SkyStream, a TANDBERG Television Company and leader in IP video delivery solutions, announced a new version of its groundbreaking zBand software -- zBand 6.0 -- that allows service providers to use the Internet and other unicast networks to distribute movies and other content on demand and implements "smartloading," a new form of intelligent downloading of video content.

ReelTime Media Ltd. is the first customer of zBand 6.0, and will use the content delivery platform to deliver a video-on-demand (VOD) service to major metropolitan areas in Australia over broadband Internet connections.

"The new Internet delivery capability of zBand allows us to massively scale our service to millions of viewers," said John Karantzis, managing director of ReelTime Media. "zBand's new set of subscriber and network management features allow us to deliver a unique experience to every user, which will improve take rates and increase the revenue generated from the service."

Service providers can use zBand 6.0 -- the world's most widely-deployed PUSH VOD software with more than 32 satellite, over-the-air datacast and DVB broadcast deployments worldwide -- to deliver movies and other content over hybrid networks, including any combination of multicast, broadcast or unicast networks; making zBand the most flexible, fully-featured PUSH VOD software available today.

Other select new features of zBand 6.0 include:

• Access Manager. This capability allows service providers to target content to individual users within an audience of 1 million or more, and manage security and content delivery for each user from the headend. Since the zBand client can be loaded onto any device with storage capacity, including mobile devices, the access manager allows subscribers to use multiple devices for content access, and gives the service provider the ability to assign different preferences or policies to each device.
• Smartloading. This feature allows zBand to rank incoming content, and gives control over when content is delivered, viewable, watched and deleted. This is a stark contrast to basic FTP-based distribution schemes used by many VOD services. These basic "dumbloading" schemes give the service provider no control over what is downloaded or when, which often results in overloaded networks at peak times and periodic inaccessibility to content.
• Remote Distribution Servers. zBand 6.0 creates a content delivery network (CDN) for the operator that supports remote distribution servers (RDS), which can be deployed at the edge of service provider networks to store popular titles and frequently accessed content. By placing the content closer to homes, the remote distribution servers alleviate network congestion that can affect picture quality and download times and provide faster response times for user requests, creating a better user experience.

"Time to market is critical in staking out Internet video turf and zBand's new Internet distribution makes it very easy, and inexpensive for any service provider to set up a PUSH VOD service," said Claude Dupuis, vice president of engineering for SkyStream. "zBand 6.0 gives service providers control over content, distribution and device to ensure a superior end user experience."

Demonstrations, Pricing and Availability

zBand 6.0 will be available in May. SkyStream will offer demonstrations of the product April 24-27 in Booth SL2987 here at the NAB conference and tradeshow.