Microsoft’s IPTV Platform

Microsoft’s IPTV Platform

Microsoft has said that they are working with many semiconductor suppliers and plans to introduce a variety of products based on their IPTV platform. The company came to the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) with a novel media processor co-designed with Sigma Designs and targeted at IPTV applications. They also showcased a variety of set-top boxes.

Their SoC processor is called SMP8634 and it extends the processing functionality of Sigma Design’s open standards-based SMP series of media processors. The plan is to fully utilize the potential of the Microsoft’s TV platform and can handle multiple channels of high-definition (HD) video and on-screen graphics, multimedia processing, powerful content security, and support for peripherals such as USB 2.0, IDE, Ethernet and HDMI.

The platform also supports VC-1 and H.264 (MPEG-4) video codecs, which would help them, reduce the costing of the development for the set-top box manufacturers. Some of the companies working with Microsoft in this direction are Linksys-KiSS, Motorola Inc., Scientific-Atlanta Inc., Tatung Co. and The Thomson Corp.

And some of the interested network operators who have expressed their interest in this technology are British Telecom, Swisscom AG and SBC Communications Inc.