MUMBAI: NDS, which provides technology solutions for digital pay-TV, has announced that BSkyB has deployed a customised implementation of NDS‘ advanced set-top box software for its Sky+HD boxes.

As well as enabling the launch of Sky‘s Anytime+ VOD service, the component based architecture of the set-top box software enables Sky to evolve the complete end-user experience to meet changing customer needs faster than ever.
 
Sky MD of product design and development Alun Webber said: "With over 10 million subscribers in the UK and Ireland we are constantly working to ensure that our platform offers the best possible customer experience. Our collaboration with NDS to develop this set-top box software puts us in a great position to continually innovate, giving customers even more choice and control over how and when they consume the content that they love".

Sky Anytime+ complements the existing Sky Anytime push VOD service with a comprehensive catalogue of on-demand content available to Sky Broadband customers. Using NDS set-top box software and end-to-end progressive download technology to power its on demand service, Sky is able to deliver VOD content over Sky‘s own broadband network direct to the customer‘s set-top box. Once enough content is delivered to the DVR, playback can commence – allowing for the remainder of the content to be delivered in the background, thus ensuring a consistent and reliable customer experience.

NDS Senior Vice President Major Accounts David Nabozny said: "The Sky platform provides one of the most innovative pay-TV experiences in the world. Sky‘s deployment of NDS advanced set-top box software and progressive download technology is a perfect example of how a service provider can optimise its existing infrastructure to introduce value added services to enrich the subscriber offering."

Sky currently employs a number of technologies from NDS including VideoGuard Conditional Access (CA) and NDS XTV, the DVR technology underpinning Sky+, which allows customers to pause and record live TV.

The new Sky Anytime+ service is available to Sky customers with a Sky+HD set-top box and Sky Broadband Everyday Lite or Sky Broadband Unlimited. Sky has been the UK‘s fastest growing Internet Service Provider (ISP) over the last four years.