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Affordable digital TV? It’s all boxed in!

Bangalore: You would like to switch from your unfriendly local cable-wallah, with the ancient (analogue) system that ‘rains’ on your TV screen every time it pours outside. But you are put off by the stiff entry barrier of going digital: Most providers, both satellite and ground-based, charge nearly Rs. 3000 for that essential contraption, the set top box.

Despair not! “The [video] times, they are a-changing”; and clever engineers — many of them Indian — working with NXP, have helped create a set top box (STB) for the Internet Age we live in. It combines the best features needed to reach digital TV into your home, even while harnessing what is known as IP or Internet Protocol: the ability to shift voice, data and video at high speed on the Internet backbone.

On Friday, at the Convergence India show in Delhi, NXP globally unveiled a “reference design” (that is, a full working prototype, but not commercially packaged) for the “STB 222 AVS-enabled IP Set Top Box,” designed for the purse-challenged millions in India and China, who would like to “go digital” — if the asking price was not too much. “AVS” stands for Audio Video Coding Standard — technology that allows high-quality video like films to be sent over Internet, without degrading the experience even while allowing users to stop, start, pause or record at will.

The heart of the NXP offering is the chip which performs all the key functions and offers a “hot swap” option to upgrade to tomorrow’s high definition television, when it comes here. The technology has just been snapped up by China-based STB maker, ChangHong, and by the end of the Delhi event, NXP is known to have got enquiries from a number of manufacturers who planned to launch similar products in India.

In Bangalore, NXP’s engineers, helped conceive all the specifications that would meet the needs of budget customers in India and China.

They also made key contributions to generating the algorithms that helped ensure the picture enhancements of the STB, explained Ashok Chandak, NXP’s Global Sales Director.

“The circuits can also be used by TV manufacturers to upgrade analogue sets to digital while integrating the STB functions within the TV itself,” he added.

Engineers have kept the total bill of materials down to about $ 40. Multiply that by 40, add the overheads and you can see why the NXP design allows makers to create tomorrow’s digital box of tricks for our video viewing, at a price that could be a compelling, Godfather-like “offer you can’t refuse!”

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