Opera Software and TARA Systems announce the availability of a fully-integrated HbbTV solution for connected TVs and set-top boxes. The released solution gives manufacturers improved flexibility and planning reliability.

Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV brings viewers the richness of broadcast interactive services combined with broadband content, available for connected TVs and STBs. HbbTV opens the door for a new interactive TV experience, including video-on-demand, catch-up TV, interactive advertising, personalization, digital text, games and social networking. The HbbTV technology is already implemented by major players in the European TV market, such as RTL, ARD, ZDF and ARTE.

The newly available combined product will integrate the latest Opera browser rendering engine with TARA's HbbTV framework and advanced Digital Video Broadcasting middleware. The result is a ready-to-market HbbTV solution that gives OEMs maximum flexibility and brings to users a feature-rich experience with full support for next-generation broadcast portals and services. The highly modular approach enables device manufacturers to deploy the HbbTV software in almost any possible scenario, independent of DVB stack and chipset.

The public demonstration of the Opera and Tara Systems HbbTV solution will be at the IP&TV World Forum 2011, March 22 - 24 2011. The demo will be hosted at Opera Software's booth at position 47.