Ricor contributing to advanced personal media and infotainment

Ricor Holding is a high tech innovative corporation developing and implementing interactive and personal television technologies, and home automation systems. The company includes the research lab Interactive Television Technologies, the Radio Electronics Factory, the Television Technical Center and Ladies’ TV Club, Russia’s first channel for women with an audience of over 40 million households. The channel successfully implements the majority of the interactive television technologies developed by Ricor. Ricor Holding is headed by Armen Margaryan.

Ricor quickly recognised the potential of interactive television and in 1994 decided to focus entirely on this new market and technology. Ricor's first interactive program was shown on Russian television in February 2000: an interactive version of the UK’s Premier League matches. Subsequently 10 more analogue programs were produced.

However, analogue TV does not allow the full value of interactive services to be realised and, therefore, in 2000 Ricor took the decision to pursue research and development in the area of digital television. This resulted in the development of the innovative, digital interactive platform Ricor iTV™. The platform incorporates complete software solutions for Interactive TV Studios, Data Broadcast Systems and a range of Interactive Client Terminals.

Ricor iTV™ represents a new generation of Interactive TV technology combining the possibilities of comprehensive personalisation, recording and communication. Open, highly scalable, flexible and cost-effective, Ricor iTV™ allows satellite and cable television operators, telecommunications companies and content providers to increase and retain their subscriber base as well as generate new revenue streams by offering customers a revolutionary personal viewing experience.

In February 2001, Ricor iTV™ technology was deployed on two European TV channels and Ricor iTV™ Broadcast System was installed at Spain’s Telefonica satellite uplink centre. And, in 2003 Ricor iTV™ technology became operational at the Ricor broadcast centre, Moscow, leading the creation and launch of Russia’s first fully interactive TV channel ‘Ladies’ TV Club’ that reaches a potential audience of more than 40 million viewers.

Today Ricor iTV™ offers a full suite of products and solutions for advanced personal infotainment. For example Ricor iTV™ Platform, which includes production tools, broadcast systems and client software; Ricor iTV™ Interactive Applications, comprising interactive programme guide, personal viewer profile, personal channel, personal notepad, interactive advertising system, personal messaging service, interactive news channel and audience measurement system. These are complemented by a family of Ricor iTV™ digital adviser STBs and convergence solutions for both mobile and home networks.

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