Netherlands based DRMer Irdeto lined up a record number of announcements for CommunicAsia, with pride of place going to a deal with ZTE, which makes it the preferred DRM partner for its IPTV system. Irdeto has usually been associated with smart card based systems, and has few IPTV or software only DRM wins. Irdeto has also signed up India’s Sun Direct TV to protect its DTH satellite TV content, with an initial 500,000 smart card order and also has a deal with Giga-Byte, the Taiwanese handset maker, to co-develop a Windows Pocket PC phone to receive DVB-H. In cable Irdeto has signed China’s Chengdu Cable and will simulcrypt its existing CA system with a new Irdeto one, with an up front 50,000 smart card order. Finally Irdeto says that it will provide the protection for the new Australian DVB-H trial recently announced by Broadcast Australia in Sydney.
Spanish broadband over powerline chip maker DS2 makes the clever point that when an Apple TV is plugged into one of its chipsets, it runs 4 times faster than through the Apple supplied Airport Extreme wi-fi system. While you’d expect a wired system, even a power based one, to be faster than any wi-fi, it serves as a reminder that UPA chips can both deliver broadband to homes,as well as spread it from room to room like HomePlug. It delivered an Apple TV 10 Mb file delivery in less than 20 seconds in a demonstration.
Michael Grade the new boss of the UK broadcaster ITV says he wants to form a ‘war cabinet’ that will challenge the UK Government’s plans to sell off the analog TV spectrum. Instead Grade wants broadcast TV handed HD digital spectrum for nothing, something that has happened in other parts of Europe. Advertising based TV in the UK has seen its advertising revenues wilting year up on year along with waning audiences.
Microsoft has agreed to make changes to its Windows Vista operating system to avert anti-trust litigation from Google which said that Vista was being set up to direct people away from the Google search engine, in particular the Google desktop search tool for indexing content on the hard drive of the PC. Lawyers are now putting the finishing touches to the Vista changes that are considered necessary, and the outcome has been a compromise between the Justice Department that was siding with Microsoft and various US states that were backing Google.
Swiss set top maker Advanced Digital Broadcast, has launched an attempt to get itself into the US cable and IPTV markets. It is already an established player in IPTV in Europe and Asia and will bring to market cableCARD and OCAP set tops, ready for US volume shipment towards the end of the year. The company has already launched HD, AVC hybrid satellite/IPTV STBs into the market through distributor Island Media in the US.
Chinese telecommunications equipment giant Huawei Technologies has announced an alliance with Israeli based encoder market Optibase to use its Media Gateway platforms for H.264 based IPTV encoding.
Set top maker Amino used the NXTcomm show in Chicago to launch its AmiNET530 DVR enabled HD set-top. The new device supports IPTV, video-on-demand, DVR applications, gaming and HD services using MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 codecs. Amino also announced that SureWest Communications will be deploying its AmiNET130 HD IPTV set-top, supporting HDMI connectivity.
IPTV DRM supplier Widevine said that Bell Aliant, an IPTV provider in Atlantic Canada, has chosen Widevine to protect its broadcast service, Aliant TV. Widevine has already landed deals with other Canadian service providers SaskTel, Telus and MTS Allstream which mean it has a virtual shut out in Canada. Aliant TV offers 300 TV channels, Pay-Per-View movies and events, 90 regional radio stations and 40 commercial free all music channels.
Samsung Electronics has launched a new range of flash based music players available in most markets all over the world, which will plug and play with many existing music services. The range is called simply the U3 and is a super-compact device that works right out of the box with a Slim-USB connection offering 15 hours of battery life, storage from 1GB to 4GB and FM radio and voice recording, and portable file storage. It also supports RDS and Music Subscription Service available in Europe and the US and devices are priced between $79 USD and $149.
Samsung has also introduced a colossal 70 inch High definition LCD TV, which is the largest commercially available LCD TV in the world. Previously LCD was just beginning to be competitive at the 50 inch level and was taking dominance over Plama panels at the 40 inch level and below. The company says that this is the first time that Local Dimming Technology has been used which delivers a wider contrast ratio and lower power consumption. Basically it turns off the backlight where the screen is supposed to be dark. The system also uses a light-emitting diode (LED) backlight instead of the conventional cold cathode fluorescent lamp. Samsung and Sony have swapped leadership in the LCD TV market over the past few years, but both rely on screens built at a Samsung run, jointly owned, Korean factory.
Tandberg Television said this week that MagiNet Interactive, the largest provider of in-room on-demand TV throughout Asia, has selected the Tandberg iPlex hotel encoders for its next generation hotel entertainment network. MagiNet Interactive will launch a new IPTV system with interactive TV that it says give hotels some new revenue opportunities, like a mini-bar for entertainment. The Tandberg iPlex mini encoder can support up to 8 MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 AVC encoders or 16 ASI input ports in a one RU chassis.
The WiMedia Alliance is looking at a standard for UltraWideBand over coax. One WiMedia member, Tzero Technologies, has already announced a UWB chip that works on both coax and wireless transmission at rates up to 300 Mbps. UWB pioneer Pulse~Link has already put down patents, almost two years ago, for a system to send its own version of UWB over Coax at up to 1 Gbps, and has been trying to interest cable operators ever since. Pulse~Link will ship a UWB chip this fall which will work at over 400Mbps for both wireless and coax. Both technologies are substantially faster that Multimedia over Coax (MoCA), which already has adopters and backers.