IPTV set-top box technology veered off in modern directions at two opposite ends of the world when Sumitomo Electric Networks said it would supply UltraHD (aka 4K) set-top boxes to Japan's largest IPTV provider NTT Plala and Marvell said it was developing an 802.11ac Android IPTV set-top box for Swisscom.
NTT Plala will use the Sumitomo device to try out delivery of 4K video content at 60 frames per second in a service trial of Hikari TV.
"NTT Plala will make any efforts to enable the transition to UltraHD 4K services in the Japanese content market," said Katsumi Nagata, board director and executive director of the technology and engineering division of NTT Plala, in a press release.
The service provider expects that the set-top boxes will work with Sumitomo's in-home IP streaming technology to decode 4Kp60 content in real time over an IP broadband network.
Marvell, meanwhile, delivered a system-on-a-chip (SoC) platform to power Swisscom's TV 2.0 set-top box to more than a million Smart Life and Smart Lifestyle subscribers.
Welli Dai, president and co-founder of Marvell, cited the company's "close collaboration with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and the world's leading telecom providers" in the development of the SoC.
"As consumers increasingly demand seamless access to high quality content, it is critical that service providers offer end-to-end solutions for ubiquitous video delivery of uncompromised image quality at an affordable cost," Dai said in a press release.
For more:
- see this Sumitomo Electric press release
- and this Marvell press release
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