Universal Electronics Inc. announced that its full line of HDMI cables has been certified by the Premium HDMI Cable Certification Program.
“It’s critical that all components in a 4K/UltraHD HDMI-enabled system are fully capable of delivering the high-bandwidth dependent features customers expect from their products,” Brad Bramy, HDMI Licensing LLC marketing director, says. “The launch of Universal Electronics’ new Premium High Speed HDMI Cables ensures its cables are ready for today’s new 4K/UltraHD products and content, and installations will be future-proof for when customers add new upgraded products.”
The Premium HDMI Cable Certification Program is a new program designed to reportedly give end users confidence when purchasing new HDMI cables for their 4K/UltraHD products. Through the program, HDMI cables are tested to ensure they can reliably support the full 18 Gbps bandwidth and delivery of features enabled by the most recent HDMI specification including advanced video formats such as 4K@60Hz, wide color gamut and high dynamic range (HDR). The program also incorporates new testing guidelines for EMI levels to minimize unwanted interference with wireless signals.
“There’s a ton of confusion out there concerning HDMI cables and which ones are the best in delivering the 4K/UltraHD features. The last thing people want is a cable that under-performs and results in service calls, returns or unhappy customers,” Lou Hughes, EVP, Americas, at Universal Electronics, says. “With the new Premium HDMI Cable Certification, consumers can have absolute peace-of-mind knowing that our cables will provide the highest quality and speeds to reliably deliver 4K content.”
Imagine Communications announced its unified distribution initiative, which has the goal to empower content distributors with the ability to accelerate the modernization of their networks by facilitating the transition of critical operations to next-generation, Internet-based networks, according to the company.
The unified distribution initiative reportedly allows content distributors to consolidate multiple video delivery and ad insertion infrastructures into a software-based, HTTP network that uses ABR technology. The company says that by transferring primacy from legacy to next-gen architectures, video service providers can significantly reduce capital and operational expenses and increase their ability to explore new business opportunities by moving operations to software-based, datacenter environments built on generic computing and networking platforms.
The cornerstone of the strategy is the company’s Selenio Video Delivery Edge (VDE), an HTTP-to-UDP gateway designed to allow cable operators and other video service providers to streamline the consolidation of legacy and next-gen networks. Positioned at the edge of the network, the Selenio VDE converts ABR-based content into transport stream-compatible signals that are delivered to subscribers through existing STBs.
“By bridging legacy and next-generation networks, the software-based Selenio VDE assists pay TV providers in eliminating the overlap in the core of their networks,” Imagine says in a press release. “Cable operators, for example, can begin to reduce the number of transcode operations in the network, significantly decreasing operational cost while at the same time improving video quality.”
Similarly, Selenio VDE is reportedly designed to enable video service providers to retire outdated hardware-based ad splicers by leveraging the same ad insertion technology currently being used to feed commercial spots to Internet-connected devices. “The replacement of hardware-dependent systems with a software-based ad insertion ecosystem significantly increases deployment flexibility. Cable operators, which may maintain hundreds of headends and thousands of ad zones, are now able to locate ad insertion functionality anywhere in their networks,” Imagine says.
Hitron Technologies and MaxLinear have launched CMS-02, an embedded spectrum analysis module, at INTX 2016 in Boston. Developed as a joint effort between the two companies, the CMS-02 is said to improve and simplify network monitoring and analysis for cable operators deploying triple-play services by allowing the network to be continuously monitored at strategic locations. The ability to divide the network into smaller segments reduces network disruptions while troubleshooting sources of noise and interference, according to a press release. Working in conjunction with DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1 maintenance procedures, the CMS-02 reportedly improves accuracy and reduces network downtime.
The CMS-02 is said to provide full spectrum upstream and downstream network monitoring beyond the DOCSIS spectrum, including video and MPEG layers. The universal module design works in diverse applications including actives, nodes, headend and power supply cabinets.
The CMS-02 is reportedly fully remote manageable and can be integrated with the PNM architecture developed by CableLabs or an operator’s own PNM platform. Utilizing Hitron’s deep API, the PNM solution can automatically detect and report suckouts, US/DS noise, skew and a variety of other typical network impairment conditions. Through the remote information provided by the CMS-02 the PNM solution has the information needed to quickly triangulate network issues so the operator can send technicians to the site of a problem, reducing OPEX cost and potential downtime for customers, according to the companies. Hitron says it will be conducting a field trial of 100 units on five different use-cases including: DOCSIS 3.1 nodes, fiber deep nodes, mid-split upgraded nodes, legacy HFC node augmentation and headend monitoring and reporting.
