BBC and Envivio Create Interactive MPEG-4 News Programming

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BBC to Present Interactive MPEG-4 News Content at NAB 2003 Conference in Las Vegas

BBC News Interactive, the 24-hour online and interactive television news service from the BBC, and Envivio, Inc., a leading provider of MPEG-4 broadcast and streaming solutions, announced today a plan to trial interactive MPEG-4 technology. BBC News Interactive have developed a model which, were it deployed, would stream interactive MPEG-4 content to customers who would then be able to view the streams using Windows Media, RealNetworks or QuickTime players using an appropriate plug-in.

The trial service will consist of special edition interactive content created by the editors of the BBC’s Newsnight programme. The MPEG-4 content has been authored by developers at the BBC in London using the Envivio Broadcast Studio, a professional authoring and compositing tool for interactive content. The content will be streamed using the Envivio Streaming Server, a powerful MPEG-4 server built to stream live and stored interactive content.

The BBC News interactive development team will be demonstrating the interactive MPEG-4 content they created and discussing their views of MPEG-4 interactivity at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention, April 7-10, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Russell Merryman and Cliff Wooton will be presenting a paper entitled “Interactive Television News Services - The beginning of a revolution” at 4.30pm on April 7th, 2003, during the Broadcast Engineering Conference session on Digital Storage and Asset Management for Broadcast Content.

“We understand the power of the MPEG-4 standard and its ability to create highly interactive content that is based on a single non-proprietary format,” said Russell Merryman, Interactive Television Development Manager at BBC News. “The principle of authoring once and publishing everywhere is becoming a vital part of our production systems for TV, radio and online content.”

“We are proud to be working with a world leader in program production and a pioneer in Internet and iTV media delivery,” said Julien Signes, president and CTO of Envivio. “The highly advanced interactive capabilities of MPEG-4 are allowing BBC News Interactive to explore new, more compelling content delivery methods.”

About Envivio

Envivio is a leading provider of complete MPEG-4 solutions, which consist of a rich set of integrated streaming media tools and systems including high- performance audio and video, two-dimensional graphics, and animation. The company has established itself as the most experienced creator of high-quality MPEG-4 solutions that enable broadcasters, network operators, and content developers to build new revenue streams and use the efficiencies of delivering content to the full range of MPEG-4 capable devices. The Envivio solution includes various components to create, encode, protect, distribute, and view MPEG-4 content. For more information, please visit the Envivio website at www.envivio.com.

About BBC News Interactive

Since it was first formed as a company in 1922, five years before it received its first Royal Charter and became the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC has been a world leader in programme production. It has pioneered communications in radio, television and online technologies. BBC News Interactive is responsible for the BBC News website, one of the most popular Internet news resources in the world. It launched a 24×7 interactive television news service on digital satellite in November 2001, and regularly provides iTV enhancements for a number of its programmes on all digital platforms including satellite, cable, digital terrestrial and broadband-to-TV. These pages reveal some of the BBC’s rich heritage - the great programmes of the past, the big themes of the present and the innovating spirit in which we enter the future. The BBC’s landmarks are part of the tapestry of our lives.

NOTE: Envivio, the Envivio logo, and EnvivioTV are trademarks of Envivio, Inc. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. All trademarks used herein, whether recognized or not, are the properties of their respective companies.

Web site: http://www.envivio.com/

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