Rovi signs with Panasonic SoC for first DivX HEVC technology licensing agreement

SANTA CLARA, USA & CHIBA, JAPAN: Driving digital entertainment innovation, Rovi Corp, announced that it has signed an agreement with Panasonic Corporation System LSI Business Division to integrate Rovi's DivX HEVC technology into its next-generation digital television and blu-ray disc ICs.

The announcement marks a significant milestone for Rovi as the first licensing agreement for DivX HEVC technology and will help enable consumer electronics OEMs to release devices that support the high-quality streaming and playback of HD 720p/1080p and UltraHD/4K HEVC content.

"Representing a continuing evolution in compression technology, HEVC is a key to delivering consistently high-quality video experiences across a broad range of devices:" said Koji Kitamura, GM, solution development group, division 2, Panasonic Corporation System LSI business division. "Integrating DivX HEVC streaming and playback support into our chipsets is very instrumental to high-quality video applications and services."

"We continue to make progress in helping accelerate HEVC adoption across the video ecosystem:" said Dr. Kanaan Jemili, senior VP, product management at Rovi.

"Rovi has delivered tools to help consumers and professionals create HEVC content, and now with this agreement, we are bringing HEVC streaming and playback capability to the IC ecosystem to support the next-generation entertainment experience."

At the Inter BEE taking place from November 13th to 15th at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan,Rovi is showcasing its end-to-end solution for enabling and accelerating HEVC adoption through the entire video value chain,from professional and consumer content creation to solutions that facilitate secure delivery and multi-screen enhanced playback.

Rovi's end-to-end solution consists of new MainConcept encoding SDKs for professional content creators; the DivX video service with DivX DRM for protected content delivery for service providers, mobile operators and content retailers across multi-screen devices; DivX 10 software tools for PC-based DivX HEVC creation and playback, and an extension to the DivX Certification program to allow IC and OEM customers to quickly bring to market mobile and consumer electronics products that support high-quality DivX HEVC playback.

DivX HEVC Certified Devices will support an advanced feature set for media playback including multi-language subtitles and audio tracks, trick-play track for smooth fast forward and rewind, chapter points for quick scene navigation, and resume playback across devices.

To date, over one billion DivX devices have shipped worldwide representing over 30,000 unique models from multiple major consumer electronics brands.