Products & Services…
— Zenverge, a developer of advanced content-networking ICs, joins technology partner Cortina Systems Inc., in demonstrating their new headless media gateway reference design in Las Vegas, concurrent with CES 2013. The reference platform leverages Zenverge’s ZN200 quad-stream HD transcoder IC and Cortina’s CS7542 scalable digital-home-service-delivery SoC to support multiscreen video delivery while reportedly reducing operational expenses for pay-TV operators. The joint reference media gateway platform can stream HD video to devices otherwise incapable of processing broadcast video content.
— ARRIS Group unveiled what it says is the industry’s first whole-home network and entertainment system – the ARRIS Media Gateway MG2402 – based on the Reference Design Kit from Comcast. The gateway features a hybrid video architecture supporting QAM and IP-delivered video, and it is capable of bonding as many as 24 DOCSIS downstream channels and providing 8 QAM channels to support traditional MPEG/DVB video; it delivers nearly 1 Gbps broadband service from the network and includes dual-band-concurrent Wi-Fi.
— The Marvell Armada1500 series System-on-Chip (SoC) platform (88DE3100) will power the NeoTV PRIME with Google TV from Netgear Inc., designed to offer live TV, streaming, Web and apps from one device. Marvell says the product includes the best of Google TV, like search, play, Chrome, PrimeTime and My Media, with traditional broadcast; the whole experience is controllable via a Bluetooth remote or from the Google TV remote-control app for smartphones.
— Also at CES, Atmel Corporation and are demo’ing their integrated solutions for Wi-Fi Direct remote controls intended for next-gen set-top-box (STB) and video-gateway platforms. Celeno’s video-grade Wi-Fi is integrated in the STB and video gateway for whole-home HD video streaming to multiple devices, while Atmel’s ultra-low-power Wi-Fi Direct technology can be used for RF remote controls because it eliminates the need for more RF technologies in the host platform. Moving forward, RF remote controls will take a bite out of the market for traditional infrared remotes because the older models reportedly can’t support non-line-of-sight operation, motion, bi-directional data streams or higher data rates.
— The CloudTV Access developer program started by ActiveVideo Networks aims to speed the design and deployment of an advanced HTML 5 user experience on cloud-based smart TVs, set-top boxes and other consumer devices. The company says this initiative can help cut app time-to-market by as much as 80 percent for connected devices makers, virtual service providers, and cable and IPTV operators.
— Cisco’s Videoscape Unity is an expansion of its Videoscape video services delivery platform, adding a multiscreen cloud digital video recorder (DVR) that lets subscribers restart shows, catch up on past programs and play back DVR-captured content anywhere on any screen. Videoscape Unity was created by integrating Cisco Videoscape with the assets and business model of NDS, a company it acquired last year.
