TheoPlayer is not a company that we have reported on before, but we heard the company mentioned a couple of times in other interviews, so we thought we would check the company out. The company specialises in supplying high quality media players to operators and service providers. It has some very impressive clients, including CNN, NBC, Twitter and BTSport. The player architecture is designed to allow it to work on the web, in browsers, or in STBs or SmartTVs, delivering the same user experience ‘everywhere’. The APIs are also said to be very consistent, so moving apps across platforms is rapid and relatively simple. It is working on pre-integration of its technology with chip makers to make the performance even better.
Theoplayer has an impressive client list for its player. Image:Meko
Tico has joined with the Fraunhofer to combine its Tico codec with Lici from the HHI as JPEG-XS (see our article Fraunhofer Moves Light Field to Video & Works on Codecs). At the show, the company was showing its Tico 8K 60p compression which fits 8K into interfaces designed for UltraHD or for putting UltraHD in the active area of HD. The company told us that its latency is just 12ms.
TVLogic had a new field monitor, the VFM-055A that uses an OLED panel and is for SDR applications and with FullHD resolution and a wide range of video features. Brightness is 350 cd/m² and contrast is 17,000:1, while the company later confirmed that colour gamut coverage is 100% of Rec.709. There are SDI and HDMI inputs and outputs. The company told us that there would be an HDR version ‘later’. The monitor costs €1,400. The company was also showing the 2,000 cd/m² HDR monitor, the LUM-310R, that is based on the Panasonic high brightness panel that it showed at NAB. It supports P3 gamut and will have DCI 4K resolution.
TVLogic’s VFM055A field monitor has an OLED panel. Image:Meko
The LEM-550R is a 55″ OLED-based monitor with UltraHD resolution and 750 cd/m² peak output (150 cd/m² typical) with 140,000:1 contrast. The monitor supports HDR in PQ or HLG formats.
TV Logic’s LEM 550R monitor uses a 55″ OLED. Image:Meko
The University of Warwick showed an extremely bright HDR display last year in the Future Technology area, but this year it focused on tone mapping of HDR for VR. HDR is significantly more complicated because of the geometric distortion in the content. The university has technology that allows dynamic tone mapping.
Vestel moved out of Hall 14 (a big tent) to one of the main halls this year and was highlighting its STBs, of course. New were a Google-certified Android-based box for satellite operators and the company also has a new OTT Android TV (6.0 Marshmallow) box (S7252) that supports HEVC and UltraHD and is ‘PVR Ready’. For the UK, where Vestel sells quite a lot of boxes, it had a new FreeSat box that is available with an integrated hard disk. It also has a box that supports Freeview in the UK and offers Wi-Fi. It uses USB storage for PVR functions and has sold well through Argos.
As well as Android, Vestel can support RDK deployment which, the company told us, is growing in Europe, but only slowly.
In Germany, Vestel has done well this year selling DVB-T2 sets into the German market, with the switch over in the market from DVB-T.
Vestel’s UHD Google Box supports HEVC. Image:Meko
