• ADB SD box runs Minerva middleware
By Brian Santo
Advanced Digital Broadcast said its advanced standard definition (SD) IPTV set-top box has been certified to run Minerva Networks’ iTVManager 3.2 middleware. ADB has high- definition (HD) boxes on the Minerva platform.
At the same time, GCI said it has has selected Minerva’s middleware and set-top boxes from ADB for its new IPTV service, scheduled to launch in January 2009, which will be delivered through GCI’s newly upgraded fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network (story here).
The ADB-2500W handles both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 SD video, and will also support whole home DVR via the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) networking standard.
ADB said its box is also compatible with the industry’s leading conditional access/digital rights management (DRM) and VOD systems.
• SCTE Foundation gives grant to Cox engineer
By Brian Santo
The SCTE Foundation awarded a grant to Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) member Robert Jerman of Cox Communications.
Jerman, of Yukon, Okla., is a dispatch manager. He will apply the major grant toward completing his bachelor of science in organizational behavior from Southern Nazarene University. Jerman has been an SCTE member since May 2007.
The SCTE Foundation was established by the SCTE Board of Directors in 2005 and began issuing grants in 2006. The Foundation has helped numerous SCTE members by distributing grants totaling more than $90,000. One of the SCTE Foundation’s purposes is to provide expanded educational opportunities for SCTE members to assist them in accomplishing their professional development goals and dreams.
The SCTE Foundation Board of Directors recently approved Jerman’s application for a major grant following preliminary approvals by the Foundation’s Major Grants Subcommittee and the Foundation’s Awards Committee.
The grant and scholarship application and complete information about the SCTE Foundation are available at https://foundation.scte.org, including the Foundation’s 2008 Giving Campaign, “Fueling Cable’s Future,” which is going on now through Dec. 31.
• Amino box includes Latens software
By Brian Santo
Amino Communications has integrated Latens’ conditional access (CA) software in the AmiNET530 Digital Video Recorder (DVR) set-top box (STB).
The AmiNET530 IPTV STB has the ability to view recorded content either locally or via other connected STBs in the home. It delivers the benefits of low bit-rate codecs including MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) and allows connection of high definition (HD) displays via analogue and HDMI outputs. Class leading picture quality and HD graphics provide an enhanced user experience.
Latens its CA is deployed by over 100 operators worldwide.
• Sprint, Cisco to Offer FMC
By Wireless Week Staff
Sprint Nextel is expanding its fixed-mobile convergence catalog with Cisco Systems’ Unified Communications Manager.
“It not only converges your desk and mobile phones, but it allows all calls within your enterprise to be ‘on-net’,” Sprint wireline president Dan Dooley explained.
Sprint’s MPLS connections serve as the bridge technology. Appropriate customers would have at least 100 users, officials said.
Customers also are able to use fewer trunk lines, track mobile calls and offer features to their end users such as fewer mailboxes and in-call transfers.
More Broadband Direct:
• Motorola bows IPTV integration suite for service providers
• Insight builds on success in Q3
• GCI picks Verimatrix, CSI Digital for IPTV
• Ericsson brings IMS / IPTV middleware to TelcoTV
• Videotron deploys Openet’s mediation platform
• Actiontec debuts xDSL gateway
• Vudu says its tops in online HD content
• AT&T Pays $944M for Centennial
• Ethernet Microwave Coming to North America
• Dish Network 3rd-quarter profit slides 54 percent