Dish TV to use STBs powered by ST Micro chips

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Dish TV today announced that it will source set-top-boxes powered by system-on-chip STB decoder ICs from ST Microelectronics. The company will initially sell STBs integrated with STi5189 and STi7111, both of these chipsets are capable of supporting high definition transmission.

“Earlier we used chips from IBM in our STBs. Now we will be using chipsets from ST Microelectronics. We need to keep business dynamics in mind. Indian DTH market is growing. And after this financial year we expect Indian market to surpass U.S. market in terms of subscriber base. The average revenue per user in Indian market will be low compared to that of the U.S. We need to keep the revenue pressure in mind and simultaneously offer more services to subscribers,” said Jawahar Goel, managing director, Dish TV while announcing the deal.

Goel mentioned that the decision to source STB integrated circuits from ST Microelectronics in is line with company’s future goal.

“We are planning to launch a HD channel in two months time. By the end of this year, I expect that there will be 30 HD channels that will be available in India. Commonwealth games will also see launch of some new HD channels. With this agreement, our objective is to provide customers the latest technology and the best viewing experience,” elaborated Goel.

The STi5189 decoder in Dish TV’s SD equipment is interactive, DVR-capable and makes it a hybrid STB. It supports DVB-S satellite broadcasting and industry-standard middleware and browsers, integrates an audio subsystem supporting Dolby Digital 5.1 and MP3 decoding, and supports all major conditional-access security standards. There is also an interface to off-chip Flash memory, which allows a PVR-type time-shift feature without requiring a hard-disk drive.

STi5189 has a processing speed of 350 Mhz approximately which is far higher that the chipsets that were used in previous STBs. The earlier version of STB had a processing power of 100 Mhz approximately.

The STi7111 HD STBs will support H.264, VC1, MPEG2 and numerous other video standards. High-definition video is output through the embedded HDMI 1.3 interface at up to 1080p resolution, while the embedded Ethernet port enables integration within home networks. A PCI interface is also provided. Both ICs are delivered in a kit featuring the STi6110A tuner IC.

These chipsets are capable of giving many other services but it will depend on the operator to decide on the kind of value-added service he wants to provide.

However, Goel did not elaborate of the VAS that his company is planning to provide on this new platform. He only mentioned that the high end version of STB launched today will be priced at Rs 2990 and the other version of STB will start from Rs 1500 onward.

ST Microelectronics expressed its pleasure to announce this deal with Dish TV as it offers 250 channels serving over 7.5 million subscribers, and growing with average addition of 300 thousand customers per month. Dish TV’s vast network of 900 distributors and 48,000 dealers is spanning 6,600 cities and towns across India

“The digital migration story has just started in India, this solution marks a new industry standard to drive a mass market migration that will bring high quality digital TV solutions to Indian homes. Interestingly, while digital migration has just started in India, it is also simultaneously upgrading to High-Definition TV,” said Francois Guibert, ST’s executive vice-president and president for Greater China and South Asia.

Yu Lee, regional vice-president , Greater China and South Asia region, Consumer Segment of St Microelectronics stated that India which has 80 per cent of analog cable homes, offers a big opportunity for ST Microelectronics in the company.

“We have research and development center in Bangalore which is the biggest for ST Microelectronics outside Europe. This center contributes significantly to all our product developments. This center equally plays important role in developing product as per Indian environment as well. India has crossed 100 million pay TV homes out of which 80 per cent are connected with analog cable. This itself talks about growth opportunity for us in India. DTH will lead digital migration in India and we expect that it will cross 50 million subscriber base by 2013,” said Lee.

ST Microelectronics in last financial year reported revenue of $300 million. This includes revenue that company generates from its joint venture company, ST-Ericssson.

Guibert expressed that in this financial year he expects to see double digit revenue growth for the company in India.