Liberty Global plans 'set-top box on steroids' for European market

European cable provider Liberty Global says it will roll out an all-IP set-top box next year capable of distributing video, voice and data content throughout the home and to multiple video displays. The company said the user interface will integrate video content, widgets, apps, as well as a search and recommendation engine.

Sound too good to be true? Not with the lineup Liberty Global has announced.

Liberty said Samsung will build the multimedia home gateway, which will be powered by the Intel Atom CE Media Processor. The middleware and the user experience will be provided by NDS, based on Flash Technology, Nagravision will provide the conditional access solution through NAGRA Media Access. This solution will support MoCA and WiFi, and participate in the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) ecosystem.

"It's a set-top box on steroids," Balan Nair, CTO for Liberty Global, told Wired.com. "The interface will be very intuitive and advanced and include features such as 'search and recommendation' that will tie in a seamless way the experience of a using a DVR and a web search engine."

The company said the box will be available early next year for its European customers.

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