‘AllVid’ home net alliance underway
February 17, 2011
Seven companies from the electronics and IP industries have announced the formation of the AllVid Tech Company Alliance. The organisation was formed to lobby on public policy in the Federal Communications Commission’s “AllVid” rulemaking.
Founding members of AllVid include Best Buy, Google, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics, Nagravision, SageTV, Sony Electronics and TiVo. All are said to support the “gateway” approach to integrating video services into home networks.
AllVid is a CableCARD replacement proposed by the FCC, consisting of hardware and software that would act as a universal adapter or “gateway” for all types of pay TV content, delivered through a wide variety of means, including cable TV, satellite TV, VDSL, IPTV and Internet TV.
Matthew Zinn, TiVo general counsel and VP, said: “The commission has an important and continuing role to play in ensuring that MVPD services can be accessed by unaffiliated third party devices using non-proprietary standards. We believe the AllVid proceeding can build on the successes of standards to bring MVPD content, including bi-directional programming, to the subscriber’s personal entertainment ecosystem on a wide variety of devices using a less expensive security solution for the benefit of operators and subscribers.”