Facing a swelling over-the-top (OTT) threat, pay-TV operators worldwide are looking to improve their consumer brand value with the addition of fresh features and user engagement tools to the mix. Telefonica (News - Alert) Czech Republic is no exception, and has signed on to deploy an interactive set-top box (STB). It will power a high-definition graphical user interface and programming guide to better support customer viewing demands and a thirst for more intuitive content discovery approaches.

Telefonica will use Eagle Kingdom Technologies’ (EKT’s) interactive STB solution for IPTV (News - Alert) to support the launch.

"EKT has always been about delivering innovative STB solutions. The Telefonica project really brings together the power of our Entropic (News - Alert)-based hardware with the robustness and flexibility of our solidTV(TM) middleware," said Christof Winker, general manager of the EKT solidTV group. "We really look forward to bringing a fully managed box with the latest in HTML5-compliant browser capabilities, Smooth Streaming and PlayReady to Telefonica. Combining some of our unique features such as solidUpdater, solidPlayer and solidBrowser, Telefonica users can enjoy a truly future-ready product."

Tomas Dratva, manager of video services at Telefonica Czech Republic, added, "We have been very diligent in selecting a partner for our IPTV (O2TV) next generation upgrade in the Czech region. The key selection criteria were quality of the product accompanied with professional level of the middleware support service, which together will provide best grade of Telefonica's user experience whilst keeping cost under control. The combination of EKT with the nangu.TV IPTV platform has fulfilled our expectation and we are keen to start the new era of our O2TV in the Czech market."

At the heart of the product is Entropic's EN7551 ARM (News - Alert)-based system-on-a-chip (SoC). This 1700DMIPS powered IC delivers PC-like reaction times for the interactive features, like returning programming guide results.

"EKT's combination of advanced hardware and software expertise puts them at the forefront of delivering innovative STBs to the global market,” said Roger Gregory, vice president of marketing at Entropic. "The contract with Telefonica is the result of that effort. We are proud to call Telefonica a customer of our chipset solutions as they continue to innovate the way subscribers watch and engage with home entertainment content and services."