March 26, 2008

China's Next-Gen Hybrid STB Readies Analog TV's For The Digital Beijing Olympics

A partnership between Oki Electric Industry Co Ltd, Intel KK and Huashu Digital TV Co Ltd has resulted in the announcement of a "Next Generation Hybrid STB (set top box)" with both DVB and IPTV compatibility. Chinese operators usually distribute lower end STB's to consumers for free, but this results in users denied access to higher-end value-added services and minimal profits for operators. The next generation hybrid was developed as a solution to these problems.

Featuring an Intel CE 2110 media processor, the next-gen STB is compatible with HDTV, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and H.264 codecs. It also has a plug-in Flash Player, a 2D/3D graphic accelerator, JVM (Java Virtual Machine), and internet access.

According to Oki Electric, 23.64 Chinese households had digital TV subscriptions in 2007, and the upcoming Beijing Olympics and Shanghai World Expo in 2010 would lead to an increase in the number of cable channels being digitalized. This combined with HDTV and IPTV penetrating deeper into the consumer mainstream should lead to a huge demand for STB's in China for the next few years.

Via Tech-On

Read More in: Digital TV Transition 2009