Tata Elxsi Announces Marlin-enabled Connected TV Solution based on Android

BANGALORE & SUNNYVALE, Calif. — IBC 2011 — Tata Elxsi, a global provider of advanced software technologies and solutions for Digital TV markets, today announced an Android-based Connected TV Solution based on Marlin DRM technology. This feature-rich solution is designed for Broadcast, IPTV, and Video-on-Demand deployments. It integrates Marlin DRM technology for content protection and playback.

The Tata Elxsi Connected TV Solution combines an Android-based set top box that supports 1080p High Definition Video in H.264 and MPEG4 with a full-fledged browser for a richer viewing experience on large format TVs. It features all popular information and communication services, including support for chat, email, calendar and news services. The solution is being demonstrated at stall number F1.31 at IBC2011 in Amsterdam.

“Marlin DRM was a natural choice for a content protection technology as it offers an open and elegant solution for providing powerful content services,” said Mr. M. Thangarajan, vice president and head, Tata Elxsi (Broadcast & Consumer Electronics), “We trust Marlin to provide an interoperable and open DRM platform for enabling end-to-end multimedia distribution systems across networks.”

Marlin DRM is an open standards-based Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology that has been globally deployed in broadcast, IPTV, PC, mobile, and embedded systems. It provides a unique set of capabilities to manage the relationships between a consumer’s content, devices, and network services. The technology places the consumer at the heart of a domain of rich services and devices and allows them to use the content intuitively.

“We are very excited by the leadership role Tata Elxsi has played in becoming one of the earliest members of the Marlin Partner Program to deploy a Marlin-enabled STB,” said Talal Shamoon, chairman, Marlin Developer Community (MDC). “India is a growing market for digital media and entertainment, and we look forward to partnering with Tata Elxsi in capturing this and other global markets for Marlin DRM.”

Marlin is incorporated broadly around the world and is a key element in the national Internet TV platforms in Japan, the UK, Italy, and France. Marlin DRM is also the backbone of several commercial media distribution platforms around the world and is becoming the open DRM of choice for audio, video and eBook distribution platforms around the world.