Ocean Blue Software is readying a digital TV receiver software stack aimed at free-to-air and pay-TV digital set-top boxes and TVs for European, U.S., and Japanese markets. The stack, which targets Linux-based devices, aims to simplify the development of reduced-component-count consumer electronic devices based on Toshiba's second-generation TC9040x “Donau” processors.

Toshiba's Donau family of SoCs (system-on-chip processors) targets a range of “single-chip” digital video devices, from basic “zapping boxes” to higher-end DVRs (digital video recorders) with hard drive storage, network connectivity, and dual-stream decoding. The chips are based on 64-bit RISC host processors clocked at 180MHz, along with a “Media embedded Processor” (MeP) architecture said to free the host processor from compute-intensive DVB and multimedia processing tasks. The second-generation Donau chips began sampling last November, and should now be reaching general availability.

Toshiba “Donau” function diagram
(Click to enlarge)
Ocean Blue's digital TV tuner stack targets “anything with digital TV on it,” the company says, citing set-top boxes and TVs, mobile phones, and PVRs (portable video recorders). Supported broadcast methods include DVB-S (satellite), DVB-C (cable and Ethernet), DVB-T (terrestrial), DVB-H (mobile terrestrial), and DVB-IP (broadband/Internet). Supported OSes are many; however, Ocean Blue has announced only Linux support for the Donau parts.

Ocean Blue's digital TV stack
(Click to enlarge)
Ken Helps, managing director of Ocean Blue, stated, “Ocean Blue is pleased to work with Toshiba and to broaden its support for the leading digital TV platforms. In addition to European requirements for Freeview Playback, support for High-Definition decoding with display in half horizontal resolution and HD-to-SD conversion makes the new platform suitable for applications designed for use in the USA and Japan.”

Availability

Ocean Blue said it is “nearing completion of the development” of its port for Toshiba's TC90400XBG and TC90400FG (“Donau”) SoCs. The Toshiba parts began sampling last November, and should now be reaching general availability.

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