(iTers News) – Today’s homes are a melting pot where communications, computing and consumer video and audio technologies are converging to offer consumers connected home entertainment experiences.

Marvell Semiconductor of the U.S. is delivering on its 'Smart Home' vision, aggressively lining up a broad range of SOC chip solutions for always-on home entertainment applications.

Working together with partners like Comigo, ZeroDesktop and EchoStar, Marvell demonstrates at IBC 2012 held today in Amsterdam how energy efficiently its silicon building blocks are processing video and audio images across a range of home entertainment devices.

But, they also show off how intelligently their SOC solutions enable consumers to share them across a range of companion second-screen devices.

"As traditional broadcast content becomes increasingly digital and interactive, operators and service providers are expanding their business models to enable the Smart home to become the critical hub that converts innovative content and services to an exceptional user experience. We deliver here in IBC 2012 the ‘Smart’ home vision with three key technologies: seamless connectivity, high-performance video delivery, and highly-reliable and secure cloud storage," said Weili Dai, Co-Founder of Marvell.

"Marvell has a proven track record of providing a one-stop-shop experience where all major operating systems and platforms are supported. At IBC, we are demonstrating how live video can be seamlessly shared and transmitted across big screens, mobile devices and Smart furnishings for the new era of the digital lifestyle,," added he.

ARMADA 1500 anchors Google TV platform 

Built around Marvell’s highest-performing ARM v7-compatible PJ4B SMP super-scalar dual-core CPU, its ARMADA 1500 HD media SOC is at the heart of its Smart home vision.

Powerful, energy-efficient, ultra-scalable and very affordable, the SOC solution is designed to enable PC-like processing power to support Web browsing with support for Flash and other key technologies, operating at more than 6000 Dhrystone MIPS of computing horsepower. It comes with peripherals like FPU v3.0, 512KB of L2 cache and WMMX2.

Built with advanced, cell phone-like power management, the platform is also incredibly energy-efficient.

The ARMADA 1500 contains Marvell's Qdeo® video processing for state-of-the-art HD and 3D video, including scaling, noise reduction, de-interlacing, low bit-rate Internet video enhancement and FRC and color/contrast enhancement.

The ARMADA 1500 is now at the heart of numerous home entertainment devices like Google TV set-top boxes, EchoStar's Android-powered IP, and hybrid DVB and IP connected set-top box solutions, Comigo's Android-based software platform, and ZeroDesktop's cost effective enablement of virtual web desktops.

Avastar up sleeve 

Marvell's low-power, high performance Avastar® solutions are eye-catching, too. The chip solutions are designed to integrate today's most cutting-edge wireless standards and technologies to enable the anytime, anywhere video experience end-users crave.

By supporting WI-FI CERTIFIED Miracast and enabling carrier-grade distribution over Wi-Fi networks, Marvell's connectivity solutions deliver high-quality, low-latency video across a variety of mobile devices.

At IBC, Marvell is demonstrating how Miracast – a standard that delivers audio and video content from one device to another without cables or an access point – allows consumers to transfer videos, mobile games and other mobile content from smartphones, tablets and other mobile computing devices directly to a big-screen TV.

Marvell also showcases its carrier-grade 4X4 multiple input multiple output (MIMO) solution with beamforming. And, it demonstrates how this advanced solution allows operators to reliably deliver simultaneous high-definition (HD) video streams to TVs and displays anywhere in the home, further optimizing the video and gaming experience for consumers.

Content -sharing across mutlple lines 

Marvell's wired connectivity technologies are designed to meet surging consumer demand for high-speed and highly robust home networking, enabling complete unification of the wireline network.

Now, with Marvell's G.hn wireline technologies, wired networks can distribute more content to more screens in more rooms in the home – and over any wired medium, including PowerLine, coax and phoneline/twisted pair – at up to 1 Gbps PHY rate.

This performance enables OEMs and ODMs to select complete multi-technology design packages for creating systems that provide seamless and engaging experiences for consumers.

At the show, Marvell demonstrates working G.hn modem systems based on Marvell’s G.hn reference design, too. GE-DW360F. Marvell's ITU-T compliant G.hn transceiver chipset has been successfully designed into several modem prototypes from among the company's leading Asian customers, supporting the growing demand for G.hn home networking.

Smart energy

Marvell's Smart Energy and Smart LED Lighting platforms are designed to provide highly cost-effective, fully-integrated, end-to-end silicon and software solutions.

They enable OEMs to develop feature-rich smart appliances and smart LED lighting solutions for high energy efficiency and even greater energy savings through network control.

The Smart Energy platform provides rich Wi-Fi connectivity, enabling smart appliances to seamlessly integrate into consumers' home networks and devices, such as smartphones and tablets, as well as the broader Internet and cloud-based services.

The Smart LED Lighting platform is built around innovative LED driver ICs, along with low-power ZigBee networking, to provide a complete, wirelessly networked lighting control solution.

A Wi-Fi/ZigBee gateway connects the lighting control networks to the premises networks, allowing control via smart phones and tablets. Both platforms are complemented by the Marvell Kinoma® platform, allowing rich UIs and new applications.

Smart printing

Marvell's leadership in printing and wireless extends the scope of connected living to include seamlessly printing a range of content from smart devices. Marvell demonstrates its reference Android smart TV printing solution.

The solution is designed to take care of all the backend tasks necessary to complete the printing request: establishing a wireless connection from the TV to the printer and then formatting and printing a high quality version of the selected content.

The technology allows consumers to easily select and print content such as photos, web pages, documents, or video frames from their DTV solutions.