An interactive advertisement crafted with the NDS technology will work across channels and all digital platforms irrespective of the underlying middleware. An official release informs that the solution has been deployed for the first time in Israel on MATAV, Tevel, Golden Channels and YES TV. These are Israel's cable and satellite platforms that use OpenTV and NDS Core middleware, respectively.

NDS VP Israel and Latin America region Dr Beth Erez said: "The fact that we are deploying this interactive advertising solution nationally for the first time in Israel is a great testament to the high penetration of digital TV technology in this region - more than 70 per cent of the households. The Value@TV Production Suite will boost interactive advertising worldwide as it lowers the lead time, complexity, skill requirements and cost of creating and deploying interactive advertising on a national scale.".

NDS's Value@TV Production Suite is being used by EMTV, providers of an interactive direct marketing system service based in Israel, to manage a wide range of interactive advertising campaigns. The NDS solution provides EMTV with a simple web-based interface and infrastructure, which allows the advertising creative to produce, preview and publish an interactive advertisement and publish it on all four TV platforms in Israel simultaneously. . .

Call to action icons will invite viewers to press a button on their remote controls in order to receive information and brochures as well as take part in promotional activities. Future enhancements will include give-aways, a loyalty system, quizzes and games.

NDS's director of interactive TV Rahul Chakkara said, "We believe that interactive advertising will be a win-win proposition for advertisers, broadcasters and, most importantly, for the consumer. However, the complexity of different middleware technologies and the cost of creating advertising have, until now, been major barriers in making this happen. NDS is breaking these barriers with the Value@TV Production Suite. For the first time the production of interactive TV ads for advertisers and channels will be simple, cost-effective, fully automated and allow maximum flexibility and control",