At next week’s Cable Show in Los Angeles, a broad mix of CE manufacturers, chipmakers, software developers and pay-TV providers plan to trot out products and services tied to the Reference Design Kit, the preintegrated software stack for set-tops, gateways, and other IP-capable devices.
But first, some updated stats. According to RDK Management, the joint venture of Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global, the number of RDK licensees has grown to more than 140 companies, a group that includes more than 15 operators, including Comcast, TWC, Liberty Global and Kabel Deutschland. Others that are on board, or at least considering it, include Rogers Communications of Canada and Japan’s J:COM.
“Since last year’s Cable Show, the number of RDK licensees has grown by 40 percent, and we’ve seen steady adoption by operators across North America and Europe,” said Steve Heeb, president and general manager of RDK Management, said in a statement. “Our management structure was recently strengthened with the addition of Liberty Global, and RDK community members are working collaboratively to accelerate the deployment of next-gen video products and services around the world.”
RDK Development is working on a new 2.0 version that will remove some U.S.-centric requirements, such as the OpenCable Application Platform, so the platform can be made to conform with cable systems in Europe and other parts of the globe, including those that rely on the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) standard. In February, industry sources said RDK 2.0 was in the final release stage.
RDK Management said this week that it expects to “share additional news pertaining to DVB in the coming months.”
The J.V. also noted that RDK members are also looking into customer premises devices outside of the set-top sphere, including modems and routers, that could benefit from the platform as cable moves toward all-purpose, converged gateway devices.
Among RDK-facing activities at the show, Liberty Global will conduct an RDK-based demonstration at the Cable Show’s Imagine Park on Wednesday, April 30 at 12:00 pm PT, and more details on RDK develpments could come out of the CTO roundtable on Tuesday, April 29 (3:30 - 4:30 p.m. PT in Room 408B.)
Companies planning to show RDK-based wares and services at the cable confab include:
- Accedo
- Arris Group
- Alticast
- Cisco Systems
- Comcast
- Entropic Communications
- Espial Group
- Humax Americas
- Intel
- itaas Inc. (now part of Cognizant)
- L&T Infotech
- Liberty Global
- Pace
- Samsung
- S3 Group
- SeaChange International
- Symphony Teleca
- Tata Elxsi
- Technicolor
- ThinkAnalytics
- ValueLabs
- ViXS
