Sumitomo Electric Unveils IP-STB Feature Enhancement for NTT Plala's 4Kp60 "Hikari-TV" Linear Broadcasting Service

Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. announced a feature enhancement for its industry-leading IP Set-Top Box (STB), the StreamCruiser™ SmartTV 4100 (ST-4100) series, enabling a telecommunications company NTT Plala to provide a 4K-IP linear broadcasting service. The 4K linear broadcasting service over an IP network is the first of its kind in Japan.

ST-4100 series,^*1 Android-based IP STB supports a number of cutting-edge technologies, including UHD 4K^*2 content at 60 frames per second (4Kp60), and HEVC^*3 (ITU-T H.265) video compression technology. Concurrent with a new commercial service launch of "Hikari TV 4K"^*4 by NTT Plala, the functionality of the ST-4100 series has been enhanced to enable 4K-IP linear broadcasting service, in addition to the 4K-IP VOD (Video on Demand) service announced earlier. The ST-4100 series is the only IP-STB available in the Japanese market, and it offers a state of the art and high-quality user experience of 4K contents in real-time linear broadcast and VOD services.

Sumitomo Electric expects to continue in its leadership role in the development of next generation video services, by leveraging its broad experience in IPTV, video streaming, and market-proven products.

StreamCruiser™ SmartTV 4100

Main Features

• Real 4K UltraHD (3840 × 2160 pixels), H.265 (HEVC) 60fps 10 bit depth
• Conformance with the requirements of 4K premium contents by robust security technologies
• 4K triple tuner (simultaneous live channel viewing and dual channels recording) and dual transcoder
• Simulcast of recorded content to multiscreen devices (e.g. tablet and smart phone) inside/outside the house
• Wireless network 3 × 3 IEEE 802.11ac (5 GHz) / n (2.4 GHz)
• Android 4.4/HTML5^*5 Browser

*1 More information can be found at: https://global-sei.com/news/press/14/prs094_s.html

*2 4Kp60: Ultra High Definition (UHD) (3,840×2,160 pixels). Four times the resolution of 2K (Full HD).
A rate of 60 frames per second is required for optimal viewing of fast-moving programming such as sporting events.

*3 HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding): It has twice the data compression performance of the current technology (H.264).

*4 Hikari TV 4K service provides 2 channels of 4K-IP linear broadcasting service and about 450 titles of 4K-IP VOD (as of October 2015.)

*5 HTML5: Hyper Text Markup Language 5.

About NTT Plala lnc.

NTT Plala Inc. (NTT Plala) is a telecommunications company established in 1995, and its major shareholder is NTT Communications Inc. Currently, NTT Plala provides Internet-based services in Japan, with its core offerings of Hikari-TV (IPTV) and Plala (Internet service). Hikari-TV is also called SmartTV service. NTT Plala's subscribers enjoy its services based on both an optical fiber network (home-based TV sets) and mobile network (smartphone and tablet). Hikari-TV has grown up to be the largest IPTV operator in Japan over the past 8 years. It offers a variety of content, including approximately 100 linear channels, more than 90,000 VOD titles, karaoke, and shopping (e-commerce on the TV and its website). In addition, Hikari-TV has established an impressive digital content business, such as e-books, e-music, and Japan's first cloud-based gaming service. As a result of its innovative service offerings, Hikari-TV has attracted a subscriber base of more than 3,000,000 customers. ISP Plala offers a wide range of broadband services and internet speeds, based on optical fiber and ADSL, and it employs extremely robust security methods to ensure safe and secure home-based internet connections.

About Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd.

Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. designs, manufactures and sells optical fibers, cables, components, advanced electronic devices, and automotive parts. Through successful strategies of research and diversification, Sumitomo Electric has become one of the world's leading companies at the forefront of the revolution in information and communications. Sumitomo Electric's world-class research and manufacturing capabilities in optical technology continue to expand and strengthen the product portfolio while maintaining industry leading levels of reliability. The company has global operations in about 40 countries with over 240,000 employees. It reported group net sales of 2,822,811 million yen (23.5 billion US dollars) for the fiscal year ended March 2015.

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