[PR] Set-top Boxes by Comtrend Corporation Now Surf with Opera

Taipei, Taiwan – June 2, 2011

Imagine this: you are watching the World Cup finals at home, your favorite player scores a goal, and you can tweet about it without taking your eyes off the TV screen! Sounds farfetched? Not anymore! Opera Software today announced that it is working together with Comtrend Corporation to take your TV online.

Comtrend Corporation, a global supplier of advanced networking solutions, has selected Opera Software’s browser technology for their next-generation set-top box, the STB-7007. You can now have access to relevant and context-sensitive information while watching television.

“Connected TVs are just taking off in the market. Consumers see that it compliments their TV experience”, said Robert Yao, Vice President, Comtrend Corporation. “With Opera’s technology, our set-top boxes are ready to be used by Telcos, cable operators and Internet service providers who can start delivering their services to end users.”

A world of possibilities:

• While watching a film, a Wikipedia widget could get you the actor’s biography.
• While watching MTV, a music store widget will let you buy the song
• You might also be able to buy products at the same time that they are being advertised on TV.

“Every day, we combat and conquer the demanding challenges of connected technology, providing solutions for home TVs and other devices within a digital home environment”, said Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software. “Armed with our standards-based approach, we are ready to rock and roll on all connected devices inside the consumer’s home”.

For developers: Creating applications for your TV becomes easy

While this association will bring the most exciting web content to your TV, the experience can further be enhanced by the usage of web-based applications that follow web standards. Any web developer can create these applications, since they are W3C widgets, based on existing web technologies. Widgets provide shortcuts to useful content from the Web and provide an opportunity for other services to be developed around them.

For device manufacturers: Opera Devices Software Developer Kit

Opera Software is the key enabler that makes content and applications available on TVs. Opera embraces open and industry standards, such as HTML5, W3C widgets, OIPF and HbbTV, giving players in the connected-TV space the assurance that that they can deliver any live or on-demand content or service, on any set-top box or TV, from any source. Technology, coupled with strong industry partnerships, make the Opera Devices Software Developer Kit easy to implement on a platform, as well as integrating with streaming media players, conditional access systems, and personal video recorders.

For service providers: Comtrend’s next-generation set-top box

The Comtrend STB-7007 is an IP-based set-top box that supports IPTV, video-on-demand (VoD), near VoD, Internet, and over-the-top video applications in high-definition (HD) and standard-definition (SD) formats. It also supports the most popular HD/SD decoding schemes, including simultaneous HD/SD decoding with picture-in-picture function. With both advanced and legacy interfaces supported, it can be used as a multimedia hub for the modern, digital home-networking environment.