High-Specification Set-Top Box
Development (February 2007)
As the UK Digital TV platform matured and grew, opportunities arose for value
added services and content to be carried to consumers. In collaboration with
Cambridge-based associates, we prepared a new set-top box design with enhanced
performance and features for a client who did not want to go into set top box
production himself, but who had an opportunity to offer revenue-based services
to the DTV audiences by making a higher-performance receiver available. Our part
in this collaboration was to prepare the electrical and mechanical design for
the units and commission the manufacture of a pilot quantity of set-top boxes.
These were vital in our client’s software development programme and for
presentation purposes to potential customers and investors. The pilot units were
also used by his production partner in proving the production software prior to
committing to full manufacture of the target design.
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Combo Digital TV Receiver/ DVD player
(April
2005)
Ovus was approached by an established DVD player manufacturer based in the
PRC to produce a combination DTV set top box/DVD player. We visited his site in
Shenzhen in February to finalise the details of the contract and to review his
product line, selecting a suitable existing DVD-only unit to form the base of
the combination DTV receiver/DVD player. The only challenge was that our client
wanted to show working units at the Hong Kong Consumer Electronics fair in
April!
Our solution was based around our COFDM/MPEG2 DTV decoder module. Since we
already had this card developed, we were able to adopt a rapid track development
of software and hardware to produce an integrated solution very quickly. We
prepared a documented specification for the complete product, engineered the
interface electronics and software needed to produce working prototypes, and
shipped three prototype units to our client in time for demonstration at the
show, based on his existing DVD player electronics, pressings and mouldings, and
remote control assemblies.
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Novel Set-Top Box concept (March
2006)
We were approached by a UK
manufacturer to design a novel set-top box, integrating the receive antenna and
STB electronics into a single housing. We were able to produce a prototype
design within three months of receiving the authorisation to proceed, using our
in-house software stack and COFDM/MPEG2 DTV module and, in cooperation with an
associate industrial design company based in Cambridge, delivered the plastics
design to house the complete solution.
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