China's Celestial Semiconductors Licenses Strategy & Technology's RedKey 2 MHEG Solution

Strategy & Technology--a UK-based company that specializes in solutions for standards-based interactive TV (its products include the TSBroadcaster and TSPlayer systems, which are used for the creation and transmission of MHP, MHEG, tru2way and ETV applications; and the widely licensed RedKey MHEG engines)--said Tuesday that it has licensed its RedKey 2 MHEG solution to China's Celestial Semiconductors.

The companies say they are now working to integrate the RedKey 2 MHEG libraries into Celestial's reference software for various markets that require MHEG-5 support, including Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and the UK (where an HD version of the MHEG-5-based free-to-air digital terrestrial service, Freeview, is scheduled to launch later this year). Celestial plans to use S&T's technology to develop a turnkey offering for manufacturers of DVB-compliant integrated digital TV receivers, set-top boxes and DVR's, based on its CSM1200 family of MPEG-2 and H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) decoder chipsets.

According to Celestial and S&T, the integration of RedKey 2 into Celestial's offering will provide broadcasters with a platform on which they can offer a range of services including interactive TV, video-on-demand, and Internet access. "We chose S&T's RedKey 2 because it's a robust and proven solution that can cover multiple markets and is easy to implement within the Celestial platform," Celestial's marketing director, Richard Yuan, said in a prepared statement. "It has been used by a large number of customers who recognize the quality of the product and the high level of support offered by S&T, so our decision was also influenced by direct requests from end-market and OEM manufacturing customers." Added S&T's general manager of MHEG systems, Paul Daly: "We are pleased to give Celestial Semiconductors the capability to strengthen its chipset and software offering. This will enable its manufacturing customers to facilitate the new opportunities made available to broadcast television by the latest MHEG specification."