Jungo launches Panorama, its next generation remote management system for DSL, Cable and Fibre service providers. Jungo Panorama enables the management of home Customer Premise Equipment as well as broadband and video services, handling the connected home as a whole and providing increased visibility across the network. This holistic home view approach enables service provider representatives to manage and provide support both for the service and at the single device level. This improves the quality of experience for subscribers while reducing support costs. Jungo's Panorama is fully integrated with NDS set-top box software and has been selected by several service providers to manage their gateways and set-top boxes.

IN Media announces the latest release of its IPTV Set Top Box running Google's Android platform version 2.2.

IN Media's IP Set Top Box is now integrated with Google's Android 2.2 operating system providing consumers the ability to download the latest and most advanced games, on demand content, creating widgets, and applications from the web. Customers will experience seamless integration with their Android based mobile phones, Tablet PC's running Android and all Android enabled devices within IN Media's Set top Box.

The Cisco ISB7005 for AT&T U-Verse cleared the FCC today. This is the first set-top box that IMS Research has observed beyond those from the Turkish company AirTies that is designed to receive pay-TV over a Wi-Fi interface.

Stephen Froehlich, a senior analyst with IMS Research’s Consumer Electronics group states, “AT&T appears to be using the extreme compression of their video as a competitive advantage. U-Verse’s comparatively low HD video bitrates are allowing them to use a relatively inexpensive 2x2 dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi radio based on the BRCM4717 for this application. Our preliminary analysis is that AT&T can use such a simple design because its HD video is encoded at approximately 5 Mbps compared to 5-8 Mbps for HDTV over satellite and 16 Mbps for HDTV over cable. This means that the satellite and especially the cable providers will need far more elaborate wireless solutions to enable them to stream video over a wireless network.”

Verismo Networks announces a Triple Play Broadband Media Gateway targeted at Service Providers who wish to expand their reach by offering Triple Play services including internet videos in a single device to subscribers. The Gateway provides seamless integration of broadcast channels, video-on-demand, over-the-top media services, VOIP, and a broadband router.

The product will be demonstrated at the CableLabs Winter Conference, February 28 - March 1.

The Media Gateway can connect to Verismo's high-definition set top box, connected TVs or other popular third party STBs.

Streaming21 announces the latest Media Relay Server version 2.5 release which supports next generation IPv6 protocol stack in addition to existing IPv4 networks concurrently. The latest server release also delivers reliable high-quality broadcast content to smart devices including Google Android-based phones, tablets, and TV in addition to Apple iPhone & iPad.

Streaming21 award-winning IP broadcasting solution, Media Relay Server 2.5, provides a full suite of functionality for broadcasting reliable live TV channels and live events to televisions and connected mobile devices over public Internet with broadcast video quality in both standard and high definitions. The latest release includes the following new and enhanced features.

Visioneering releases vPortalTV Set-top Box vPortalTV 100 delivers unmatched IPTV price/performance to OEMs. The vPortalTV 100 set-top box provides leading edge functionality for interactive IPTV, including:

• 1080p @ 30 fps resolution
• Full internet browser
• Widget Interaction
• Composite / Component video with L / R audio
• More after the jump

Exterity announces the global launch of its new AvediaPlayer receiver. The r9210 offers versatility, control and convenience when connecting TV and AV displays to an organisation’s Local Area Network for live and on-demand access to TV and video streams. The r9210 has been designed to integrate with new and legacy equipment and is easily integrated with specialist equipment that does not rely solely on the standard HDMI connection.

Vodafone Iceland has selected Amino Communications’ next generation HD set-top boxes for the next phase of its IPTV service rollout. The company will deploy a substantial number of Amino A140 SD/HD STBs as part of a service upgrade of its IPTV service which offers TVOD, Catch-up and Broadcast of close to 100 TV channels to over 25,000 customers.

Vodafone Iceland already uses Amino’s A110 devices but is moving to the A140 - which is based on the latest generation system-on-chip - to meet growing demand from consumers for high definition TV-based entertainment.

The Boxee Box by D-Link, winner of more than 10 industry awards, has undergone significant improvements on both hardware and content partnership fronts. The latest whole-home entertainment hub features high-performance hardware and a huge content library thanks to several new major media partnerships and a continuing collaborative development effort with Boxee.

Boxee Box aggregates the best Internet content and locally stored media into an elegant on-screen interface for a "lean-back" couch experience. It's the best, easiest way to watch movies, TV shows and clips from the Internet on your TV. All you need is a TV with an HDMI input and an Internet connection. Boxee Box takes care of the rest. The hardware is equipped with an SD card slot, (2) USB ports, an optical digital audio connector, HDMI output, 802.11n wireless and an Ethernet port. There isn't much Boxee Box can't plug into.

Amino Communications is launching a new “companion” set-top box at CES 2011 aimed at network operators seeking to add OTT functionality to their established pay-TV and broadcast offerings.

The new device – the Freedom Jump – is designed to complement existing cable and satellite set-top boxes, working alongside them to offer access to the wealth of additional content available on the open Internet such as applications, movie-on-demand services, catch-up TV, music services and social networking.

Free has announced that it is deploying Movea's MotionIC technologies in next generation remote controls that will come with the new Freebox set-top box launched in late December 2010 in France. The combination of motion control and gesture recognition provide a more immersive, intuitive user experience that puts users in the driver's seat for new interactive IPTV services. With more than four million subscribers, Free has the largest subscriber base of any IPTV company in the world -- nearly double that of its nearest rival, according to Frost and Sullivan's July 2010 report, "Global IPTV Equipment Market and Provider Competition Analysis."

Sigma Designs will showcase at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, new products and award-winning solutions that bring the first studio-quality entertainment experience to the living room. For the first time, Sigma will demonstrate its new powerhouse SMP8910 and thin-client optimized SMP8670 Secure Media Processors. Also on display will be Sigma's recently announced G.hn chipset, the CG5110.

Sigma Designs set a new bar for advanced connected media players, Blu-ray players and IPTV set-top box SoCs with the introduction of its SMP8910 media processor. The SMP8910 is the first chip to integrate VXP studio quality video processing and the most flexible 3D video processing into a high-performance media processor.

The SMP8910 provides more than 6,000 DMIPS via a dual-core 1004K MIPS CPU -- achieving real-world performance never before possible on a STB SoC. The chip's unique distributed processing architecture features task-optimized CPU that manage key processes, including HD multi-format video decoding, 3D graphics rendering, content protection and security management and multi-format audio encoding and decoding. This highly optimized architecture leaves more than 3,000 DMIPS of available processing to smoothly run middleware, STB applications and the latest over-the-top applications.

Sigma Designs announces that its SMP8652 Secure Media Processor is being used inside Verismo's Broadband TV set top box. Sigma's SMP8652 gives Verismo's customers the most complete solution available for migrating their customers to the IP-connected home.

With Sigma's SMP8652, Verismo has a complete, end-to-end solution that allows the integration of linear channels, combined with best in class over the top Internet videos, Video-on-Demand, and live channels from around the world, along with the ability to play back personal media right off the box. The solution also provides social networking functionality with sites like Facebook and Twitter, and photo viewing from popular Internet sites like Picasa.

MPEG-4 AVC set-top box shipments surpassed MPEG-2-only set-top box shipments for the first time in 2010, with about 53% MPEG-4 shipments worldwide. Despite the support for advanced encoding, however, pay-TV operators worldwide have been slow to support interactive features on set-top boxes.

Historically, they have only allowed managed video services, such as video-on-demand, along with a very few token applications such as weather, traffic and sports into their walled gardens. High-end boxes that shipped this year in the US and Europe will enable higher levels of interactivity, including next-generation EPGs (electronic program guides) and hybrid services, with many services slated to launch in early 2011.