Vendors Rush to Enable Home Video Distribution

Driven by soaring bandwidth needs for residential video services, key vendors are rushing to develop home networking products that enable multimedia content distribution inside the home.

Samsung Electronics Co., STMicroelectronics and Metalink Inc. joined the fray Monday, announcing at the Cebit conference in Germany that they’re working together to create a set-top box that supports HDTV over a wireless home network.

The news comes just days after Motorola’s strategic investment unit has acquired an unspecified equity stake in Amimon, a company that makes chips to support wireless video distribution in the home.

“I think it’s a gutsy move, frankly,” said Tom Nolle, president of CIMI Corp. of the Motorola move. “The general industry view is that wireless video distribution in the home won’t work well because of potential for interference.”

Startup Ruckus Wireless gained major notoriety last year when it launched a wireless scheme for handling video distribution in the home, quickly snagging IPTV deployers such as Pioneer Telephone.

The company demonstrated HD handling in the home over WiFi at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Video distribution in the home has long challenged service providers who sought means with adequate bandwidth to move standard definition TV. That ante was upped with demand for HD programming, as has been noted by the Samsung-STMicroelectronics-Metalink trio.

Samsung said its SMT-H6155 is specifically designed for the delivery of HD IPTV over wireless LAN. It is equipped with a STi7109 chipset, providing the HD video decoding technology from STMicroelectronics, and Metalink's 802.11n WLANPlus chipset, enabling the wireless delivery of multiple HD video streams throughout the home.

"Our customers have shown great demand for high-definition multimedia content via IPTV and the ability to facilitate content using a Wireless LAN," said Hee-Won Park, vice president of Samsung's STB Development Group. "We believe that Samsung's SMT-H6155, equipped with STMicroelectronics' decoder and Metalink's 802.11n chipsets, will satisfy our consumers as a top-of-the-line set-top box for HD IPTV.”

ABI projects the worldwide IPTV STB market will grow from 4.7 million units shipped in 2006 to 41.2 million units shipped in 2011.

Amimon Inc. www.amimon.com  

Metalink Inc. www.metalinkbb.com  

Motorola Inc. www.motorola.com  

Samsung Electronics www.samsung.com  

STMicroelectronics www.stmmicroelectronics.com

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