Digital Equipment Corp has signed an OEM agreement with USA Video Corp, under which the two will work together to increase their market share of the video-on-demand industry worldwide, Newsbytes reports from Hong Kong. It is expected that early implementations will be seen throughout the Asian region well before any major installations in the US because of the compactness, cohesiveness and sophistication of high speed digital communications within the region. These prospects are enhances with Hong Kong Telecom Ltd planning to introduce a commercial video-on-demand service next year. A Hong Kong Telecom spokesman told Newsbytes that the co-operative venture should serve to enhance the on-line video services already available for some years in the territory. USA Video will incorporate DEC’s interactive video server technology into its end-to-end video-on-demand system, which includes programming, video compression, transmission systems and television set-top boxes. DEC and USA Video also expect to demonstrate their new relationship by jointly supporting Bell Atlantic Corp’s deployment of a trial video-on-demand service for 40,000 end-users in northern Virginia this spring. USA Video will be a video information provider in the trial, delivering services that employ DEC’s interactive video server technology.
