MUMBAI: The Indian arm of IPTV firm Kasenna Incorporated - Kasenna India today announced PortalTV 2.0, a suite of integrated products sporting a user interface and a Web services architecture designed to integrate the Internet and television.

The "dynamic HTML-based smart client enables service providers to brand, control and differentiate their IPTV service experience and offerings," a company release claims.

"PortalTV 2.0 is based on open platforms and systems, enabling service providers to reduce their capital and operating expenditures by incorporating the standard server hardware and operating system of their choice - there are no proprietary integrations to work around," said Kasenna CEO Kumar Shah.

The PortalTV 2.0 suite comprises Kasenna LivingRoom 2.0 (IPTV middleware), LivingRoom Smart Client 2.0.1 (IPTV STB client), MediaBase 8.2 (the video delivery platform), vFusion 1.3 (video network management system), and content from ViewNow, a Kasenna company. Together, this suite of products - running on any industry-standard server - enables service providers to deliver an end-to-end system for interactive television, the release states.

"PortalTV 2.0 has delivered to our telco customers the ability to be the first in offering next-generation MPEG-4 high-definition television," said Hirendra Gupta, Managing Director and VP - Kasenna India and South East Asia.

In India as well as throughout Asia, the future of IPTV lies in its ability to make programming come alive with interactive features such as gaming, quizzes or voting, or with the ability of users to click anywhere on the screen to buy or receive more information on a product or service. Kasenna is taking a leadership position in helping service providers roll out feature-rich interactive-TV services today, while providing a platform for marketing new services rapidly as they become available.