At IBC in Amsterdam, Sigma Designs (NASDAQ:SIGM) announced its latest reference design for an UltraHD self-install set-top box. The new design is a wall-outlet mounted concept, about the size of a remote control. It's designed to support 4k and HDR video. An embedded G.hn power line modem establishes a link as soon as the user powers up the set-top.
The goal of the platform is to reduce an operator's cost on a multi-room video service install. The wall-mounted approach in a small form factor allows an installation as close as possible to the TV set's own power connection at the wall. Once plugged into a power receptacle, the only other connection is that of HDMI to the TV set. The box connects to broadband via a G.Hn power line network using a home's power infrastructure set up via a gateway and a G.Hn module. Additionally, each platform has a Z-Wave IOT controller to help build out a Z-Wave mesh network to control Z-Wave devices throughout the home.
The reference design utilizes Sigma Design's SMP8758 or the SMP8980 media processor which is designed to decode HEVC's Main-10 profile, VP-9, HDR. The combination of CPU, GPU and SDK is intended to allow for a middleware framework deployment for OTT and IPTV streaming services. Currently, the platform can be set up with Linux or Android operating systems and run several OTT applications like Netflix, YouTube and Hulu and some operator developed applications for VOD/SVOD and catch up TV.