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TELE-audiovision.com— 03-04/2013 — TELE-audiovision International — 全球发行量最大的数字电视杂志
veloped based on the Android system.”
We love all of these new products be-
cause Android is especially well-suited
for all of the different functions that
IPTV offers.
And it’s here where Android’s weak-
ness can be seen. Yongjun Zhang ex-
plains, “The system is so open that ca-
ble operators are not at all happy about
it; their business is based on the sale
of additional services.” Thanks to all the
available Apps, the additional services
from cable operators will no longer be
needed. As a result, in the eyes of ca-
ble operators, Android won’t be of any
use to them. “Many of the cable opera-
tors want to offer their Triple Play ser-
vice which includes TV, telephone and
Internet”, explains Yongjun Zhang, “but
in the case of an Android box, if a user
installs one of the free telephone Apps,
they will no longer need the telephone
service from the cable provider. Even
TV channels can be received with a va-
riety of Apps and for the cable operator
this would eliminate their number one
selling point.” As a customer, a high-
speed Internet connection is all that
you’d need; you could then install eve-
rything else yourself that up until now
could have been acquired through the
cable company.
Yongjun Zhang puts it all together:
“For these providers the Android sys-
tem is not convenient since it is such an
open system. We need a version of the
operating system that is limited.” As an
example he mentions the Digital Rights
Management: “If providers can no long-
er control the content, they won’t have
any desire to implement such a system.”
The question of whether Android will
be the operating system of the future
can be answered like this: Android re-
ceivers are definitely interesting for pri-
vate users but for providers, that look
to offer high-quality content, there’s no
cable operators if they were to offer
lots of elaborate features. And that’s
exactly what the Jiuzhou developers
are working on: in particular for the lo-
cal Chinese market they are developing
Android cable receivers with sophisti-
cated features and limited capabilities
to install Apps. Receivers based on the
Android system are ideal for certain ar-
eas but this operating system would not
take the place of the other operating
systems.
advantage for Android
receivers. “Aside from
that, there are also the
high-value Android com-
ponents; to be able to
use all of these functions
you’d need faster CPUs
and more memory.” This
increases the prices for
Android receivers on the
order of 10-20% over
standard receivers. An-
droid receivers would
become interesting for