“Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicroelectronics and Philips Electronics agreed on Tuesday to jointly develop and promote a software system for the next generation of interactive set-top boxes and television sets. Philips said STMicro would back the Multimedia Home Platform software in the emerging fight for the supremacy over the next operating system used by cable operators as they unveil new interactive TV services.” Read the rest of the report at ZDNews. Update: Ken writes: “The Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) software is not really an OS, but a set of middleware services that provide basic STB functions. It can sit on top of any OS (like pSoS that Philips currently uses).“
STMicro, Philips to Develop Set-Top OS
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Eugenia Loli
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Ken – have you actually read the MHP specs? It’s more than a “basic” set of functions (MHP spec includes the whole of personal Java, DHTML, and load’s more guff). It’s huge….
(I think perhaps you were thinking of the much simpler MHEG spec?)
I have, indeed, looked at the MHP specs. (I won’t say I read them all, as they are like 800+ pages in their full form.)
I did indeed mean what I said by a “basic” set of services. DHTML, Personal Java, and all the other “guff” that MHP includes don’t do anything on their own. They need to be combined into useful apps such as PVR, DVD-playback, etc.. to be useful. They’re just building blocks.
Yes the technologies that MHP provides are more like the cool specialized LEGO parts than the simple 1×2 brick, but they’re no more useful on their own that a simple GFX engine unless they’re put to good use.
Cheers,
Ken
Sorry for the whole bold thing…forgot to close the tag!
Ken