Celestial Semiconductors selects S&T MHEG technology

LONDON, UK — Strategy & Technology, the leading specialists in interactive TV playout systems and MHEG-5 middleware, has licensed its RedKey™ 2 MHEG solution to Celestial Semiconductors of China.

Both companies are working to integrate the RedKey™ 2 MHEG libraries into Celestial’s reference software for various markets requiring MHEG-5 functionality such as Australia, Hong Kong and New Zealand as well as the Freeview HD services to be launched in the UK later this year.

Celestial will use the technology to supply a turnkey offering to manufacturers of DVB-compliant integrated digital TV receivers (iDTV), set-top box and digital video recorders with its CSM1200 family of MPEG-2 and H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) decoder chipsets. The company also provides reference designs and software.

The integration of RedKey™ 2 technology will give broadcasters a powerful platform from which to provide a rich variety of value-added services to viewers such as VoD, internet, and interactive TV.

“We chose S&T’s RedKey™ 2 because it’s a robust and proven solution that can cover multiple markets and is easy to implement within the Celestial platform,” says Richard Yuan, Marketing Director at Celestial Semiconductors.

“It has been used by a large number of customers who recognise the quality of the product and the high level of support offered by S&T, so our decision was also influenced by direct requests from end market and OEM manufacturing customers,” Yuan adds.

“We are pleased to give Celestial Semiconductors the capability to strengthen its chipset and software offering,” says Paul Daly, General Manager of MHEG Systems at S&T. “This will enable its manufacturing customers to facilitate the new opportunities made available to broadcast television by the latest MHEG specification.”