The Dish Network was the first major operator in the United States to port the OpenTV middleware to its software core and today Dish Network boasts a large collection of interactivity applications that run seamlessly on OpenTV middleware. In Europe, we have extensive experience in the porting of MHEG, MHP and OpenTV interactivity middleware.

EchoStar Europe offers one of the leading MHEG engines in the UK market, and it has been certified by the Digital Television Group (DTG) as having passed their rigorous software test suite for the 1.06 profile.

MHEG has two primary advantages over other interactivity engines:

• small memory footprint
• low royalty rate

MHEG has consistently shown its flexibility in the UK market, being used in novel applications such as low cost conditional access schemes and interactive advertising. These factors combine to make MHEG an attractive alternative to other resource hungry interactive offerings.

EchoStar works closely with industry bodies to develop specifications and develop new strains of MHEG to suit major customers around the world.