US DRM specialist Widevine said this week that it had been named as a preferred provider of adaptive video streaming to Samsung devices. The two companies have signed a global agreement to make Widevine’s video optimization and DRM available on Samsung connected TVs and Blu-ray players. The deal is being talked about as a way for Samsung devices to be used to support the TV Everywhere initiatives of US pay TV operators, as well as other over-the-top delivery initiatives from content providers.
In a press release placed last week on Sweden’s Boxer TV Access web site, it says that Boxer will gradually drop its IPTV initiatives. We’re not quite sure what to believe here, as the company only bought DigiTV Plus in Finland in 2008, and has 290,000 subscribers there. Boxer says it will phase out IPTV activities where it is working with a number of broadband networks so it can prioritize investments in HDTV on digital terrestrial networks. We assume it means getting out of partnerships with other IPTV networks, not closing or selling off DigitTV Plus ‘ though you can never tell.
US researcher In-Stat said that in 2009 the global demand for digital set top boxes was at an all time high, rising 11%, with 17 set top makers shipping more than 1 million units, and record demand for both satellite and terrestrial set top boxes. The next few years will be solid says In-Stat then Over the Top video products will lead to a period of people ‘Cutting the chord.’ It also believes that set top function will become a software add-on and appear in other devices such as smart phones and game consoles and TV sets themselves ‘ all of which will see the market turn down.
Dell’s boss in China was reported in the local press standing up and saying that Dell will be on the forefront of innovations such as Chrome OS. Without this being an officially sanctioned announcement it is well known that talks are underway with Google in order to keep up with rivals such as Acer, Asus, and Lenovo who all have deals on Chrome. US top PC maker HP has already said in 2009 that it will embrace Chrome, although it now owns Palm with its own WebOS.
We’re not aware of any prior relationship between NDS and Comcast, so it was a surprise when Comcast chose NDS as the prime integrator to help out with the deployment of tru2way devices. The deal was won by the NDS’ professional services team and it will develop a test suite for the tru2way Reference Implementation. Tru2way is a Java, software based standard, for interactivity on cable set tops, and NDS will help the Comcast set top suppliers to work within the standard. NDS will lead set-top box testing, code development and validation of new tru2way applications and devices for Comcast.
Austin, Texas US chip company Silicon Laboratories said this week it had introduced the media industry’s first digital TV demodulator which combines satellite, terrestrial and cable functions on a single chip, the Si2167 multimedia TV demodulator. SL claims this is the smallest single-chip, multi-standard demodulator and that it simplifies design of digital TVs, set-tops and DVRs. The chip supports DVB-S/S2, DVB-T and DVB-C reception in a single system and is available in a 48-pin 7 mm x 7 mm QFN package costing around $8 a chip in 10,000-unit quantities.
US Researcher DisplaySearch says that the market for portable pocket projectors, will go from 0.5 million a year to 142 million in 2018, an even bigger jump than the forecast to a 20 million a year device market In-Stat said a few weeks ago, will develop by 2104. We can’t agree with either outcome, wondering why, in a world full of iPad style tablets, the world will still need pocket projectors at all. Displaysearch says that the market will be a staggering $13.9 billion in revenues by 2018, a compound annual growth rate of 70%. Apparently 130 new pocket projector models were released in 2009, but have yet to overcome low brightness, short battery life and high price. DisplaySearch says stand-alone projectors will reach 45 million units by 2018 and projectors embedded in other devices, we presume handsets and laptops, will reach 97 million units and $5 billion in 2018.
SES says that its new satellite SES 1 is now commercially operational at the orbital location of 101 degrees West. This is one of the key steps in the SES fleet renewal over North America and customers have been transitioned from the AMC-2 and AMC-4 spacecraft, which will now go onto new missions at new orbital slots. The SES-1 was built by Orbital Sciences, and successfully launched on an ILS-Proton Breeze M rocket on April 24. It mostly handles cable TV feeds across the US.
ATV News says that On Demand Group has launched a TV subscription video-on-demand movie service on the French SFR fixed line network which used to be Neuf Cegetel. This is in addition to the transactional VoD service launched in January 2010. SFR viewers can now get their own Hollywood movie subscription channel.
RGB Networks, a video processing specialist, says it has acquired RipCode, a privately held developer of mobile IP video apps. RGB will incorporate RipCode’s technology into its Video Multiprocessing Gateway so that video service providers can service subscribers on TVs, PCs and mobile devices. Financial terms were not revealed.
Envivio said this week that TTNET, a subsidiary of T’rk Telekom and the leading broadband ISP in Turkey, with 5 million subscribers, has deployed Envivio encoders to launch a new Web TV service. The new service is being put together by Envivio’s partner Birtel and the system will offer live TV channels and on-demand services over the Internet for viewing on PCs and Wi-Fi enabled devices.