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Tzero offers a choice
of ways to capture high definition video
June 11, 2007
High definition seems to be the future
of television, but how consumers will get high-definition content onto their sets remains an open question.
Local
chip maker Tzero thinks it has a solution - or two. The Sunnyvale-based company plans to announce Tuesday that it is coming
out with a new chipset that will allow consumers to move high-definition video from their cable or satellite set-top boxes
to their televisions via coaxial cable or a high-speed wireless connection.
The company has made a name for itself
with its wireless technology; the first products based on its chips are envisioned as a replacement for HDMI cables. But the
ability of the new chips to utilize coaxial cables could open up new markets for them, considering that the vast majority
of American homes have cable wiring inside, said Dan Karr, Tzero's vice president of marketing and sales.
The
wireless and wired connections built into the chip "complement each other," Karr said.
Tzero's technology
is built around Ultra-Wideband, an emerging connection standard that is seen as a next-generation replacement for Bluetooth
and as a wireless replacement for USB and Firewire cables. But Tzero's technology promises to deliver UWB signals over
a greater distance than that of rivals - without dropping signals, or messing up the pretty high-definition pictures being
sent over it.
The company's new chipset is one of the first to be able to transmit UWB signals not only through
the air but via cable wiring, the company says.
The idea is that consumers will be able to connect their televisions
to a set-top box in the same room without wires - and connect the same set-top box to other televisions in the house using
the cable wiring already in place in the house. Ostensibly, consumers could also connect their second and third televisions
wirelessly to the cable wire running into their rooms using separate adapters that have Tzero's chip inside them.
Tzero's technology addresses some of the key issues video service providers are starting to run into as they set up
networks to distribute high-definition video in consumers' homes, said Ben Bajarin, consumer technology analyst with Creative
Strategies, a San Jose-based consulting firm.
While most American homes have cable wires in them, those wires aren't
always where they want them to be, Bajarin noted. Either they aren't in the right rooms or they are not in the right spot
of a particular room. Adding new wires to a house can be prohibitively expensive, so being able to send the same signals wirelessly
is something service providers are looking for, Bajarin said.
Integrating that capability with the ability to send
the signals over the cables as well makes Tzero's chipset more useful, he said.
"This utilizes the infrastructure
(consumers) already have in their house, whether they want wired or wireless or both," Bajarin said.
Tzero
has already announced that companies such as Monster will be incorporating its chipset into cable-replacement products that
will hit store shelves later this year. Those products will be using Tzero's new chipset, Karr said.
Products
that will take advantage of the chip's new coax transmitting feature will appear in the same frame. Gefen, for instance,
should have a product on the market later this summer, said Matt Keowen, a Tzero spokesman. The company hopes to have set-top
box manufacturers incorporate its chip into their products by the middle of next year, he said.
To be sure, Tzero
faces substantial competition. San Diego-based Entropic Communications, for instance, has its own chipset that is able to
transmit high-definition video over cable wires. Entropic is at the heart of a standards body called MoCA - Multimedia over
Coax Alliance - that is promoting its solution. Already, Verizon is using the MoCA solution as it rolls out its FiOS high-speed
network.
Other companies, such as Tzero's Sunnyvale neighbor Ruckus Wireless, are promoting WiFi-based technologies
as a competing solution for distributing high-definition video in the home.
The advantage that Tzero's solution
has over MoCA is that it's faster and supports wireless connections, Karr said. And while WiFi signals can be disrupted
by microwaves and tend to drop off significantly the further they have to travel, Tzero's solution gives a reliable high-rate
of speed as far as 30 feet away, he said.
Tzero is a "good crew" with good technology, says John Graham,
vice president of marketing at Entropic. And the company's chips may well have faster throughput than Entropic's,
he says.
But speed isn't everything, Graham argues. Entropic's technology, unlike Tzero's, was designed
to deliver high-definition video over cable from the start. As such, it's proven itself reliable.
"There's
a big gap between having a technology that can communicate over coax and meeting a complete set of operator needs," said
Graham.
Tzero is "doing the right things," he added. But he argued that "what the market is saying
... is that MoCA is the standard on coax for operator deployments."
Tzero is hoping the market will change
its mind.
Source: Mercurynews.com
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