Broadcom signs Myriad and Sling deals for Android, streaming TV everywhere
The folks at Broadcom have dropped a couple of silent bombs this week in announcements of deals with both SlingBox's EchoStar and with Myriad for their Alien Vue solution, these deals resulting ultimately in two things: a chip made by Myriad that allows for TV Everywhere NOT just limited to wi-fi in your own home and Android apps on your TV set-top box! With their deal with Sling, they're set to create their upcoming BCM7425 SoC (or chip, if you prefer) with embedded Sling place-shifting technology. With Myriad Alien Vue, Broadcom will be supporting Android apps on the set-top boxes which they power.
The big deal with the first announcement with Sling, as reported by Light Reading Cable, is that while most streaming television solutions on the market currently require you to stay within the confines of your very own wi-fi network, this new deal with Broadcom will allow Slingbox to break the confines. At the moment, Dish Network is the only other place you can get this "place shifting" (a fancy term for moving around wherever you want) in a Slingbox set-top for your TV. Broadcom's new chip will allow new cable, telecom, and satellite TV operators to bring a paradigm shift to streaming video in the third quarter of 2012.
As for Myriad Alien Vue, we got a glimpse of what this could mean for us in the very near future last last month. What Broadcom is announcing today with Myriad is that the former will be supporting the latter in their efforts to bring Android apps to the TV. What this will mean in practice is that set-top boxes using Broadcom chips (the same BCM7425 SoC mentioned above) will be able to run and will be encouraged to run Myriad Alien Vue. Myriad Alien Vue not only allows you to run Android apps on your TV, it supports plug-ins such as "Myriad Connect & Share" for multi-screen functionality.
Exciting stuff! In a nutshell this set of deals means we'll potentially have boxes in the near future that can stream live TV, hook up to any display, and run Android apps as well! Sounds like a neato 2012 coming up!