, encrypted, combined with VOD, and designed for future value-added services. Avail Media possesses an extensive content library, including transport rights from the top national programmers, including ABC-Disney, Turner, NBC Universal, MTV Networks, Fox Cable Networks, which is complemented by its VOD rights from the major Hollywood movie studios, such as Buena Vista/Disney, DreamWorks, Lionsgate Films, MGM, NBC Universal, New Line Cinema, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Bros. The company also offers a proprietary software suite, ViewTrak™, which allows both customers and content providers the ability to track programming activations on a real-time basis. Avail Media's system has been designed for use by video providers of multiple types - whether triple-play, quad-play, or pure video play. For more information, please visit www.availmedia.com.