SoftAtHome, which provides operating platforms for set-top boxes (STBs), is launching an app store called “homestore” that pay-TV service providers can use to allow their subscribers to purchase “browsing, free-to-air TV channels, content sharing, catch up TV, Internet TV, games or social” apps that providers make available.
The SoftAtHome platform runs on home gateways, STBs and network attached servers. PCs, mobile phones, PDAs and other devices can be connected.
Orange (France Telecom’s pay-TV and broadband service), set-top box maker Technicolor and Sagemcom own the France-based SoftAtHome, whose platform is used in more than six million home gateways and one million STBs on the Orange network in Europe. In addition to the operating platform, SoftAtHome offers an open SDK and a developer zone.
The company said that by using homestore, service providers can generate additional revenue by facilitating subscribers’ purchase and use of other services and third-party applications.
Homestore consists of an application catalog that SoftAtHome operates; an application manager that handles the applications on the STB; and a store front that displays on TV sets. It can run on any STB that runs the SoftAtHome operating platform, either over-the-top or in a fully managed network.
Michel Degland, CEO of SoftAtHome, said homestore allows service providers “to foster innovation through third-party application developers to bring new and innovative services to market rapidly” and to “deliver new applications to their end users, while generating additional revenue.”
Homestore is currently available for pay-TV set-top boxes. The company is working on a version that’ll run on home gateways.
Turkish STB maker AirTies this week said it has an agreement with SoftAtHome to build wireline and wireless STBs with the SoftAtHome platform embedded. AirTies said the Air 7120 HD IP STB and the Air 7124 HD 802.11N wireless IP STB will allow service providers to offer OTT services plus IPTV and satellite and terrestrial (over-the-air) TV in one box.
AirTies said the Air 7124 is the industry’s first HD, 802.11N wireless STB that has a self-service secure wireless network. It said its AirTouch technology “makes it possible for anyone to configure complex wireless network settings automatically at the touch of a button.”
AirTies said its technology allows service providers to offer video distribution with Wi-Fi without any loss of video quality.
Both the Air 7124 (Wi-Fi) and the Air 7120 (wireline) models, it said, have sufficient memory and storage for even the most demanding interactive TV features.
With the units’ 2GB of NAND flash memory, they can offer “pause live TV functionality” or progressive download application, AirTies said.
SoftAtHome’s Degland said the deal with AirTies “offers service providers and telecom operators a unique opportunity to innovate by embracing OTT services and combining them with their traditional services to offer a unique experience to their subscribers.”
Separately, chipmaker Sigma Designs, which acquired HomePNA (HPNA) chipmaker CopperGate last September, announced a deal with SoftAtHome to embed the SoftAtHome operating platform in Sigma Designs’ SMP8654 chipset. The chipset will allow STB makers to build hybrid STBs that support over-the-top, terrestrial and IP TV.