Project Canvas, the BBC inspired hybrid broadcast internet set top, continues to move towards a 2011 arrival in the UK, with a call for interest from set top vendors being issued this week.
Canvas continues to roll towards the start line, despite continued legal challenges, the latest from Virgin Media, issued just over a week ago saying that Canvas was trying dictate to everyone how internet TV was allowed to develop in the UK.
But that date, 2011, has not been heard before, and device partners were previously told that in would be late 2010 when devices first came to market. Perhaps those already committed, in the form of Cisco, Humax and Technicolor, will be getting a head start. These companies were previously named as Innovation Partners and have been working on the development of devices.
Nine companies are known to have expressed interest in becoming device partners to Canvas but these don’t all make sense. There is no Pace listed among them, the largest pay TV set top maker in the world, who is also UK based and the device partners include chip makers Intel, ST and Broadcom, who of course will not make complete devices. The others are Switzerland’s ADB, Amino in the UK, Echostar from the US, Sagem in France, LG of Korea and UK Freeview specialist TVonics.
Project Canvas director, Richard Halton said, ‘Canvas is stepping up its engagement with industry as we get closer to releasing the final set of technical documents to the DTG this month, and launching a consumer product next year.’
Further applications are sure to arrive by the deadline August 25th, but the lack of Pace at this stage in proceedings and Samsung, suggests that not everyone is clear that Canvas is such a good idea. HbbTV on continental Europe ‘ pushed hard by broadcasters in Germany and France, is a lower level spec that will give more freedom for TV operators to define their own experience, and it will come to market sooner than Canvas. There have been long discussions about making Canvas a superset of HbbTV, but just a week ago Canvas said this was not possible in the timeframe.
Of course Pace may be holding back out of respect for some of its other UK customers, notably BSkyB. Last year pace acquired the Philips set top business which was strong in France for low priced DVB-T set tops, which exhibit very similar economics and retail delivery as is hoped for Canvas.
The initial design spec is supposed to focus on a twin-tuner DVR which can merge both digital terrestrial DVB-T signals with IP over the internet connections. Canvas also wants to know what other device categories are worth putting through retail including Canvas enabled TV sets and more basic set tops.
Canvas says it wants to hear from manufacturers which have experience with DVB-T/T2, DVRs DVB-S/S2, and plain old Internet TV devices.