BCM Launches EBIF Platform

BCM, an interactive television solution provider, has launched Onyx – an Enhanced TV (ETV) platform that allows broadcast TV stations and cable operators to create, insert, fulfill and report late-bind EBIF applications into their programs and advertisements. Onyx is a fully EBIF-compliant ETV platform consisting of two main components: Onyx MetaCast, an ETV streamer/carousel and Onyx Vantage, a web-based management console.??

With Onyx, the programmer is able to select one of a variety of ETV applications such as ‘Request for Information’ (RFI) to insert. BCM has already developed one ETV RFI application – Clickable TV – which is fully deployed and commercially operating in Montgomery, Ala.

With Clickable TV, local broadcasters can create interactive events called Clickable Moments, and then schedule those events for play-out, playing in sync with the video content and receive real-time reports on the event insertion and the consumer responses.

“BCM was the first company to bring local television stations and cable operators together with the successful deployment of a working, interactive EBIF application with Clickable TV,” said Daniel Hassan, Chairman and CEO of BCM, in a statement. “The Onyx platform takes this one step further by providing our customers with a way to enable customized EBIF and non-EBIF applications on local broadcasters.”??

Onyx MetaCast is an ETV streamer/carousel that is integrated into the programmer’s infrastructure to synchronously supply the ETV data for the interactive events to the multiplexer while the programmer’s other equipment supplies audio and video content.

Onyx Vantage is a web-based EBIF management console that gives programmers total control and access over all of their ETV applications.

When a given event is selected, scheduled and approved for play-out, MetaCast receives the necessary information to play the event synchronously with the appropriate video content. It then reports the insertion to Vantage. Consumer responses to the ETV events may be received into Vantage where they are matched to the specific insertion done by MetaCast and aggregated into reports for the programmer.