Intel Developer Forum - press room
Intel® CE media processors, advanced 3D, smart grids usher in the age of interactive TV
September 2009, 24, San Francisco, Intel Developer Forum - Television, including appliances and the television experience, has reached an inflection point. In the opening speeches of IDF Day XNUMX, Intel executives Eric Kim and Justin Rattner talked about what happens when the Internet completely merges with relay networks. Leaders outlined both short- and long-term options for making television even more visual, even more personal, and even more interactive.
Kim, vice president and general manager of Intel Digital Home Group, unveiled the Intel® Atom ™ CE4100 processor, the latest system-on-chip (SoC) in the company's family of consumer electronics media processors, and announced a number of collaborations with industry , such as Adobe, CBS, Cisco, and TransGaming, which help make the vision of interactive television a reality in the short term.
"At the heart of the further development of the TV is the increase in processing power, which we implement with the CE4100 media processor; built on the Intel Atom core and optimized for IPTV set-top boxes, online media players and digital televisions," said Kim. "With its performance and high-definition graphics capabilities, consumer electronics manufacturers and software developers are now given a platform to truly create something completely new." .
According to Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer, this innovation will accelerate over the next few years:
"By 2015, approximately 15 billion consumer devices will be capable of displaying television content, with billions of hours of video available," said Rattner. "Much more sophisticated methods will be needed to organize the content and provide it on demand. Intel Labs researchers are working on emerging technologies that help people get the TV they want, when and where they want it.
3D, advanced graphics and more…
As consumer electronics products deliver more and more TV content, developers need to combine video, 3D animation, and spectacular graphics. As a result, graphics and audio / video decoding are becoming increasingly critical on consumer electronics platforms. Kim revealed that Intel and Adobe are working together to port Adobe® Flash® Player 10, a key content provider, to a new family of media processors. This will result in consumer electronics products in the future that have been optimized to play graphics and H.264 video to allow Flash Player 10 applications to be displayed on television for the first time. Rattner predicts that we will soon be watching very high quality 3D video from the comfortable armchair of our own living room. Rattner discussed the intense computing power and bandwidth required for 3D television with a life-size 3D copy of Howality Postley, chief technical officer of 3ality Digital. Both executives talked about how Intel’s new high-speed optical I / O technology, codenamed Light Peak, will increase bandwidth and flexibility while greatly reducing the complexity and cost for PC users when downloading videos and other digital media. Postley said the 3 copper cables needed for yesterday’s 50D stunt could have been replaced with a single optical cable using Light Peak technology. In addition to this extreme speed, Light Peak has the unique ability to use multiple I / O protocols in parallel.
Personal TV, smart grids
Due to the huge amount of digitally broadcast TV content, personalization is critical. The CBS television network has developed a TV widget, a tiny web application that helps viewers find and watch premium content to suit their unique needs. TV widgets were enabled by Intel’s media processors and the Widget Channel development framework.
The provision of interactive product placements, games and on-demand videos for advertising on traditional television requires innovation in the way television providers broadcast content.
Kim was joined by Malchy Moynihan, Cisco’s vice president of video product strategy, to talk about how his company is helping service providers grow their existing network into a media network that combines the benefits of broadcasting infrastructure and telecom IP networks to offer advanced video services.
