Mix & match from the two articles you posted, for those who cannot connect the dots. I doubt that Zenith would do two different designs for a digital settop box (although it could). So, the Divicom-Zenith settop box designed for Americast may be the same digital settop box Zenith (and its Divicom partner) sells to others........
The DiviCom-Zenith design will create a set-top box capable of interfacing to four different networks -- hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC), switched digital video (SDV), direct broadcast satellite (DBS), and multi-channel, multi-point distribution systems (MMDS). The ability to accommodate these four network configurations through the use of DAVIC A0 compliant network interface modules (NIMs) is an industry breakthrough in set-top box design.
Over the past year, Zenith has brought together some the industry's best engineering minds, developed technology alliances with leading MPEG compression and decompression and Network Interface Modules companies, and modernized our manufacturing facilities to create a high-performance, flexible and extremely secure line of digital terminals based on the MPEG2/DVB standard.
Our digital terminal is loaded with standard features including a 68xxx CPU (a Coldfire or PowerPC version will be available in late 1997), 512k flash memory, 2mb video memory, 2mb scratch memory, hardware accelerated graphics processor, an MPEG audio and video processor, DVB descrambler, IR transmitter/receiver, and conditional access smartcard interface.
And from the Zenith STB article I posted:
Zenith Electronics Corporation has been selected to supply digital set-top boxes for Sky Latin America (LA Sky B), a digital direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service operated jointly by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and Latin American broadcasters, according to the LG Electronics (LGE).
The LG Electronics is the majority shareholder of the Glenview, Illinois-based manufacturer and marketer of electronic entertainment and information products for the consumer and professional markets. Under the agreement with Sky Latin America, Zenith will design, manufacture and distribute digital set-top integrated receiver decoders (IRDs) beginning early in 1998. LGE said Zenith will supply at least 500,000 units by 2000 which are valued at $150 million.
The question we have had for a couple of weeks is whether Zenith's NDS digital settop design for Sky Latin America is the same as Zenith/Divicom's digital settop box designed for Americast.
DiviCom wouldn't do a design without CUBE on board, would it? |
