set-top box

SFR of France has left no stone unturned with its sixth generation Neufbox home gateway – dubbed Neufbox Evolution. The box is a set-top box and home gateway all in one; it offers IPTV multiscreen access, Femtocell connectivity, the ability to connect directly to ADSL and Fibre-to-the-home and a host of other functions. Users have the option to connect the Neufbox Evolution wired or wirelessly. The IPTV service offers over a hundred channels plus the option to save content locally. Prices start at 29.90 euros and vary depending on additional features.

Netgem and Toshiba have collaborated on a multifunction adapter to offer “Toshiba Places” for the French market. Through this new multifunction device French users will be able to access online services from their television.  The “Toshiba Places” was designed to optimised the TV experience, through it you can access a range of entertainment services, which include the ability to share your digital content (multimedia) with friends and relatives and watch video-on-demand.

Trident and ARM have collaborated to develop a new Set-top Box platform that according to both companies offers the best of Web 2.0 and media broadcasting.  Built on the ARM powerful Cortex-A Series processors, the new Trident Set-top Box, they said, will allow users to browse the internet, view TV programming, run rich internet applications and share various media content anywhere and anytime.  Also operators will be better able to target their content package to maximise advertising revenue.

Telekom Slovenia has upgraded it IPTV infrastructure with Netgem TV Middleware Device Management System (DMS) which include Netgem’s smart Set-top Box technology. Telekom Slovenia said from 1 September 2010 they will be using Netgem’s intelligent client to roll out tailored applications to its IPTV customers, and that working with Netgem is part of a bigger plan to expose its 120,000 customers to advance television and to experience a new level in home entertainment.

The transition from analogue to digital television brought many benefits except it is slow when browsing between channels.  Though the slow channel change isn’t enough to make us want to go back it can be frustrating at times.  Broadcom is promising to change this with its recently released FastRTV SoC solution, a channel change acceleration technology for suppliers of STB (set-top box).  Broadcom said FastRTV is will also allow you to change your channels up to 5 times faster.

Leading pay TV provider Sky Deutschland has selected Broadcom SoC solution (BCM7325 and BCM7335) for its next generation HD Set-top Box and DVR (Digital Video Recorder) services.  Sky Deutschland provides satellite, cable and internet services to approximately 95 percent of Germany and 85 percent of Austria. The new energy-efficient single chip solution will help Sky to provide multi-channel high definition viewing and digital video recording functionality for subscribers.

STMicroelectronics as announced that Dish TV, India's largest Direct-To-Home (DTH) company, with 7.5 Million subscribers, latest set-top boxes are powered by STMicroelectronics’ STi5189 and STi7111 System-on-Chip (SoC) solution. The STB (set-top box) decoder ICs embedded in Dish TV set-top boxes are capable of delivering Standard-Definition (SD) and High-Definition (HD) television viewing. The new set-top boxes are currently being rolled out to Dish TV customers throughout India.

Netgem has promised to showcase a host of connected home solutions at this year’s IBC show in Amsterdam. The company has confirmed its participation in the event and said they will be showing the latest technologies and demonstrating some of Netgem’s new functionality offered in their STB set-top box range, which is geared at providing new business opportunity for service providers.

India’s Bharti Airtel has selected Dolby Digital Plus as the surround sound format for its new HD Direct-to-Home service and set-top boxes. According to Dobly Laboratories, Bharti Airtel chose their audio format as part of their plans to offer customers HD content with up to 7.1 channels of surround sound.

Popbox has licensed RealDFormat from Real Inc. for its PopBox on-demand media player. This is to allow customers wishing to watch 3D not having to buy a different device. The move makes Pobbox the first over-the-top set-top box to support the stereoscopic RealD Format. Popbox did not say when the Popbox will be available, only soon and that it is available for pre-order from Amazon.com.