Osmosys News:

--Launches EGG for 3D Interactive TV Graphics
--ADB, STMicroelectronics to Use New EGG Technology
--Company Also Launches Push-VOD Application

  At the IBC show in Amsterdam last month, interactive TV software company, Osmosys (note: the company, which is part of the ADB Group, specializes in Java-based ITV solutions, such as MHP and OCAP), launched a new, patent-pending product, dubbed the Enhanced Graphics enGine (EGG). The company bills the new product as a "revolutionary" graphics engine and library, which allows video content creators and designers to develop interactive TV graphics (for example, in games, EPG's, VOD menus, and advertising) that offer   fluid motion, 3D effects and full animation on set-top platforms that were previously limited to 2D. "Digital TV displays in the 21st century should be far more dynamic and visually enticing to the consumer," Osmosys managing director, David McElhatten, said in a prepared statement. "The appearance of television display graphics has not moved apace with the industry and is now looking very dated indeed. Up until now, no one has invested the know-how, time and effort to create a solution that delivers the kind of graphical and visual experience for today's set-top boxes and other digital devices. EGG truly provides phenomenal increases in performance, new special effects, and levels of animation never before seen in the world of interactive TV."

According to Osmosys, EGG has been designed so as to be very parsimonious in its memory requirements, and so as to easily port to future API's, such as OpenGL (standard or embedded subset), OpenVG and DirectX. Thus, the company says, moving applications written using EGG to future hardware and software environments will be easy. Osmosys also claims that the engine is middleware-independent and is portable to all current HDTV set-tops: it works in both Java and C-centric environments, and presents API's in both languages, the company says, and it also operates in a multi-threaded or multi-application environment, meaning that multiple applications can exploit it simultaneously. "EGG is a revolution--until today it simply wasn't possible to achieve this level of graphical sophistication on currently deployed digital television hardware," Osmosys CTO, Paul Bristow, said in a prepared statement. "Our innovative technology pushes the capabilities of the graphics hardware in set-top boxes to bring them to a level that will rival any of the more expensive entertainment devices, out there. Since the dawn of digital TV, we have been operating in a severely constrained graphics environment; EGG changes the game."

In other Osmosys news:

• Osmosys' corporate stablemate, set-top box vendor ADB, says that EGG is available today on all its HD set-top boxes. At the IBC show, the company demo'd EGG-enabled Osmosys navigator and VOD applications running on its ADB-5800C HD set-top, together with HD content from the BBC Motion Gallery.
• The company says that it is finalizing an agreement with STMicroelectronics, under which the semiconductor giant will use the new EGG technology to support advanced graphics and animation capabilities in its HD video decoder family. According to Osmosys, ST will deploy EGG on its current generation of STi71XX chipsets, and on future chipsets for use in set-top boxes, integrated digital TV sets, and HD DVD players. "Our video-decoder platforms are among the most deployed throughout the world, and we are constantly looking to strengthen our lead in a very competitive market," Philippe Lambinet, corporate VP and general manager of ST's Home Entertainment and Displays group, said in a prepared statement. "EGG should strengthen our platforms, ensuring that our technology is now an even more attractive proposition. Osmosys' innovative graphics engine will ensure that our customers can achieve unrivalled 3D effects on today's set-top boxes. We are very excited about the opportunities EGG will bring to the interactive digital TV market." According to Osmosys, on an STi71XX-based platform, EGG is capable of drawing hundreds of objects per frame in 3D at interactive rates. EGG fill-rate is largely determined by the blitter available and the bus bandwidth in the system, Osmosys concedes, but on the STi7100 platform, EGG is easily capable of drawing full-screen 3D effects at 20-30fps at a resolution of 1280x720p, the company claims.
• The company has launched a push-VOD application, Osmosys Push VOD, which it says offers a bandwidth-independent means of distributing any form of digital content. Because the app is bandwidth-independent, Osmosys says, it is ideal for networks with bandwidth restrictions or where the cost of delivery is high: in an IPTV environment, its bandwidth-independence makes it especially useful for distributing HD content, the company claims. According to the company, Osmosys Push VOD can work with any conditional access system, is middleware-agnostic, can be deployed without first being integrated with other headend equipment, and is available for any broadcast platform (i.e. satellite, cable, terrestrial or IPTV). It makes content available to the viewer in the form of customized catalogs, via different payment methods (e.g. pay-per-view or subscription). In addition to a client application, Osmosys Push VOD includes a server, which stores and plays video content, and which is controlled by a Push VOD Manager solution. According to the company, this Web-based control system is at the heart of the new push-VOD system, allowing operators to manage program descriptions, control bitrates, schedule events, manage disk space usage, monitor file transfer status and monitor DVR status. Osmosys touts the new push-VOD solution as being ideal for use in conjunction with a number of its other products, including Osmosys MHP-IPTV middleware (an IPTV solution based entirely on DVB standards), Osmosys Globally Executable MHP (GEM) IPTV middleware (provides a standardized interactive layer that the company says can be made to work with any existing IPTV solution), Osmosys Navigator (provides a customizable user interface, completing the software stack on an MHP IPTV device), and Osmosys Interactive Services Manager (provides the services platform for controlling an IPTV network).

Originally Published: October 12, 2007 in [itvt] Issue 7.39 Part 2A

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