SAN ANTONIO -- Formally combined ProSource is targeting a 10 percent increase this year in group revenue to $3.3-$3.4 billion, partly due to about 10 exclusive deals it landed with vendors and a sharpened focus on audio and 4K TVs, Co-President David Workman said at ProSource meeting.
EchoStar will likely speed plans to broaden its services business to international markets as it pushes into Brazil and potentially Europe after taking control of five satellites from Dish Network, EchoStar executives said Friday on an earnings call.
EchoStar will likely speed plans to broaden its services business to international markets as it pushes into Brazil and potentially Europe after taking control of five satellites from Dish Network, EchoStar executives said Friday on an earnings call.
LG Electronics USA landed FCC equipment authorizations for what appears will be a broad lineup of car infotainment products destined soon for U.S. introduction, filings at the FCC website show (http://bit.ly/1fInTax). Little is disclosed in the filings that pinpoints whether the products will debut in the CE aftermarket or will be supplied OEM to major automakers, or both. LG asked for and got permanent confidentiality on the products’ block diagrams and other technical materials because they “contain trade secrets and proprietary information not customarily released to the public,” LG’s application said. “The public disclosure of these matters might be harmful to the Applicant and provide unjustified benefits to its competitors.” Public disclosure of product photos and user manuals has been barred for 180 days to Sept. 10 to give LG “temporary confidentiality of commercially sensitive information prior to product release,” it said. The authorizations are for a lineup of 44 derivatives of eight basic product models, the LG filings show. Of the 44 derivatives, about half have external “aux” jacks, the rest internal ports, it said. All but 12 have USB functionality, while 13 have built-in CD transports, and 20 sport digital radio tuners, they show. Bluetooth functionality is built into 24 of the derivatives, and nine have connectBlue wireless firmware support, they show. Searching any of the listed model numbers (for example, L41SK2) yields listings of identical models under a “Car Infotainment” heading on the OpenSource Code Distribution page of LG’s global support website (http://bit.ly/1mrWQyH). LG didn’t comment.
Entropic’s “early volume ramps” of a combo set-top processor/Multimedia over Coax (MoCA) 2.0 chip will start in second half 2015 as plans for “very modest” revenue from it this year were apparently delayed, company officials said on an earnings call. The chips, which will be built for Entropic by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing using a 28-nanometer process, will initially target non-DVR set-tops with High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) and upscaling to 4K 24p and 4K 30p. Entropic is sampling the chip with potential customers and has landed a “number of design commitments,” Entropic CEO Patrick Henry said. MoCA 2.0 allows for channel bonding and increases transfer speeds to 400 Mbps from 175 Mbps, Entropic has said. “The initial product serves as a platform for additional highly competitive, cost-effective and power efficient derivative products that will address the growing market opportunity both in cable and satellite in North America and globally,” Henry said. In European markets, where cable operators like Unity Media have deployed MoCA, “the general trend that we are seeing is that HEVC, as a requirement, is gaining significant momentum and traction, whereas with 4K, there is a lot of buzz around it, but I think we're pretty far away from having volume,” Henry said. The first MoCA 2.0-equipped video gateways were originally expected in 2012. Netgear became the first supplier to ship a MoCA 2.0 certified product earlier this year. Entropic’s expected revenue from deployment in a Comcast video gateway of a MoCA 2.0 chip bundled with a set-top processor appears to have been delayed to Q4, analysts said. The X13 video gateway was expected to launch in its first major U.S. market in the first half and expand across the Comcast system during the remainder of the year. The arrival of revenue from the Comcast agreement will be followed by a “material and more significant ramp” up in 2015, Henry said. Entropic hasn’t identified the set-top supplier for Comcast, but the cable operator’s major vendors have been Motorola and Technicolor, the former having sold its set-top business to Arris. Time Warner Cable also will deploy its first IP set-top built around the Reference Design Kit (RDK) platform using a Humax device that includes Entropic’s MoCA chip bundled with its set-top processor, Henry said. The RDK-based IP set-top will be launched in select Time Warner Cable markets by year-end, generating “modest revenue” for Entropic in Q4, Henry said. RDK is a pre-integrated software bundle providing a common framework for customer-premises equipment (CPE) for cable operators including set-tops and gateways. The RDK has more than 140 licensees and is administered by RDK Management, a venture involving Comcast, Liberty Global and Time Warner Cable. In discrete MoCA chips, Entropic appears to have regained some business with DirecTV in Genie DVR-related products. Entropic has also seen a “sustained resurgence in demand” among North American cable operators for high-definition digital transport adapters (HD-DTA) using Entropic MoCA ICs, Henry said. Cable operators are expected to use HD-DTA’s for the “next several years for analog reclamation,” Henry said.
Entropic’s “early volume ramps” of a combo set-top processor/Multimedia over Coax (MoCA) 2.0 chip will start in second half 2015 as plans for “very modest” revenue from it this year (CED Nov 5 p3) were apparently delayed, company officials said on an earnings call.
Rovi will continue its legal battles with Amazon and Liberty Global’s Virgin Media despite recent court rulings against Rovi, drawing on its base of interactive program guide (IPG-related patents, CEO Thomas Carson said on an earnings call.
Rovi will continue its legal battles with Amazon and Liberty Global’s Virgin Media despite recent court rulings against Rovi, drawing on its base of interactive program guide (IPG-related patents, CEO Thomas Carson said on an earnings call.
Sprint’s exclusive on HTC’s high-resolution audio-compatible HTC One (M8) Harmon Kardon smartphone brings the carrier into CE specialty chains for the first time, broadening its reach to Crutchfield and World Wide Stereo, with other potential distribution deals on the horizon, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse told us Tuesday after a news conference in New York.
Sprint’s exclusive on HTC’s high-resolution audio-compatible HTC One (M8) Harmon Kardon smartphone brings the carrier into CE specialty chains for the first time, broadening its reach to Crutchfield and World Wide Stereo, with other potential distribution deals on the horizon, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse told us Tuesday after a news conference in New York.