[January 07, 2013]

RVU Alliance Expands to Include New Operators In Latin America

The RVU Alliance, which develops and promotes the RVU^® Remote User Interface (RUI) standard, today welcomed two new members, with Sky Mexico and DIRECTV PanAmericana, joining DIRECTV and Sky Brasil to the roster of Pay TV broadcast operators supporting the standard.

These companies join the RVU Alliance at the culmination of an extremely successful year for the market leading RUI solution. Several million RVU client devices are in consumers' homes today thanks to the recent update to the Samsung (News - Alert) 2012 Smart TV line to include RVU functionality, coupled with the launch of the DIRECTV model C31 "mini Genie" for legacy TVs in the U.S. These clients are designed to work with an RVU compliant server, including the DIRECTV "Genie" HR34 HD DVR (www.directv.com/genie). Based on the foundations of UPnP and DLNA, RVU is also available via the DLNA premium content guidelines.

"We are delighted to welcome Sky Mexico and DIRECTV PanAmericana to the RVU Alliance," said Henry Derovanessian, president of the RVU Alliance and senior vice president of Engineering at DIRECTV. "Consumers are using RVU Certified products today to stream premium content to standard CE devices, and enjoying DVR functionality without the need for an additional box. With these new members, the benefits of RVU promise to extend throughout the Americas further cementing RVU's position as the premier RUI solution for Pay TV operators."

"SKY Mexico is pleased to join to RVU Alliance. It represents a great opportunity to be in sync with the latest n technology for home networking among other solutions for interoperability between set top boxes and smart TV sets," said Salvador Rosas, CTO of SKY Mexico. "Our subscribers will surely be happy to have access to the best offer of pay TV services in Mexico. We encourage the industry to contribute in the development of new solutions to improve the experience and satisfaction of our more demanding customers."

"In an effort to continue bringing the latest innovations to DIRECTV customers in Latin America, I am pleased to announce that DIRECTV PanAmericana is joining the RVU Alliance. Throughout the years, DIRECTV has led the market continuously innovating and improving the user experience with new and more advanced products. With the RUI and its interoperability among devices we commit to an open environment that will further enhance our customer experience. We look forward to actively supporting the alliance and their initiatives," says Jacopo Bracco, president of DIRECTV PanAmericana.

The publicly available RVU industry standard allows a single server to interface to multiple CE clients simultaneously, enabling service providers to present a consistent User Interface and experience throughout a household with no additional hardware required. RVU clients can consist of compatible internet connectable or "smart" TVs, Blu Ray disc players and OTT platforms.

New products targeted to support RVU client functionality in 2013 include Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation^®3 (PS3™), select models from Sony's 2013 BRAVIA TV, and all Samsung 2013 Smart TVs. Demonstrations of products at CES (News - Alert) will be held by RVU Alliance members Broadcom, CISCO, DIRECTV, Entropic, JetHead Development, Pace and Samsung. The supporting products may differ by countries and areas.

About RVU Alliance

RVU is a client/server-based technology that allows the television viewer to experience a consistent, pixel accurate server-generated user interface on various consumer electronics devices. The RVU specification uses widely implemented UPnP and DLNA technologies to enable a gateway device such as an advanced set-top box to work with non-proprietary client devices such as connected TVs, Blu-ray players, and set-top boxes. The specification is maintained by the RVU Alliance, founded by Broadcom, Cisco, DIRECTV, Samsung and Verizon (News - Alert), which facilitates the adoption of an open standard technology that allows service providers to expand their unique UI and user experience onto standard consumer devices without the need for proprietary equipment. For more information on the RVU Alliance please visit www.rvualliance.org.

The RVU Alliance is an Oregon-based non-profit mutual benefit corporation formed to develop a specification for the RVU technology including a full-featured "pixel accurate" Remote User Interface (RUI). For more information about the RVU Alliance, please visit www.rvualliance.org.

"PlayStation" is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

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