Entropic Communications, Zenverge to Enable TV and Movies on Any Screen

Monday, September 26th, 2011
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Integration of Market Leading Transcoding and MoCA 2.0 Silicon Technologies to Deliver Video on Any Device

SAN DIEGO — Entropic Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:ENTR), a leading provider of silicon and software solutions to enable connected home entertainment and Zenverge, Inc., a leading developer of advanced media integrated circuits (ICs) for the connected home, today announced a strategic partnership to co-develop solutions and align product roadmaps for the delivery of content with powerful transcoding technology over a MoCA® 2.0 (Multimedia over Coax) home network. In addition, Entropic has made an investment in Zenverge totaling 10 million dollars (USD).

Service providers are seeking cost-effective ways to broaden delivery of video content beyond TVs, to portable display devices like tablets, smartphones, and laptops. Building on the partnership between the two companies announced earlier this year, a combined Entropic-Zenverge solution will enable service providers to leverage their investment in MoCA networks and the paradigm shift to IP content, to significantly expand the number and types of display devices on which their subscribers can consume content, while maintaining superior quality, security and market leading MoCA home network connectivity. With faster than real-time high definition (HD) transcoding from Zenverge and unsurpassed MoCA 2.0 performance from Entropic, pay-TV, over-the-top or personal video content can be streamed from a DVR, a network attached storage (NAS) device, or a personal computer (PC) and converted to a format most suitable for viewing on tablets, smartphones, or laptops. This content can either be watched immediately in a connected mode, or later from content stored locally.

The product roadmap alignment between the companies integrates the following features and attributes of each company to ensure a superb, seamless content viewing experience throughout the home and on any device:

  • Zenverge’s Entertainment Nexus (ZEN) advanced architecture for HD media processing. This powerful architecture results in a high-performance, low-latency, lower power digital media processor capable of transcoding HD content up to four-times faster than real-time, and up to 30-times faster for lower-resolution content. In addition, the Zenverge media processor can simultaneously transcode up to four independent HD streams, or up to 16 independent standard definition (SD) streams, along with supporting full encode of HD content.
  • Entropic’s MoCA 2.0 home networking silicon. Entropic brings proven speed and performance with its MoCA silicon and software. Enabling the most robust, predictable and powerful home networking backbone to reliably distribute bandwidth-intensive content throughout the home. With MoCA 1.1 already deployed as the de-facto connected home entertainment standard in the U.S., MoCA 2.0’s higher throughput and backward interoperability is perfectly suited to intersect pay-TV provider next generation products and services.

“We’re at a critical path in both our development and what the consumer market desires in their home entertainment interests,” said Amir Mobini, chief executive officer, Zenverge. “By aligning our paths with Entropic, and maximizing the opportunity their MoCA 2.0 technology brings to the table, we will remain on target to deliver the most groundbreaking new architecture for digital HD convergence – that takes transcoding of digital media entertainment to unsurpassed levels of consumer and operator ease.”

“This partnership crystallizes our connected home entertainment strategy and positions us to offer even greater value to our customers, our partners and ultimately the consumer,” said Patrick Henry, president and chief executive officer, Entropic. “In addition to the clear strategic benefits of combining two highly complementary silicon products, we believe we can create substantial shareholder value by capitalizing on the consumer demand to have their video content delivered anywhere, anytime and to any device, in the home or on the go.”