Sigma Designs powers NETGEAR's Push2TV

NETGEAR's Push2TV is a solution within the wireless laptop-to-HDTV link product category that we're closely watching.

This past week, Sigma Designs announced that the SMP8653 secure media processor is the
first and only media processor powering wireless PC-to-TV display devices. NETGEAR’s
Push2TV™ adapter uses Sigma’s chipset to display content from Intel® Wireless Display
enabled notebook PCs on the big screen HD-TV, wirelessly.

The market for wireless PC to TV display devices is growing fast. More than 40 laptops
available today come with Intel Wireless Display technology and the number of supported
laptops is expected to grow significantly next year.

Sigma Designs' RVU Software Client

With all of the talk of how TV Everywhere is going to evolve to a service that extends beyond channel replication online to extend to connected consumer elecrtronics, Sigma Designs' announcement about an RVU client software is signficant. The RVU Alliance is a consortium of 20 or so companies developing specifications to bring a remote user interface to multiple devices.

Marvell acquires DS2 intellectual property and assets

Marvell's acquisition of the intellectual property and assets of DS2 has rolled up the last of the big independent powerline networking chipset vendors. First, CopperGate acquired the HomePlug assets from Conexant (and then itself got purchased by Sigma Designs), and Atheros purchased Intellon. It's a trend that signifies the importance of well-integrated networking solutions that may leverage at least a couple of networking technologies, including Wi-Fi and "no-new-wires." Second, these larger vendors are much closer to the end-user manufacturers, as they're building integrated solution for things like set-top boxes, modems, residential gateways, etc., and it's a sign that significant growth is coming in the embedded market for powerline networking solutions. Finally, with some corporate structure wrapped around the powerline assets, maybe we'll see some adult conversations occuring around how to finally end a ten-year+ standards battle in this market.

Mediaroom and related announcements aim IPTV at smaller operators

I had announcements from Alcatel-Lucent and Sigma Designs this week regarding a Mediaroom-enabled solution aimed at smaller operators. The solution is aimed at supporting supporting networks of between 1,000 and 100,000 set-top-boxes. The solution not only provides high-quality television programming, but also enables new consumer media services through the blending and personalization of web and broadcasting content. This new offer, which uses a single equipment rack, supports more than three times as many households than previous versions of the Microsoft Mediaroom-based IPTV solution.

Alcatel-Lucent will be deploying the first instance of its Integrated Solution for Microsoft Mediaroom for Cinergy MetroNet to potentially 50,000 customers in Indiana beginning July 26, 2010. Using the Mediaroom-powered solution, Cinergy MetroNet plans to offer its customers multimedia services such as broadcast TV blended with web content and the ability to simultaneously record multiple shows while watching another.

Sigma Designs has established a new low-cost IPTV platform using the second-generation SMP8652 media processor to support lower-cost IPTV set-top box deployments.

Sigma buys CopperGate - going head-to-head with Broadcom?

Sigma Designs is building quite a home networking portfolio. First, there was the acquisition of Zensys, and now today an announcement of their purchase of CopperGate, they look like they're going to go head-to-head even more with the likes of Broadcom in the advanced gateway, set-top box, and connected CE space, as Broadcom is a big proponent of MoCA.

Sigma Designs buys Zensys

The Sigma Designs purchase of Zensys, the company that originated the Z-Wave wireless networking protocol, is an interesting move. There are definitely some entertainment and remote controller applications that are enabled using Z-Wave, and Sigma also has a strong reputation in customer premise equipment like set-top boxes. So, might we see some home control features integrated with traditional entertainment experiences?