BT has selected Motorola as the lead supplier of next-generation set-top boxes for its BT Vision digital TV service. Motorola will supply BT with second-generation V-Boxes boasting a new look, the potential for substantially improved energy efficiency and enhanced capabilities for deployment in 2009.

The HD-capable V-Box digital TV recorder will provide access to up to 40 Freeview TV channels and 30 radio channels, the ability to record an average of 80 hours of content, on-demand access to a huge library of films, TV shows, music videos and sport and a range of interactive applications.

Micronas has decided to discontinue its activities in the area of set top boxes for IPTV. This restructuring measure forms part of the announced streamlining of the product portfolio in the Consumer division. The restructuring will affect around 100 employees in Santa Clara, USA, and around 20 employees in Shanghai, China.

Most of the discontinuation activities are expected to be completed during the first quarter 2008. The respective costs have already been taken into account in the announced projected restructuring expenses.

Netflix and LG Electronics are joining forces to develop a set-top box for consumers to stream movies and other programming from the Internet to HDTVs bypassing the need to use a personal computer.

The collaboration is expected to deliver a compelling new online home entertainment service via technology embedded in an LG networked player planned for the second half of 2008. Today's announcement sets the stage for next week's 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show, which will emphasize digital content as well as hardware solutions.

Video Furnace introduced a new low-cost digital set-top box for delivering video to network-connected television sets in the enterprise. Used in conjunction with the Video Furnace IP video distribution system, corporations, educational institutions, financial services firms, government agencies and other organizations can convert TVs into IP-connected devices and deliver live, broadcast and on-demand TV-quality video to television sets on their networks.

Panama’s CTV Telecom has selects Amino's AmiNET125 multi-codec Set-Top-Box for Central America’s first IPTV service. The AmiNET125 platform is specifically designed to help operators in emerging markets to introduce IPTV services with a flexible and cost effective approach. The AmiNET125 can also be used in European and North American markets for standard definition TV sets.

Nighthawk Systems has initiated shipments of its MediaPro IP3000HD video set-top box units to a leading hospitality services provider, and expects to continue making regular shipments to the customer throughout the remainder of 2007. These shipments allow Nighthawk to begin recognizing revenues from the recently-acquired set-top box operation. Nighthawk had previously disclosed that it had assumed a backlog of approximately $400,000 in orders for the units when it acquired the IPTV set-top box operations of Eagle Broadband in October, and had received an additional order for approximately $480,000 of the units subsequent to making the acquisition.

Visioneering and DigiLink announce the availability of a hardware and software developer kit that allows digital media equipment manufacturers to rapidly develop IPTV applications for multimedia content owners, aggregators and content suppliers. The new kit utilizes world class audio and video codecs, a standards compliant file container, network and graphic user interface libraries, a Linux operating system and device drivers, and sample applications with code. The combination of Visioneering's Sonata set-top box, DigiLink's rich software capabilities and Texas Instruments Incorporated's DaVinci technology allows IPTV designers to quickly develop cost-effective solutions to match their growing markets needs.

Amino's AmiNET530 Set-Top Box is the first HD MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 IPTV DVR STB to meet the Premium Conformance Tier of the MPEG Industry Forum Logo Qualification Program. MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 is part of the MPEG-4 standard and enables the AmiNET530 to deliver video compression offering high quality at low-bit rates. This effective compression technology offers excellent results across a broad range of bandwidths including the transport of High Definition streams for entertainment services and TV broadcasting.

Telefonica del Sur has selected the AmiNET110 IPTV Set-Top Box to deliver pure IPTV services to thousands of its customers in the region. Telsur is distributing the AmiNET110 via Wi-Fi, creating the first wireless in-home multimedia solution in Latin America.

This week executives from Amino will be providing demonstrations of the AmiNET range of IPTV STBs at the TelcoTV Conference & Expo in Atlanta, at Booth #437. On November 20th, executives will be attending the Chile Media Show in Santiago, where Amino will lead an IPTV Workshop.

NDS introduced its High Definition Digital Video Recorder an Amino AmiNET530 Set-Top Box powered by Metro middleware, for the IPTV market. NDS Metro is an integrated IPTV middleware and conditional access solution that provides a complete end-to-end turnkey offering for telecommunications companies and broadband operators. The NDS HD DVR solution will be exhibited with live streaming of 100 video channels on an AmiNET530 in the NDS booth #214 at TelcoTV 2007.

IPTV platform supplier, Amino, said its AmiNET130 set-top box is the first High Definition MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 IPTV STB to meet the Premium Conformance Tier of the MPEGIF Logo Qualification Program offered by the MPEG Industry Forum (MPEGIF).

MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 is a part of the MPEG-4 standard and enables the AmiNET130 to deliver video compression offering high quality at low-bit rates. This effective compression technology offers excellent results across a broad range of bandwidths including the transport of High Definition streams for entertainment services and TV broadcasting.

Pixelmetrix bagged the TV Technology STAR Award for its Electronic Couch Potato and Consolidator. The Electronic Couch Potato is designed to monitor the true customer viewing experience by providing measurements from the end point of the content delivery chain. The ECP connects after the Set Top Box and provides feedback on various service quality parameters to a central site, including but not limited to, network transmission quality, overall service quality and availability.

Tilgin announces a global cooperation agreement with Ericsson to provide pre-integrated IPTV set-top boxes. The agreement will see Tilgin IPTV set-top boxes being pre-integrated into Ericsson’s IPTV end-to-end solutions. Tilgin will supply IPTV set-top box solutions from the Mood 300 and Mood 400 series that include complete support for the latest generation of video compression MPEG-4 AVC and advanced functionality such as Personal Video Recording and high definition TV. The Tilgin Mood Boot Server, for remote configuration and software updating, is included as an integral part of the Tilgin set-top box solution. The agreement provides no guarantees for future joint business, nor any guaranteed minimum volume orders.

Industria and Ikivo have partnered to offer a new SVG-based user interface across Industria’s Zignal entertainment delivery suite for set-top box, PC and mobile TV services. The partnership will enhance the user experience of the Zignal media-services software suite, enabling Zignal to run faster and smoother across devices ranging from set-top boxes to mobile phones. The partnership includes licensing of Ikivo technology to be used in Industria’s Zignal solutions, and complements the TV set-top box and web browser platforms already supported by Zignal.

Accedo announces that a range of its interactive services have been integrated with the AmiNET130 IPTV Set-top-box from Amino. Accedo will be supplying applications from its Accedo Application PortfolioT, including games, karaoke and video art. Amino's AmiNETT series of IPTV set-top boxes has been used in commercial deployments and trials in over 80 countries worldwide.

"We believe that High Definition services will be an important driver for the future IPTV market. We are pleased to be working with Amino to create a set of interactive entertainment services that can help telecom operators in their quest for service differentiation and incremental revenue" commented Fredrik Andersson, VP Business Development, Accedo Broadband. "The integration process with AmiNET130 has been very smooth and we will continue to add additional services to our HD line-up for Amino"