OpenTV‘s browser has been used by Matsushita and also JVC‘s digital TVs, and has been established as the de facto standard for MEI‘s Tnavi browser. TVPS, which has consolidated TV portals such as Tnavi, launched the acTVila portal in February as a common TV portal.

OpenTV Integrated Browser, designed for the Japanese interactive television market in conjunction with MEI, has now been enhanced to support this new and strategic industry portal. Because it meets the browser specifications set by Networked Digital Television, which is referenced by TVPS, OpenTV is able to give content providers a standard browser development platform that can be used to create and validate their own content.

OpenTV Integrated Browser validation platform is developed for Windows for accessibility and ease of use on the PC. This is provided free of charge by OpenTV on request and will be available on 21 June.

OpenTV Japan GM Arata Hirao says, "Successful commercial deployment of TVPS‘s acTVila portal is dependent on how its content can be viewed correctly across different sets of TVs.

"This new tool now allows content providers to do that validation using the familiar Windows XP system. OpenTV‘s Integrated Browser is already used as a standard browser in the majority of digital TV browsers in the market.

By extending its support to acTVila and by providing its validation platform, OpenTV has achieved a new level of leadership in digital TV portal market. We will continue to enhance our browser platform as digital TV moves forward."

The acTVila portal is already available on brands of digital TVs such as MEI, Sony, Sharp, JVC, Eizo, and Funai, and it is expected that her home appliance manufacturers will release their own acTVila-compliant TVs in 2007 to 2008.