OpenTV Signs Worldwide Marketing Agreement with Vizrt for Its New Participation TV System

OpenTV Signs Worldwide Marketing Agreement with Vizrt for Its New Participation TV System

OpenTV's New Participation TV Solution, OpenTV Participate(TM) Is Fully Integrated with Vizrt's Computer Graphics Products

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands (IBC Conference), Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- OpenTV Corp. (NASDAQ:OPTV), one of the world's leading providers of technologies and services enabling the delivery of digital and interactive television, announced today that it has signed a worldwide reciprocal marketing agreement for the provision of technology and services for live participation TV with Vizrt, the world's leading provider of real-time 2D and 3D broadcast graphics. OpenTV and Vizrt have integrated their respective systems for Parti TV, Jupiter Entertainment Co. Ltd.'s new live entertainment based viewer participation channel in Japan.

Vizrt's CG systems and OpenTV Participate(TM), OpenTV's new participation TV solution based on its proprietary UltimateOne(TM) system, together comprise the heart of the Parti TV infrastructure designed to offer live participation TV shows 24 hours a day. The integration of OpenTV Participate and Vizrt's state of the art Viz|Trio(TM) Viz|Artist(TM) and Viz|Engine(TM) tools offer producers the ultimate in flexibility according to their current working practices. They have the option of generating and routing statistical data queries to Vizrt's tools via OpenTV Participate's studio producer tool LiveStat Manager or computer graphics operators can create their own queries from within Viz|Artist using the powerful inbuilt template systems to pull the data from the OpenTV Participate studio interface.

"We are delighted to integrate technology from Vizrt into our OpenTV participation TV solution," said James A. Chiddix, OpenTV's chairman and chief executive officer, "Real-time broadcast computer graphics systems are an absolutely essential element for all live TV broadcasters and are increasingly used to present a variety of data. OpenTV Participate provides a great array of live statistical data that can be presented in a variety of ways through Vizrt's graphical systems presenting a truly world class solution."

"OpenTV Participate(TM) is impressive and really helps show off the flexibility of our broadcast graphics systems which are being used in live TV studios around the world," said David Zerah, vice president of sales & operations of Vizrt. "This is one of those great partnerships where the products perfectly compliment each other to form a world class platform offering sophisticated and energized live participation television shows. We hope that the Integration of OpenTV's "Participate" towards the Viz platform is just the first step, of the cooperation between our companies."

OpenTV will showcase the integrated system at IBC 2005 with regular participation TV shows allowing attendees to vote and answer live quiz questions via SMS or IVR calls using their mobile phones. There is a quiz running all week, a daily competition for each day and hourly shows. Prizes will be managed using the OpenTV Participate prize manager tool and will be awarded twice daily. The SMS aggregation services are being offered by Opera Telecom one of the world's leading SMS aggregators.

About OpenTV

OpenTV is one of the world's leading providers of technologies and services enabling the delivery of digital and interactive television. Deployed in over 57 million digital set-top-boxes in 96 countries, the company's software enables a wide array of functionality, including enhanced television, interactive shopping, interactive and addressable advertising, games and gaming, personal video recording, and a variety of consumer care and communication applications. For more information, please visit www.opentv.com.

About Vizrt

Vizrt provides HD/SD real-time 2D and true 3D broadcast graphics. The software suite offers a complete graphics solution including: character generation, content management and newsroom integration, 3D tickers, virtual studio, 3D weather application with data integration, Curious Software map creation tools, virtual sports analysis, information display and virtual effects. All Vizrt's graphics products are powered by a single core renderer, the unique and powerful Viz|Engine(TM). The world's leading broadcasters, such as CNN, CBS, Fox, ESPN, BBC, Sky, ITN, ZDF, Star TV, TV Today, CCTV and NHK as well as Production houses and Corporate institutions, including both the New York and London Stock Exchange, use the Vizrt's software suite.

Source: OpenTV Corp.

CONTACT: Marc McCarthy of OpenTV Inc., +1-415-217-9441, or mmccarthy@opentv.com; or David Zerah of Vizrt, +972 54 4280371, or DZE@vizrt.com; or Robin Hoffman of Pipeline Communications, +1-973-746-6970, or robinh@pipecomm.com, for Vizrt

Web site: http://www.opentv.com/

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