Entropic and Zenverge Collaborate on Open Screen Solution

Zenverge is to leverage Entropic’s MoCA 2.0 platform to offer service providers and Open Screen solution. Both companies have announced that they will be collaborating on a MoCA (Multimedia over Coax)-based transcoding appliance reference design that allows service providers give customers the freedom to view personal or Pay-TV content on any consumer electronics (CE) device. In addition, Entropic has made a strategic investment in Zenverge totaling 10 million dollars (USD).

Both companies have realised that service providers are face with a number of challenges when trying to meet the Open Screen standards within the home. These are: Consumers' entertainment viewing preferences—from where, when, how, and what type of device; Interoperability issues between CE devices that may have different formatting, resolution, and digital rights management (DRM) capabilities such as tablets; Quality of service issues with Wi-Fi networks; Cost and bandwidth consumption challenges related to storing multiple copies of content for each CE device.

They are hoping to address these service provider issues as well as alleviate the frustrations face by consumers who want to do more with their smart devices. The solution was to develop a transcoding appliance reference design that will enable service providers to optimize digital video recorder (DVR) storage properties and transcode broadcast content in real-time.

Using Zenverge's Entertainment Nexus (ZEN) advanced digital media processor content can be streamed from a DVR, a network attached storage (NAS) device or a personal computer (PC) and converted to a format most suitable for viewing on tablets, smartphones, or laptops.  The HD media processor is capable of transcoding HD content up to four-times faster than real-time, and up to 30-times faster for lower-resolution content.

In addition, the Zenverge media processor can simultaneously transcode up to four independent HD streams, or up to 16 independent standard definition (SD) streams, along with supporting full encode of HD content.

Both Patrick Henry, president and CEO of Entropic and Amir Mobini, CEO of Zenverge are happy with the partnership but made no mention as to when we can expect their first solution.