Motorola has announced Televation, a device for streaming television and other broadcast content. Using Televation, a user can watch TV in any location in their house where they can access their home network.
According to Motorola’s 2010 Media Engagement Barometer research, Americans watch an average of 21 hours of video content a week and about 86 percent pay for TV service. Furthermore, in May 2011, Motorola conducted focus groups with consumers in the New York and Los Angeles metro markets. In many cases, consumers liked the idea of watching live TV somewhere other than a traditional family room and felt it would allow them to spend more time with loved ones if they had the ability to watch different programs in the same room.
“Consumers love entertainment, and want easy access to TV no matter where they are in the home. Coupled with the explosive popularity of tablet devices, this represents a terrific opportunity for MSOs to increase customer satisfaction while generating new revenue,” said John Burke, senior vice president and general manager, Converged Experiences, Motorola Mobility. “Televation gives our customers the ability to launch a new service that puts innovation back into TV, enabling their subscribers to enjoy TV beyond the TV.”
Televation incorporates a 1GHz digital tuner and CableCard to grab broadcast TV signals off of a coax cable. The box then adjusts resolution as needed and converts the content from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4. It then feeds the stream back into the home router through an Ethernet connection. The stream is then sent over IP to any computer or network enabled device, either wirelessly or over the wired network.
Motorola is targeting service providers and not subscribers. The company describes it as an “increase [in] the value of your branded service” instead of something users could find in stores.
Motorola is providing Software Development Kits (SDKs) for both Android and iOS environments, so service providers can develop the client applications needed to allow subscribers to navigate and choose the TV show they want to watch.
Motorola has not provided pricing or specifics on availability, but will be demonstrating the produce at the 2011 Cable Show starting later this week.
