Updating the Display Automatically
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UpdateLogic sees a better way: their UpdateTV is a process that can distribute software updates to both terrestrial and cable digital televisions in the U.S. According to Tripp Blair, President and CEO, the TV manufacturers ends a software patch to the Update Logic central network control. This patch is then transmitted to UpdateTV-enabled PBS stations throughout the United States. The UpdateTV servers insert the data into the broadcast stream for terrestrial distribution, and the terrestrial signal is then received by UpdateTV-enabled TVs with antennas. Cable TV operators, via a contract with UpdateLogic, simply rebroadcast the part of the PBS terrestrial signal, which contains the soft-ware update from UpdateLogic to UpdateTV-enabled devices connected to the cable operator’s network.(Just to note, UpdateLogic has an exclusive relationship with National Datacast, a subsidiary of PBS, for distributing software update data over PBS station bandwidth.)
 President Tripp Blair The use of UpdateTV is seen as allowing manufacturers to deliver software patches to consumer’s digital television sets; fixing software bugs, enabling the sets to support new-standards; even improving the audio and/or video display on the TV. An overall result will be increasing the reliability reliability of the digital television device and improving the over-all viewing experience for consumers.
While there are many different manufacturers of displays, this will not be a problem for UpdateLogic, due to the fact that the DTV software support problem is industry-wide and not specific to just a few manufacturers. Blair also points out that the industry standards on which UpdateTV are based were written by a collective and cooperative group of manufacturers, cable operators, and semiconductor suppliers.
At press time, six major manufacturers have signed evaluation level contracts with UpdateLogic: Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony. Additionally, four of the six are already participating in field tests of UpdateTV, as well as four PBS broadcast stations (in Boston, Denver, Indianapolis, and San Diego) and four cable operators (Comcast, Cox, Insight, and Time Warner).
“UpdateTV provides a seamless delivery mechanism from the manufacturer all the way to the DTV consumer,” says Blair. “Because the integrated receiver solution is intelligent, the consumer does not need to be involved in the update process. And the fact that updates can be delivered proactively, quickly, and efficiently leads to a very good consumer experience,which allows the DTV transition in the U.S. to continue unfettered.”
As the technology to enable the automatic updating must be built into the TVs, UpdateLogic expects that televisions enabled with UpdateTV will reach the U.S. market as early as December 2006.
UpdateLogic
www.updatelogic.com |
