IntAct, an Amino Technologies plc company, announced that it will produce a full reference design based on the award-winning AmiNET124 IPTV set-top box (STB). The design will incorporate Texas Instruments Incorporated's (TI) TMS320DM642 720 MHz DSP-based digital media processor -- one of the fastest processors currently available -- and will offer original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) a reliable and proven technical blueprint. The move to create a reference design from this successful STB potentially opens the IPTV market to new OEM entrants, supporting the IPTV industry's growth and increasing the availability of consumer premises equipment from different vendors.

The reference design, with TI's processor, represents the collaboration of two of the primary experts in their industry sectors. IntAct has more than one hundred truly commercial deployments and is one of the most mature software solutions available for IPTV. TI's leadership is long-standing and the company has an exemplary track record of developing the most advanced and reliable semiconductor products for streaming media applications.

"We believe that together, TI and IntAct have enabled a smart solution to address the needs of the emergent IPTV market," said Charlie Gonsalves, New Business Development Manager, TI. "The OEM's ability to obtain a proven and dependable blueprint may boost this growing market by providing a product that is cost effective and scalable."

The intrinsic flexibility and high performance of TI's DM642 processor coupled with the IntAct software stack enables the same price/performance advantage for H.264 that has been demonstrated with MPEG-2 in the past. The reference design also includes IntAct's highly acclaimed H.264 video codec, which, designed in-house, is key to enable the TI DM642 processor-based STB design to achieve industry-leading performance.

"As a member of the TI DSP Third Party Network, IntAct was able to take full advantage of the DM642 processor to deliver this offering that will revolutionize the IP STB industry," proclaimed Karthik Ranjan, VP Sales & Marketing for IntAct. "Enabling licensees to walk the design into any contract manufacturer in the world, this will result in rapid and highly cost-effective market deployment of H.264 technology."

IntAct facilitates outsourcing the costly software development function, bringing a reduction in complexity, management and hence operating expenditure; a reduction in time to market; and a reduction in risk through use of an already deployed and scalable product. With IntAct, operators can deliver more video streams to more homes and maximize the return on their IPTV investment.

TI's digital media processor supports MPEG-4, MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 formats. The device also processes standard definition (SD) video decoding for the emerging H.264 format. The STB on which the design is based has a similarly impressive story. Amino Communication's AmiNET124 has been the recipient of a number of industry awards since its launch in June 2005. These include the Broadcast Engineering Pick Hit Award for the best IP set-top box at IBC'05 for its innovative design and advanced performance -- features which have already led to both customer interest and actual deployments, and the NAB 2006 Award for Innovation in Media.