Ocean Blue Partners with Rovi on Home Networking TV Software Solution

Bristol, UK-based digital TV software provider, Ocean Blue Software, announced last week that it is collaborating with Rovi (formerly Macrovision--for more on the company's name change and the repositioning it heralds, see the interview with Rovi chief evangelist, Richard Bullwinkle, that was published on itvt.com, July 16th) to integrate the latter's Connected Platform software for Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) capabilities into its Sunrise Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) stack. The company says that the technology integration will provide a solution that is designed to make it easier for consumer electronics manufacturers to develop DVB TV's that can access digital content from networked and DLNA-compatible devices.

Ocean Blue bills its Sunrise DVB software as providing all the components needed to enabled digital TV and set-top box manufacturers to quickly and easily implement satellite, cable and terrestrial DVB functionality into their devices. The company says that, with the integration of Rovi's Connected Platform, a DLNA technology component, CE manufacturers can now offer consumers the ability to easily manage their digital media content stored on different devices in the home: according to the company, content such as videos, photos and audio files that are stored on a remote server can now be retrieved and played from the TV, movie clips can be viewed, paused, rewound or fast-forwarded, and media files can be divided into genre and rated according to user preference. "This collaboration will provide CE vendors with a complete software solution for connected TV and set-top box products that meet industry interoperability standards," Ocean Blue CEO, Ken Helps, said in a prepared statement. "Importantly, we can also ensure software compatibility for consumers." Added Rovi's SVP of CE sales, Simon Adams: "Today's consumers do not want to have to deal with the complexity of connecting products to access their content. They want to access it seamlessly with a single remote control. We are pleased that we can help CE vendors deliver DLNA-compatible products that enable consumers to access media in exciting new ways."

According to Ocean Blue and Rovi, their integrated software solution is hardware- and OS-agnostic, thus providing manufacturers with a "scalable and quickly deployable solution that can be ported across any TV-centric chipset."