Video Without Boundaries Inc, with its MediaREADY 4000 convergent digital media center device, and the Hardware designer and manufacturer Lung Hwa Electronics Co. Ltd today announced they have entered into an agreement of a $1,000,000 licensing deal that will place MediaREADY's Operating System in a new, scaled-down version of VWB's MediaREADY 4000.
This agreement also leverages a contract by Lung Hwa and one of China's largest public education ministries, and also heralds a new and novel distribution strategy for Internet-based Video-on-Demand (VoD) content providers. Licensing of the MediaREADY Operating System to 3rd party OEMs is part of a joint venture between VWB and CAC Media.
Lung Hwa Electronics' licensing agreement with VWB will allow it to supply MediaREADY series products to the Taiwan Education System, the administrative body that oversees primary and secondary schools in China. The Taiwan Education System plans to place one of the MediaREADY Series 400 products in each school for the purposes of providing continuing video education courses to teachers. The MediaREADY series products will ship with a library of MPEG-4 high-quality Video courses, and the units will synchronize its library and automatically download new courses over the Internet utilizing the MediaREADY Remote File Synchronization Module. The second phase of deployment is expected to begin Q3 2004, whereby the Taiwan Education System will extend and promote this program to the students of its schools, with deployment of 100,000 units within the first 12 months.
The MediaREADY 400 is the value-priced sibling to VWB's MediaREADY 4000 convergent Internet/DVD player. Like the MediaREADY 4000, the MediaREADY 400 consumer set-top unit connects to any television and offers feature-rich TV as well as convergent entertainment/communications functions like email, web surfing, MPEG-1/MPEG-2/MPEG-4/MP3 playback and more. Slightly smaller than the MediaREADY 4000, the MediaREADY 400 differs only in the lack of a DVD player.
Lung Hwa Electronics (LHE) manufactures both the MediaREADY 4000 and 400 under contract for Video Without Boundaries; in addition, LHE is authorized to sell MediaREADY powered products directly to retail and corporate customers worldwide. VWB's MediaREADY 4000 is expected to reach U.S. retail shelves in early February, 2004. A formal announcement for the MediaREADY 400 will be made by VWB in the U.S. in coming days.
