"set top" articles
Today, movie rental giant Blockbuster announced a partnership with Sonic Solutions that will allow it to stream movies and shows not only on TVs and PCs, but also on mobile phones, portable media players, Blu-ray players, set-top boxes and digital video recorders. Between them, Blockbuster and Sonic already have deals with such CE manufacturers as LG Electronics, Samsung, and VIZIO. VIZIO had just taken the wraps off of its “Connected HDTV” Platform at CES last week. VIZIO’s other...
As 2008 ended in a bang (I’m talking flames not fireworks), industry analysts scrambled to revise their advertising forecasts for 2009 and beyond. The current economic recession has caused increased uncertainty in the minds of advertising industry executives (as well as anyone who eats, breathes, and sleeps in the U.S.). I’ve read countless articles related to the advancement of new digital advertising technologies specifically targeting TV, online, and mobile. And while the opinions...
Adobe made a couple of interesting announcements last week relative to making Flash available on the TV.
On January 5 , Adobe and Intel announced plans to collaborate on the development to port and optimize Adobe® Flash® technology for the Intel® Media Processor CE 3100. This effort is expected to provide consumers with richer and more seamless Web-based and video viewing experiences through advanced Intel-based cable set-top boxes, Blu-ray Disc players, digital TVs and retail...
NeuLion launched a new box, the iPTV HD TV Box . The box works in concert with NeuLion's iPTV HD PC browser to bring 720p and 1080i content to the TV.
News today that the Netflix Player now supports high-definition streams. A software update will be sent to the $99 boxes already in homes in the next few weeks. Roku says that more high-definition content providers will be added in the first quarter of 2009.
I've got to think that this box is going to be under a few Christmas trees on Thursday morning.
The Sigma Designs purchase of Zensys , the company that originated the Z-Wave wireless networking protocol, is an interesting move. There are definitely some entertainment and remote controller applications that are enabled using Z-Wave, and Sigma also has a strong reputation in customer premise equipment like set-top boxes. So, might we see some home control features integrated with traditional entertainment experiences?
We're at the TelcoTV show in Anaheim this week, and getting updates on the trends in telco/IPTV services on a global basis. Some of the things that have caught my eye include:
* Web integration of VoD and remote DVR services. Everyone seems to be talking about a Facebook integration and recommendations for VoD titles. I saw an interesting demonstration from SeaChange, where their Affinity recommendation engine allows users to recommend things like VoD titles. That could enhance the...
Bringing Internet video directly to the TV via network-connected consumer electronics devices is a big trend that we discussed in our report Internet Video: Direct-to-Consumer Services (Second Edition). I'll be discussing this and other Internet video trends in a Webcast this afternoon, as well. We now have a couple of new news items that reflect this trend.
First, you had to think that this announcement was coming. LG Electronics' BD300 Network Blu-ray Disc Player can connect to...
