Enhanced television applications have certainly caught the fancy of customers and service providera alike.

But these applications require special infrastructure to run. Recognizing this gap, HITS, a business unit of the Comcast Media Center, has announced a managed solution designed to reduce the costs and improve the process for delivering enhanced television  applications to cable systems.

HITS AxIS ETV Solutions for Programmers includes the Interactive Video Services master control room, IVIS, which provides ETV application hosting, satellite transmission delivery via widely viewed domestic satellites, fiber transport to cable system headends, advanced video compression using MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 standards, and 24/7 monitoring for more than 400+ linear channel feeds.

Programmers now get HITS AxIS ETV Solutions which include data PID (packet ID) distribution, management, and monitoring from HITS Advanced Interactive Services (AxIS). With this, cable programming networks can deliver ETV applications without integrating them into their linear programming, incurring incremental transponder costs, or impacting video quality.

"Our content distribution and interactive video management capabilities allow us to provide programming networks with cost-effective options for delivering their ETV applications across a network's entire footprint, or for delivering individual applications to specific cable markets,' stated Gary Traver, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Comcast (News - Alert) Media Center.  "HITS AxIS ETV Solutions also take advantage of ample terrestrial bandwidth with a comprehensive approach toward quality assurance."

A television programming network can add ETV applications without affecting its existing satellite loading or the quality of its audio and video distribution, because the HITS AxIS platform delivers the data feed terrestrially. Also, content providers can deliver ETV applications that are tailored to their cable operator affiliates and the markets they serve. Programmers also get management and monitoring capabilities and Campaign Information Package (CIP) scheduling integration.

In January 2010, the company announced plans to donate over $1 million for disaster relief in Haiti, of which $50,000 is in cash to two charities: the American Red Cross and Telecoms Sans Frontieres, or Telecom without Borders. The rest of the funds will be offered through various types of aid. Comcast also provided digital voice services in the Miami Dade County.