As the global market leader in technologies for digital pay-TV, NDS has a wealth of new solutions to enhance the viewers’ TV watching experience. Consumers will be able to use the latest technology to connect to social networking sites on their TV and chat with their friends, all on a range of portable devices.

Content Recommendations

Content recommendation caters to the expectations of sophisticated users and at the same time provides a user experience that can be used by less tech-savvy viewers. These recommendations will reduce user frustration when selecting what to watch from the large programming and on-demand line-ups.

Consumers can receive recommendations based on their viewing preferences. Operators can address subscribers according to their viewing habits and can see which programme recommendations have the highest viewer take-up.

This application provides operators with a powerful way to encourage and direct subscribers to preview new shows and new premium services, such as pay per view movies (PPV) and VOD.

Viewers see a pop up screen suggesting for example, that if they like certain documentary series, then they may also like certain history programmes. Recommendations can include a programme synopsis, a programme review and a user rating. Subscribers can then preview the content that they might be interested in viewing.

Operators can thus obtain more revenue from these premium services and at the same time, keep their subscribers engaged.

Interaction with the web and social networking sites

NDS designs user interfaces that link TV into social networking and information sites on the web, making content more relevant to viewers. Viewers can watch a programme and at the same time, chat on screen with their Facebook friends about the content they are currently viewing, post updates to their contacts on Twitter, view video clips and search the internet for more information on their favourite TV programmes. For example, fans who are watching a sports programme can search the internet for information on that player, view video clips of previous games and chat to their friends about the scores. Viewers also have the option of using ‘catch up TV’ to replay shots they may have missed, in a small window on their TV, while watching the current programme.

Infinite TV

Using the Infinite TV platform, operators can deliver downloadable premium content to a wide range of consumer electronics devices.

Through Infinite TV, consumers are able to view a wide range of premium content, for free, over the open internet funded by innovative targeted advertising.

Infinite TV can run on any internet-connected device including PCs, hybrid STBs, integrated digital TV sets, portable media players (PMPs) and smart-phones. To start enjoying the benefits of Infinite TV, users simply register their details and devices online enabling them to view content and move it across from their lap top to their PMP, TV or mobile phone and share with other family members.

Operators are able to use the Infinite TV infrastructure to add another delivery platform to their existing portfolio, enabling them to deliver a variety of TV programming to users over the internet.

iPhone Remote Control

This NDS application transforms the iPhone into a set-top box (STB) or Digital Video Recorder (DVR) remote control. In addition to regular TV remote control functions, there are two other key parts to the iPhone application, a dedicated keyword “search” feature to assist users in finding future programming and the inclusion of multimedia information from internet sites such as Wikipedia, LocateTV and YouTube.

Viewers who are outside of the home or travelling can use their iPhone to preview, book recordings on the move, so that they need never miss their favourite shows.

Viewers will soon be able to benefit from these next-generation NDS enhancements to enjoy the latest content on multiple devices. Operators will be able to attract new subscribers and increase their revenues with these premium-tier subscription services, while at the same time ensuring that their current subscribers remain hooked on these innovative applications.