Strategy & Technology Ltd (S&T), ACCESS Co Ltd, and Pixsan Digital Software Ltd, three leading digital TV software companies, today announced the launch of “Project Uno”, a software solution leveraging the Universal Television Kit (UTK) Shared Source base for hybrid TV. The solution can provide a close-to-turnkey solution for DVB and HbbTV requirements in both free-to-air and operator platforms, and offers broadcasters, content owners, test houses and device makers a target device reference platform. The initial profile is available for Freeview Play in the UK, which is based on the HbbTV 2.0 specification.
The solution is based on the UTK project and consists of the UTK framework, S&T’s Redkey MHEG5 engine and the ACCESS NetFront™ Browser NX HbbTV Profile. The reference implementation is delivered on an x86 PC platform, which can then be used to verify, test and harden other software stacks, as well as application services running on widely used Set-Top-Boxes and Smart TV platforms.
“With Project Uno, development partners, operators and application developers can access a common solution, which can be used to allow collaboration between all parties in the broadcast and OTT value chain,” said David Cutts, CEO of S&T. “Platforms like Freeview Play require the robustness of not just the device software itself, but the applications and services that are necessary for it to run a system the consumer will rely on and enjoy. Our industry delivers increasingly complex services, which means that shared understanding of issues will enable an improved user experience.”
“The availability of a UTK-based reference solution provides consumer electronics manufacturers and interactive application developers with a low cost way to access and validate feature rich services on a common platform,” said Dr. Neale Foster, COO and Vice President of Global Sales, ACCESS. “We are supporting Project Uno because we can see the need for a complete and open reference solution within the HbbTV market place to accelerate device deployments and facilitate application innovation.”
Jon Williams, Managing Director and CEO of Pixsan said: “We developed UTK to offer a royalty free shared source project to increase innovation and reduce support costs. Project Uno is a really useful way to create robustness and innovation for everyone who wishes to see Freeview Play a success ".
S&T will be showing Project Uno solution at Stand 116 at TV Connect on 28-30 April 2015.
