--Launches Three New Products: Alticast BDJ, altiExcite, altiTOK TV Plus
--Software Selected by Astra, KT
Korean MHP and OCAP specialist, Alticast, has generated a fair amount of news over the past few weeks:
- At the recent IFA consumer electronics tradeshow in Berlin, the company unveiled its AltiCaptor Blu-ray Disc Java (BDJ) solution, which is based on the same core software that the company has deployed in around 4 million set-top boxes around the world, and which has been developed to run on Broadcom's single-chip BCM7440 Blu-ray Disc solution. Alticast bills the combo if its software and Broadcom's hardware as providing a high-performance turnkey solution for developing Blu-ray Disc devices quickly. "We are very excited to be working with Broadcom on next-generation DVD products," Alticast VP and general manager, Jeffrey Bonin, said in a prepared statement. "Our software has been deployed in millions of digital television devices around the world, and the Blu-ray Disc platform is a logical extension of these successful products. Broadcom's single-chip BCM7440 is the most advanced solution in the market today."
- The company has developed a digital receiver software stack for the new Astra satellite-TV platform, entavio. Dubbed "entavio Total Solution," the new software stack has been built to the requirements of Astra Platform Services and content-protection specialist, Nagravision, and has been pre-certified by those companies. Among other things, it features a mosaic EPG. Alticast says that it has signed license agreements for the new software stack with a number of set-top box vendors. The company claims that the stack runs on all major hardware platforms; can be easily integrated onto set-tops "due to its very well-defined abstraction layer"; and reduces development time by up to 60%.
- The company says that its IPTV middleware has been ported to hybrid IPTV-terrestrial set-top boxes from Samsung and that the combo has now been commercially launched by "Korea's largest telecommunications operator" (i.e. KT). According to Alticast, the middleware will be used to support VOD and a range of interactive TV services, including an EPG. In addition, the company says, the operator "has adopted streaming technologies which allow viewers to watch videoclips as an enhancement to existing video-on-demand services, as well as an upgraded version with an emphasis on interactive features."
The company has launched a mosaic-style EPG, called altiExcite, which it says provides a customizable channel view, using patent-pending technologies and user-interfaces, and enables high-speed navigation and tuning. According to the company, the application can run in most set-top box environments. The company demo'd the new product at the IBC show in Amsterdam last month. - At the IBC show, the company also unveiled a new solution which it says is designed to improve the quality of IPTV services. Dubbed altiTOK TV Plus, the solution is billed by the company as enabling video services in a non-QoS network environment, using download-and-play (DnP) and push-VOD technologies. (Note: Alticast also recently formed a partnership with UK-based MHEG-5 specialist, Strategy & Technology--see article in this issue.)
Originally Published: October 12, 2007 in [itvt] Issue 7.39 Part 2A
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