Motorola Mobility is making it easier for end-users to view TV shows on their varied devices with a new hardware offering.
The Motorola Televation product securely streams subscription TV to IP devices connected to the home Wi-Fi network. Televation employs a 1GHz digital tuner and CableCard to access broadcast TV channels directly from a coax outlet. The device has a high-performance transcoder that translates programming in real-time from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4.
The device has an Ethernet jack to plug directly into the home Wi-Fi router and TV shows can be wirelessly streamed over IP to any device connected to the home network. To keep the programming secure while it is being streamed and to preserve the digital rights associated with the program, Televation uses Motorola’s SecureMedia IPRM-HN technology.
In a press release, Motorola referenced its 2010 Media Engagement Barometer research, which showed that Americans watch an average of 21 hours of video content a week and about 86 percent pay for TV service. The company also conducted focus groups with consumers in the New York and Los Angeles metro markets. In many cases, consumers liked the idea of watching live TV somewhere other than a traditional family room and felt it would allow them to spend more time with loved ones if they had the ability to watch different programs in the same room.
“Televation gives our customers the ability to launch a new service that puts innovation back into TV, enabling their subscribers to enjoy TV beyond the TV,” said John Burke, senior vice president and general manager of converged experiences for Motorola Mobility, in a statement.
Motorola will provide software development kits (SDKs) for both Android and iOS development environments, so customers can develop client applications that enable the subscriber to navigate, discover and select the show they want to watch. Motorola said it worked closely with engineers at Comcast Innovation Labs to develop Televation.
The product will be showcased at the 2011 Cable Show (June 14-16 in Chicago) in both Motorola and Comcast’s booths.