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Netgem and IBM Release Interactive TV Design

By Michael Foley

(04/26/01, 01:07:04 PM EDT)

Netgem and IBM have partnered together for an interactive TV reference design for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). The design incorporates Netgem's software for interactive TVs and IBM's PowerPC System-on-Chip (SoC) for multimedia applications. The platform offers consumer electronics suppliers a base design on which to develop applications such as pay-TV, interactive gaming, Internet access, and broadband offerings, such as video and audio on demand.

The hardware design is based on IBM's STB032XX CPUs, which are PowerPC cores with integrated MPEG-2 and Dolby support for video and audio. The STB032XX consists of:

IBM PowerPC 405--108MHz host CPU with 16K-instruction/8K-data caches
MPEG-2 transport/demultiplexer
MPEG-2 video decoder, audio decoder (both MPEG and Dolby digital [Dolby AC-3])
Enhanced on-screen display (OSD) controller
DENC
304-pin PBGA

The software will utilize an embedded Linux port and Netgem's digital software platform. Netgem 4.0 is an interactive TV software platform based on open and Internet standards, enabling the delivery of interactive and Internet services to the television. NetGem's software framework provides the components to generate interactive graphical user interfaces (GUIs) using HTML, Macromedia Flash, and JavaScript, and to stream MP3 audio, interface to broadband or LAN networks, and perform secure transactions.

The reference design can be licensed through Netgem.