ASIA : Novarra announced that 3 Hong Kong has launched a new premium service to deliver full streaming video from the web, using its Vision Internet Platform. 3 Hong Kong’s customers can now seamlessly select and watch millions of videos from the web, using their existing handsets. The Vision product suite now includes advanced real time transformation of web videos into mobile-compatible formats across the range of 2.5G and 3G handsets. The service provides access to the full web, a PC-quality video experience and a dramatic reduction in network bandwidth — all of which are required for broad consumer deployments.
Using the service, consumers can watch any video on popular web sites such as YouTube and Facebook and is available at launch on 25 deployed handsets. The video service will be included in the new 3Xplorer 2.0 package, a premium offering priced at HK$10 on top of the 3Xplorer service which is offered at HK$28 per month. The 3Xplorer 2.0 service is built using products developed by Novarra for multi-media and for web that are based on the company’s core Vision Internet Platform.
Novarra’s Vision Media Server provides real-time transformation of video content, from any PC format to industry standard mobile formats, while optimizing for the specific device and media player capabilities. In addition, the server dynamically adapts video encoding rates to achieve optimal quality based on available network bandwidth. The Vision servers for web and media are fully integrated to provide a scalable multi-media solution. Novarra also provides Java and BREW micro-clients which seamlessly integrate video playback into the web browser with a PC-like user interface.
Amy Lung, Chief Operating Officer - Mobile of Hutchison Telecom Hong Kong commented: “Our strategy is to introduce 3Xplorer 2.0 and mobile video to coincide with the launch of popular web 2.0 sites like YouTube Hong Kong. We are expanding our partnership with Novarra, the mobile internet expert, because innovation and content choice are fundamental to our successful consumer offerings - further setting us apart from competition.”
“Leading operators like 3 Hong Kong are leveraging the demand for internet and consumer willingness to pay for the value of anytime, anywhere access,” said Jayanthi Rangarajan, president and CEO of Novarra. “Our new video offering provides the usability, scalability and network performance to achieve successful consumer uptake.”
Novarra’s Vision Internet Platform is a proven, carrier-grade solution for next-generation content and services which delivers the benefits of content adaptation, content reduction, acceleration, optimization, real-time media, filtering, and services definition on a single platform. It fits seamlessly with portal, network and billing infrastructure. Novarra’s full browsers and micro-clients (Java, BREW and C++) provide industry leading performance and mobile usability.