Television Operators Ensure VOD's Rising Popularity with SeaChange's New Remote Managed Services

VOD Performance Monitoring Predicts and Preempts Ingest, Streaming and Storage Challenges;
Virtual Workforce Extension Reinforces VOD Operations Amid Growing Libraries and Subscriber Uptake

ACTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- With on-demand television viewing and libraries continuing to climb, the leading on-demand enabler SeaChange International, Inc. (NASDAQ: SEAC) has launched a highly cost-effective Remote Managed Services offering to assist operators through 24/7 systems analysis and maintenance. Available to SeaChange's on-demand solutions customers, Remote Managed Services provide a virtual workforce extension comprising the industry's largest digital video service team leveraging the comprehensive remote monitoring and management utilities of SeaChange's on-site Axiom on Demand content delivery platform.

Remote Managed Services were developed by SeaChange's Professional Services division so that operators can proactively prevent problems without adding overhead to keep pace with ingest, streaming and network demands fueled by rising on-demand popularity. For 2009, research firm SNL Kagan reported a 13 percent uptick in the total number of on-demand library titles offered by North American cable television operators, with an average of about 6,700 movies and television programs feeding more than 7 billion views. The still-nascent High Definition on-demand category in particular represents a strong contribution to this ongoing bulking-up, which in combination with other content, is forecasted to trigger nearly 10 billion views annually by 2015.

While these services are getting larger and more popular, SeaChange's own data, derived from supporting millions of on-demand television subscribers and serving billions of sessions, shows that a third of all issues reported to technical support could have been prevented by proactive, disciplined monitoring and maintenance.

"Add to this situation the shortening of content release windows and operators' increasingly creative tactics like 'day-and-date' releases that drive subscribers to use on-demand more often, and you can easily see the increased responsibility for technology providers to think and act ever more preemptively," said SeaChange's Tom Kracz, Vice President of Professional Services. "We recognize that operators don't have to create more overhead before the challenge results in opportunity cost or churn. Remote Managed Services' combination of our comprehensive remote systems utility with the vigilance of our highly specialized service organization introduces immediate performance improvements, and applies new service assurances as on-demand use increases."

Running remotely over a secure high-speed network, SeaChange Remote Managed Services cover the vital maintenance tasks and analysis spanning the on-demand operations chain from movie and TV program ingest to individual subscriber sessions. These tasks include proactive system monitoring; system "health checks" and audits; system patching and maintenance; system performance analysis; and content management. Some of the common but preventable problems include:

    --  Disk drives with over-long reads that can be flagged, diagnosed and
        replaced before potential failure
    --  Burdened and at-risk memory resources which, through scheduled review,
        can be proactively increased to avoid a system freeze
    --  Third-party equipment fails to pass requests to SeaChange systems, which
        can be resolved by Remote Managed Services analysis of traffic to ensure
        end-to-end operational performance

SeaChange's Professional Services team plays an integral role in designing, deploying and maintaining VOD and IPTV platforms, in most situations operating as the primary integrator and serving as the first point of contact for all related support issues, while providing operators with the advantages of its TL 9000-certified processes. This global team of seasoned video software, hardware and networking experts has helped operators achieve numerous industry milestones such as Virgin Media's on-demand advertising rollout, Suddenlink's switchover to Axiom on Demand, and Turk Telekom's ambitious IPTV service creation. To learn more about SeaChange Remote Managed Services go to www.schange.com/en-US/Products/Service/ManagedServices.

About SeaChange International

SeaChange International is a leading provider of software applications, services and integrated solutions for video-on-demand (VOD), digital advertising, and content acquisition monetization and management. Its powerful open VOD and advertising software and scalable hardware enable cable and telco operators, as well as broadcasters, to provide new on-demand services and to gain greater efficiencies in advertising and content delivery. With its Emmy Award-winning and patented technology, thousands of SeaChange deployments are helping broadband, broadcast and satellite television companies to streamline operations, expand services and increase revenues. Headquartered in Acton, Massachusetts, SeaChange has product development, support and sales offices around the world. Visit www.schange.com.

    Source: SeaChange International, Inc.

Released April 7, 2010