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Discovery Piques 'Curiosity'

Silver Spring, Md. — Discovery Communications last week announced the development of an ambitious new series for 2011 that will look to answer the fundamental questions of life.

The 60-episode series, Curiosity: The Questions of Our Life, is a five-year, multimillion dollar project headed by Discovery Communications founder and chairman John Hendricks. It will seek to tackle the underlying mysteries of our time in such fields of study as space, biology, geology, medicine, physics, technology and history, according to Discovery officials. The series will air Sunday nights at 8 p.m. beginning in January 2011.

In addition to the television series, Discovery Education will launch a companion initiative encouraging students to excel in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. The Curiosity initiative will also include custom-created classroom tools for educators, teacher guides and other supplemental materials delivered through Discovery Education.

Further, the initiative will also feature learning programming for adults that will accompany each episode, as well as related learning retreats with experts featured in the series.

“Science is more essential for our quality of life than ever before, and Curiosity represents Discovery's ongoing commitment to engage adults and children with compelling content that teaches and engages them about science,” Hendricks said in a statement.

“John Hendricks started Discovery 25 years ago and his whole mission was about satisfying curiosity, and this franchise is fulfilling that mission,” said Carole Tomko, president of Discovery Studios. “This is distinctly Discovery — if Discovery were a series, this is what it would be.” — R. Thomas Umstead

Windows Opens Up to Cable

Atlanta — Microsoft is making Windows 7, the next major release of its operating system, even more cable-ready.

At CEDIA Expo 2009, the company announced that Windows Media Center in Windows 7 will add native support for quadrature amplitude modulation and ATSC standards; support for switched digital video; and a new tool to let users add a CableCard-enabled digital cable tuner to their PC. Windows 7 is slated for an Oct. 22 launch.

In addition, Microsoft and CableLabs announced that they worked together to let customers using CableCard digital cable tuners play back programs marked as “copy freely” (CF) — such as those from local channels — on other PCs and portable devices.

The switched digital video support in Windows Media Center for Windows 7 works with tuning adapters — such as those from Cisco and Motorola — supplied by a cable operator.

“We are excited that digital cable customers will now be able to take advantage of this new opportunity to bring great cable TV programming to the PC,” said So Vang, CableLabs' vice president of OpenCable. “We are dedicated to helping customers get the most from their cable service, and this will be a great win for both the customer and the cable operators.”

Meanwhile, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) said it will provide a new firmware update for ATI TV Wonder digital cable tuners being used with Windows 7 and Windows Vista to allow the “copy freely” portability features and SDV support.

Another vendor, Ceton, was showing a technology preview of its Multi-Channel Cable TV Card, which lets Windows Media Center PCs play or record multiple live channels of premium HDTV at once, as well as stream HD to multiple TV sets throughout the home, through a single CableCard. Ceton also presented at CableLabs' Summer Conference last month. — Todd Spangler

VOD Startup Verivue Raises $20 Million

Westford, Mass. — Verivue, a video-on-demand startup whose backers include Comcast and Arris, has raised an additional $20 million in funding from existing investors and a new one, venture-capital firm Sigma Partners.

The Westford, Mass.-based company issued equity in the amount of $20,125,208, according to a Sept. 8 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That would bring the VOD startup's total funding to about $85 million to date.

Joining the latest round was Sigma Partners, with offices in Boston and Silicon Valley, according to a Verivue spokesman. Previous investors in the company include Matrix Partners, Spark Capital, North Bridge Partners and Accel Partners. In its SEC filing, Verivue indicated it has 11 total investors.

Verivue has developed a network-oriented VOD system designed to stream large numbers of concurrent video sessions — more than 50,000 per server — across multiple platforms. Arris has a reseller agreement for Verivue's Media Distribution Switch (MDX) systems. — Todd Spangler

Meredith, Mag Rack Team on VOD Content

New York — Magazine publisher and broadcaster Meredith will help create new content for the Mag Rack video-on-demand network starting in November.

Brands and topics of new programming weren't disclosed, but the companies said they would share advertising and sponsorship revenue from new programming and that Meredith would sell ads and sponsorships for current Mag Rack programming. Both will cross-promote the new arrangement.

Meredith's female-focused magazine brands include Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Parents, Ladies' Home Journal, More and Fitness. Mag Rack programming, available to an estimated 25 million homes, falls into the categories of health and wellness; house and home; food; fitness; kids and family; and relationships.Meredith also owns 12 TV stations and various consumer Web sites. With Comcast, it launched VOD service “Parents TV On Demand” in 2007.