Amino plans hybrid set-top

IP set-top box maker Amino Communications has said is entering the hybrid space next year. The company, which doesn't have a hybrid box in its portfolio, told CSI it is in the process of developing a product that incorporates broadcast capability, which will be released in the middle of 2008.

The growing popularity of the hybrid model hasn't gone unnoticed by Amino, which it sees as an emerging opportunity. While Amino is keen not to shut itself off from the traditional broadcast market,
it stressed that it is not simply recreating a low-cost commoditised broadcast box that will happen to have an IP connection. “We're taking our rich IP functionality and adding tuners for satellite, cable or DTT because we know there is demand from traditional broadcasters that want to bring very high-end IP capability to the market,” said Huw-Price Stephens, director of marketing and strategic business development at Amino.

“When you have a cable operator using DOCSIS 3.0 and run that with an IP capability for the more mainstream IP centric services, that's certainly a market we feel we have a value add. Our traditional strength in IP will give us an advantage and we're currently in the process of adding in the broadcast aspect of that - the DVB type capability to complement our core strength, which is in IP services,” added Stephens.

A related thrust of Amino's messaging concerns the “pure IPTV” concept. Stephens feels the vocabulary of IPTV - the term itself - has been corrupted in that it means different things to different people. The idea is to draw some segmentation between IP services that are an extended broadcast and pure IPTV, which is about IP-centric STBs that have the possibility to accommodate a richer experience via the TV, particularly those coming from the internet space. “It would be to the detriment to the industry if we began to see IPTV as one thing. There are some high-end IPTV services out there which do a lot more and promise a lot more than is possible with an enhanced broadcast STB,” said Stephens.

Stephens also said that Amino is working with a number of technologies to try and solve the problem of home networking and multi-room video distribution. Most interesting is its work around ultra wideband (UWB) short range wireless technology. Amino is not as yet integrating UWB into its set tops because it believes it is still premature to do that. “We think those technologies are critically important to the connected home but questions remain to be answered. The jury is out on UWB: it may offer more resilience against noise but it's a much shorter distance.”

Similarly, Amino is looking at broadband over powerline technology (BPL), noting that it has seen good results with some of the more recent BPL equipment that runs at 100Mbps over domestic power cables around the home. Restrictions exist here as well, but Stephens believes that both wireless and powerline will become increasingly important for home networking.