"set top" articles

An unlikely group might be the next to cut the cord to cable television- parents with children.  In the past, those who abandon cable television for Internet video services have mostly been the young, single adult.  After sports, children's programming is one of the most decisive factor in a viewer's choice of provider, and online video providers such as Netflix and Amazon are out to capture that market.  In an agreement with DreamWorks, Netflix will bring 300...

By Brett Sappington  U.S. cable operator Suddenlink announced that it would offer the TiVo Mini to its subscribers in several locations in advance of the product's retail release later this spring. The Mini is a small, IP-based set-top box that provides a variety of features for second and third TVs in the home, including whole home DVR and the ability to pause in one room and play in another. Importantly, the Mini can only be used in homes that have a TiVo Premiere...

By Kurt Scherf, Contributor CES isn’t necessarily the show at which major pay-TV providers (cable, satellite, or IPTV) make announcements, but as consumer electronics becoming important complements or replacements to the set-top box or pay-TV altogether, the show serves as an increasingly important way for these providers to demonstrate their continued relevance. The pay-TV market is under significant threat from alternative sources of entertainment and content, whether it is...

By Kurt Scherf, Contributor Although a great deal of web and apps capabilities are being directly embedded into televisions and other consumer electronics, there were several companies that demonstrated stand-alone set-top boxes with the ability to not only connect to well-known online content sources such as Netflix or Hulu Plus, but also over-the-air (OTA) and even cable television programming. Among the companies showing such trends were Boxee , NETGEAR , and Roku . Each...

By Jim O'Neill, Research Analyst Operators looking to cash in on delivering video to multiple screens have been talking about HEVC (high efficiency video coding) for a long time. Developers say the new video coding standard — H.265 — would reduce bit rate requirements of the current standard, H.264, by half, and deliver the same quality video. At the Cable Show in Boston this year, Motorola, which has been a participant in HEVC’s development,  talked about its plans...

By Brett L. Sappington, Director of Research On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal published an article reporting rumors that Apple was in discussions with pay-TV providers about the possibility of an Apple-branded set-top box (STB) that would carry live and on-demand content. According to the article, Apple proposed to provide the hardware and have pay-TV providers deliver the linear and on-demand content. For Apple, which has made a strong business by leveraging content to...

TiVo Inc. , a leader in the advanced television entertainment market, recently announced that it will acquire TRA, Inc., creator of the leading platform with the world's largest database that directly links information from the same households as to what viewers watch with what they buy. TRA matches television exposures from 1.5 million TV homes with specific purchase transactions. TiVo’s acquisition will create a unique combination of insights that will offer the TV advertising...

Belkin  has made a surprise entry into the place-shifting arena with @TV Plus, a set-top box allowing you to stream video from your home TV to your tablet, smartphone, or laptop over WiFi or a 3G/4G cellular connection. This is a direct competitor to Slingbox, which was acquired by EchoStar a few years ago and has languished a bit while maintaining the dominant position in the niche place-shifting market.  Like the Slingbox, @TV Plus works with both standard...