PMC-Sierra Introduces First 6 Gbps SAS/SATA Architecture

PMC-Sierra introduced the industry's first SAS 2.0 compliant device for enabling enterprise-class SAS/SATA disk-array systems. SAS 2.0 enhances the SAS protocol to achieve greater levels of performance, scalability, availability and reliability. It also significantly improves the connector and cabling within the data center.PMC-Sierra's new 6 Gbps SAS/SATA controller (PM8000 Tachyon SPC 8x6G) leverages the company's Tachyon protocol controller technology,...

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Samsung Demonstrates A-VSB Mobile DTV for North America

Samsung Electronics is demonstrating its A-VSB Mobile DTV technology for enabling mobile TV digital broadcasting in North America at very low cost, using broadcasters' existing facilities and frequency spectrum. Samsung said recent advances in the technology have yielded twice the efficiency (using half the broadcasting bandwidth) compared to Samsung's previous demonstration in January.Advanced-VSB (A-VSB) is a proposed open standard builds on the current ATSC transmission standard to enhance the ability of receivers to display television broadcasts...

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CableLabs Announces Tiered Test Program for DOCSIS 3.0

CableLabs will pursue a three-tiered program for qualification of Data over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) 3.0 cable modem termination systems (CMTS): Bronze, Silver and Full. CableLabs said this novel CMTS qualification testing approach would waive some of the more advanced DOCSIS 3.0 CMTS requirements for the entry level of qualification as a way to encourage CMTS makers to submit gear for testing earlier than they otherwise might. Meanwhile, DOCSIS 3.0 modems will have only one level of certification that will be representative...

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Adobe Media Player Support Offline Viewing, DRM

Adobe Systems previewed its new Media Player desktop application for distributing and monetizing high-quality content both online and offline. The Adobe Media Player, which leverages the company's Flash technology, provides content publishers new abilities to distribute, track and build businesses around their media assets. Adobe Media Player is developed using Apollo, the code name of Adobe's recently announced application runtime that empowers content publishers and web developers to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) on the desktop...

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Nortel to Supply Hosted IP PBX Solution for TELMEX

TELMEX, the incumbent carrier in Mexico, selected Nortel to provide hosted IP telephony and multimedia services for delivery of a new Hosted IP PBX offering to medium and large enterprises nationwide. TELMEX, the leading telecommunications company in Mexico, to provide hosted IP telephony and multimedia services for delivery of a new Hosted IP PBX offering to medium and large enterprises nationwide.http://www.nortel....

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D-link Offers All-in-One Wireless and Wired Smart Switch

D-Link introduced a 24-port, 10/100 wireless "smart switch" for businesses with up to 200 employees. It features centralized AP management for easy deployment, configuration, replacement and monitoring of multiple APs. It supports AP load balancing, which automatically disperses traffic equally among multiple APs.It also offers all the functionality of a smart wired switch, such as virtual local area network (VLAN) segmentation, QoS prioritization and denial of service (DoS) prevention. The switch also boasts 15.4 watts of PoE power per port...

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Open Mobile Video Coalition to Promote Mobile Digital Broadcast TV in U.S.

Nine of the largest U.S. television broadcast groups have formed an "Open Mobile Video Coalition" aimed at accelerating the development of mobile digital broadcast television. Founding broadcasters in the group include Belo Corp., Fox Television Stations, Gannett Broadcasting, Gray Television, ION Media Networks, the NBC & Telemundo Television Stations, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Broadcasting Company. These companies collectively represent over 280 television stations in the U.S. http://www.openmobilevideo.c...

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Samsung and Nokia Conduct DVB-H Handset/Network Testing

Samsung and Nokia agreed to collaborate to achieve interoperability among their DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast - Handheld) enabled mobile devices and the open standards based Nokia network services system. Specifically, the handset manufacturers will work together to support solutions based on the open OMA BCAST standard available for operator partners interested in deploying multi-vendor mobile TV services and trials in 2007 and onward.http://www.nokia.com http://www.samsung....

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Nokia Introduces Widgets

Nokia introduced widgets for its S60 mobile phone platform, allowing people to personalize Internet content into lightweight Web applications and stay current with online information sources. Nokia said that while widgets have been available on PCs for some time, they bring particular advantages to mobile devices, as mobiles are highly personal and among the few items that we always carry with us.The S60 software on Symbian OS will be complemented with Web Run-Time, a Web application development environment, enabling the development of widgets...

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Kasenna Delivers Its Third-Generation IPTV Middleware PortalTV

Xilinx unveiled a new reference design for video-over-IP and IPTV applications. The Xilinx design supports multiple channels in and out, bridging between DVB-ASI and Ethernet IP packets, and forward error correction (FEC) using the ProMPEG Code of Practice 3 (CoP3) -- for compressed transport streams and uncompressed SDI video sources. Additional flexibility is provided through a choice of memory and processor configurations to closely match technical requirements. http://www.xilinx.com/broadc...

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Kasenna, HP and Intel Team on IPTV Test

Kasenna has teamed with HP and Intel to complete a one- million-IPTV-subscriber benchmark test for broadcast television and bandwidth-intensive Video on Demand (VOD) services. Kasenna said the benchmark test proved that an IPTV infrastructure developed by Kasenna, together with HP and Intel, can support one million subscribers.The IPTV-infrastructure test-bed, built around Kasenna's Portal TV product suite, consisting of the "LivingRoom" middleware...

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Netflix Appoints V.P. of Internet TV

Netflix, which claims more than six million subscribers for its online DVD rental service, has appointed Anthony Wood to the newly created position of vice president of Internet TV. Wood is the founder of ReplayTV and, most recently, Roku, which developed a networked music player and other consumer devices. http://www.netflix.c...

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Comcast Hires Chief Procurement Officer

Comcast Cable has appointed Peter Kiriacoulacos as Senior Vice President and Chief Procurement Officer, a position in which he will be responsible for developing and guiding strategies to help achieve commercial synergies via procurement that "fully leverage Comcast's size and scale". Kiriacoulacos currently serves as Vice President of Global Procurement for Liberty Global, Inc., leading the company's global procurement strategy for the last seven years. http://www.comcast....

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AT&T Drops Talks on Telecom Italia

AT&T confirmed reports that it has ended negotiations to potentially acquire a one-third stake in Olimpia S.p.A., a holding company with approximately 18 percent of Telecom Italia's ordinary shares. http://www.att....

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Microsoft Offers Commercial VC-1 Encoder

Microsoft announced a VC-1 Encoder software development kit (SDK) for manufacturers building video encoding solutions. The commercial SDK offers substantial quality and performance improvements over the previously released Windows Media Format SDK. Improvements include better picture quality, faster encode times, new features optimized for various video distribution channels, and ease of integrating future updates.Microsoft said that more than 90% of HD DVD titles authored in the United States currently use VC-1.The new commercial VC-1 Encoder...

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Microsoft Unveils Silverlight -- a Competitor to Adobe Flash

Microsoft unveiled its "Silverlight" -- a new cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering video and rich interactive applications (RIAs) for the Web. Microsoft Silverlight, previously called Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere (WPF/E), integrates with existing Web technologies and assets to deliver a consistent viewing experience to both Macintosh and Windows users on a variety of browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.Microsoft said Silverlight uses Windows Media Video (WMV), its implementation of the Society...

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Microsoft Expands IPTV Ecosystem, Cites Growing Deployments Worldwide

Microsoft has expanded its list of partners supporting its IPTV Edition software platform to include the following categories:Server processors. AMD and Intel Corporation provide leading chipset solutions for server and storage infrastructures for the IPTV Edition ecosystem. Their processors are key to the scalable deployment of live and on-demand TV applications.Encoding solutions. Thomson Grass Valley's standard definition encoders support the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 standard used in IPTV Edition.Set-top boxes. Pirelli Broadband Solutions will provide...

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Ikanos Expands Into The FTTH Residential Gateway Market

Ikanos Communications announced its expansion into the Fiber To The Home (FTTH) residential gateway market with the introduction of its Fusiv Vx170 gateway processor, featuring 2.7 GHz of processing power integrated security, voice and wire speed QoS capabilities. Based on Ikanos' widely deployed Fusiv architecture, the Vx170 is designed to provide wire speed performance across all LAN and WAN interfaces, while utilizing less than 2.5 watts of power....

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Gefen Introduces HDMI over Coax

Gefen announced a method of extending HDTV over coax cable for high-definition video and multi-channel digital audio delivered through HDMI connectors. The plug and play HDMI over Coax cable solution allows any A/V source with HDMI connectors to be extended up to 300 feet from the display or projector using a single coax cable.In addition, Gefen said its Wireless for HDMI extension solution delivers the same high quality HDTV extension using ultra wideband (UWB) wireless technology for in-room connections of high-definition video sources to HDTVs.Both...

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InPhase Demos Holographic Storage for HD Video

InPhase Technologies announced the first commercial holographic storage system for broadcasters. The company's first product, the Tapestry 300r, is an archival write-once read many (WORM) product that offers high capacity, file-based data access, and 50-year media life for archiving valuable video assets. The 300 gigabyte (GB) drive and cartridge will be shipping later this year. The InPhase drive records 300 gigabytes (GB) on a single disk with a transfer rate of 20 megabytes per second (MB/s), or 160 megabits per second (Mb/s). The Tapestry300r...

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