January 7, 2010

Microsoft Announces Mediaroom 2.0

Today at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Microsoft is announcing Microsoft Mediaroom 2.0, the next version of its Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) platform.

Mediaroom 2.0 will enable television service operators to provide their TV services to more subscribers than ever before, delivering more content to more screens than the previous version of Mediaroom — both inside and outside the home.

Scheduled to be available for operators to start testing beginning next month, mediaroom 2.0 can be deployed by operators as their entertainment cloud powering the delivery of a complete television service, including cloud digital video recording (DVR), on-demand features, interactive applications, and access to both operator-hosted content and externally hosted content such as Internet TV.

Subscribers can access service on multiple screens including the TV set (with Mediaroom set-top box), Windows Media Center, Web browsers (for Windows-based PCs and Macs), Xbox 360 and compatible smartphones.

Also new with Mediaroom 2.0, service providers will now be able to offer their existing on-demand TV service to their entire broadband customer base using their existing set-top box inventory, thereby expanding their service footprint beyond the reach of their IPTV network. Mediaroom 2.0 also adds support for Microsoft Silverlight and Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) Smooth Streaming for the access and delivery of on-demand content.