MiriATE® installed at AUSTAR

AUSTAR now testing set-top boxes using MiriATE

Mirifice Ltd deliver their automated set-top box testing product – MiriATE – to AUSTAR.

20 April 2009 – AUSTAR, the leading subscription television provider in regional and rural Australia, has installed and commissioned the MiriATE testing solution from Mirifice Ltd, making a commitment to ensuring the quality and reliability of the set-top boxes deployed to their customers.

Niall Buckingham, Director and Founder at Mirifice, says, “I am delighted that AUSTAR has selected our MiriATE product. MiriATE provides sophisticated test automation capabilities that will allow AUSTAR to improve the reliability and quality of set-top boxes and the services consumed through them. The resulting improvement in reliability provides a reduction in the total cost of ownership for the operator.“

Niall added, “AUSTAR is our most distant deployment of MiriATE to date, however the geographic separation from AUSTAR did not present any issues in delivering the system.“

Dean Walters, Chief Technology Officer at AUSTAR, says ”MiriATE has allowed us to automate acceptance and regression testing of our set-top boxes and services. This has significantly increased the volume and quality of testing, whilst improving operational efficiency and ultimately assisting in the timely delivery of better quality services to our customers.”

MiriATE provides AUSTAR with the ability to automatically drive large numbers of STBs through suites of stringent tests, including realistic endurance testing. MiriATE offers advanced features such as video analysis, motion detection, region comparison and optical character recognition (OCR); these are critical in automating the majority of tests, as they replace the need for manual recognition and verification. Additional benefits include multiple concurrency and test scheduling on a platform which offers 24/7 availability, resulting in reduced costs and time-to-market.

Deployment of MiriATE starts off with a 16 STB solution and, due to the system’s scalability, this can increase in increments of 16 to very large systems of 384 boxes or more.

About Austar United Communications (AUSTAR)

AUSTAR (Australian Stock Exchange “AUN”) is a leading provider of subscription television services in regional and rural Australia, with more than 720,000 customers enjoying principally satellite digital television services. Internet and mobile telephony services complete AUSTAR’s product offering. AUSTAR is also a significant provider of programming in the Australian television market through its 50% owned joint venture, XYZnetworks, which owns and/or distributes Nickelodeon, Nick Jr, Discovery Channel, Channel [V], Club [V], MAX, Arena, The Lifestyle Channel, Lifestyle Food, CountryMusic Channel and The Weather Channel. Liberty Global, Inc., the largest international broadband cable operator in terms of Subscribers, holds an indirect controlling stake in AUSTAR.

www.austarunited.com.au

About Mirifice

Mirifice Ltd is headquartered in Bath, UK. Formed in 2004, it provides key software development, project management and consultancy staff to the broadcast industry. The company’s product range includes MiriMON, the award-winning system for real-time monitoring of live Digital TV networks, and MiriATE, a powerful technical environment for testing and control of set-top boxes and other devices.

Customers include BSkyB, BT, Virgin Media, Top-Up TV, Comstar Direct, Pace, Open TV, Tandberg and Thomson.

Mirifice Ltd.

4 Abbey Street,

Bath

BA1 1NN

Tel: +44 1225 460126

www.mirifice.com

For additional information on Mirifice, please contact info {at} mirifice(.)com