AT&T and DirectTV are creating a new streaming video player. Reports say it may be called the Osprey.
DirecTV is creating an Android TV-powered box which will rely on OTT supply and encourage voice search/navigation as well as the 4K video format. This information is based on FCC files which were first seen by Variety.
The apparatus, known as version number C71KW-400. It appears that the AT&T/DIRECTV Wireless 4K OTT Client from the user manual registered with the FCC, ties at a 10/100 Ethernet jack, electronic sound, HDMI and USB 2.0 interfaces, along with 802.11ac WiFi. The connected distant features a touch pad and voice recognition capabilities, when it’s paired with the Android TV apparatus.
The consumer’s guide also notes the voice-controlled remote will operate with a”prospective” version that’s known as the HS27. Users will have the ability to sign in using their Google accounts, and screen shots reveal the apparatus supporting a range of programs from your Google Play shop.
Especially, the newest OTT customer device can not be utilized with existing DirecTV Genie servers (including the HR34-54 and HS17). AT&T has not responded to queries concerning the brand new Android TV apparatus, so the way the corporation will really use it’s open to speculation.
As this is an OTT apparatus, my guess is it will be a device DirecTV will sell or rent to clients of DirecTV currently, and encourage a new software platform. Also mentioned on AT&T’s Q3 call was that will go next year. It will deliver innovative features like a cloud DVR, PPV events and films, and permit users to tack more flows to their account.
Can we use this box without a subscription?
Whether this becomes a device for DirecTV subscribers, it seems that the corporation would optimize it to AT&T’s very own OTT TV service if it is turned on, and give users the choice to swap it with programs like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube, etc. Variety’s Janko Roettgers also wonders if DirecTV will produce the box accessible to new or present clients of AT&T’s U-verse IPTV support or DirecTV’s conventional satellite TV service, possibly in an attempt to rapidly migrate movie subs to its own new, more nimble digital platform.
To Roettgers’ point concerning the way a brand new Android TV device may factor in the organization’s grander pay TV programs. Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s CEO, spoke up the organization’s software-centric strategy in the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in September.”it is a software-based alternative for cable TV for want of a better descriptive conditions,” he said then. “This will be the stage for how we provide all video later on, software-centric. We will be ambivalent concerning whose broadband that the tv service gets delivered and therefore a software-based platform won’t demand a satellite dish to the roof and quite a thin client in the house instead of a large set-top box”.
Android is getting bigger
Irrespective of the implementation, it will imply that AT&T/DirecTV has joined an increasing number of suppliers and vendors to leap in the Android TV pond. Some recent cases:-Evolution Digital, a provider focused on cable grade 2/3 operator marketplace, is operating within an Android TV-powered box because of the brand new app-based OTT TV which can carry the MSO spouse’s brand and be owned by the operator.
It is going to also be forced to auto-connect/default into the operator’s program once the unit is switched on. Telus of Canada is promoting a 4K-capable Android TV-based “press box” to get C$100 that functions with its brand new Pik TV skinny-bundle streaming TV support.
And when you wondered whether a few in the cable sector are sensitive to the momentum which Android TV is beginning to build from the cable pay TV industry, then an individual would need only look to a number of the curious behaviour that happened at a week’s SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo at Denver.
Execs from Amino Communications, both Google and Verimatrix were initially slated to appear on a board about Android TV in the show’s Innovation Theater, but were instead required to move the conversation elsewhere. SCTE/ISBE isn’t reacting to requests for comment about what transpired that, however, nScreenMedia’s Colin Dixon, who moderated the panel, reported that reveal organizers”determined it was’unsuitable’ to add such a comprehensive discussion of Android TV.
The host of this board, hurriedly relocated the conversation to its own booth on the show floor. “I had been poking around the show floor when that was going down, and may state that many individuals were mystified about the conclusion, to say the least. Although the concept of the board was delivered in the series, altering the place to the Amino booth in the Innovation Theater place did not look a mandatory one to me personally. In reality, it came off seeming like a poor move all about by a business that insists it is prepared to embrace change and openness.Additionally, the conclusion ended up with the reverse effect of what was intended, providing the panel much more focus (along with the undesirable kind, at that!) than it probably would have received if the occasion happened during its first site.