Taiwanese set top chip manufacturer ALi Corporation said this week, it has worked with Cubiware to put its CubiTV Hybrid Middleware onto its set top chipsets. Operators usually request this when they want to keep their current set top hardware, but put new features and functions on through the Cubiware middleware, known to be extremely lightweight and adaptable.
TiVo acquired Polish firm Cubiware almost exactly a year ago, and we assume that one way to get TiVo on your existing set top box is to port Cubiware onto it. It can easily integrate the recommendation software from TiVo owned DigitalSmiths as well. Cubiware also has its own multiscreen offering as well.
But what’s most important to note about this announcement is that it could lead to TiVo’s first major deal in the Asia Pacific through ALi Corp’s customers and various partnerships. At the time of acquiring Cubiware, TiVo stated it planned to expand its business to 25 more countries, and a potential opening could be through DishTV, India’s largest DTH operator, which ALi Corp recently announced a partnership with. The operator boasts 13 million subscribers, more than 27% of the Indian DTH market.
However, this door may already be closed, as DishTV set tops currently run Wyplay’s Frog Turnkey Middleware and this deal was only recently renewed. ALi says its card-based and cardless products have also been mass deployed by Indian MSO SITI Cable which has 10.7 million TV subscribers, as well as KCCL with its Kerala Vision Digital Service. Media Partners Asia forecasts that India’ s DTH pay TV market will generate revenues of $4.04 billion by 2018 and $5.6 billion by 2023, and the DTH active subscriber base will increase to 60 million by 2018 and 70 million by 2023. It also has a partnership with StarTimes of China which experts to some 26 African countries.
Ali Corp in January entered a strategic partnership with Belgium’s Zappware so that Zappware could be pre-integrated on the Ali chips. It supports 1080p at 60 fps and offers remote control of using smartphones and smartwatches. And in May it added Mware from Netherlands middleware provider of the same name. ALi also has set top integration deals with Adrenio and ADB in Switzerland.
So perhaps Ali Corp is one by one putting this Western middleware on its chip, as it gets smaller tier 2 clients, which perhaps we don’t hear about.
TiVo’s latest results suggest the company is in need of a contract as large as one with DishTV, at a time when the physical DVR market is starting to shrink as pay TV finally embraces network PVR. TiVo reported revenue down 6.5% in the last quarter due to a decline in its hardware business, but was partly saved by a growth in its service and software sector. It added 315,000 subscriptions in the previous quarter, which gives TiVo a total base of 7.12 million subs, up from 5.76 million a year ago. Of course, TiVo is currently in the process of merging with Rovi following the $1.1 billion acquisition, which will form a dominant TV UI patents force.
The Cubiware middleware runs on ALi Corp’s driver architecture, and the duo say that the unified interface offers flexible portability across set top platforms and chipsets, which will accelerate the development cycle and time to market. ALi Corp says its chipset targets hybrid set tops, multimedia gateways, IPTV set tops, OTT multimedia players and HDMI dongles, and embeds a dual-core Arm Cortex-A9 processor, Mali-400 MP2 processor supporting 3D graphics and a dedicated security processor.
Just last week, ALi Corp entered a partnership with digital security specialist Irdeto to offer pay TV operators and content owners a secure product which can feature Irdeto’s card based or cardless conditional access systems, DRM, and home networking security on consumer set tops, all enabled on ALi SoC. It already has similar deals with Conax and Verimatrix.
ALi Corp also has a presence in Latin American markets through collaborations with Japanese CE company Funai for the digital switchover in Mexico last year, as well as with Prime Electronics and Satellitics for the mass production of DVB-T2 set tops in Belarus.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with ALi Corporation to bring a feature-rich, competitive solution to service providers. This collaboration will provide viewers with greater choice and content and an exceptional TV viewing experience,” said Jakub Gorski, co-founder of Cubiware.
“Our partnership with Cubiware will move our business forward tremendously. The CubiTV Hybrid Middleware technology integrated on ALi’s high-performing chipset will enable operators to bring innovative digital TV experiences to viewers everywhere,” said Tony Chang, COO, ALi Corporation.