Microsoft has been making strong efforts to make their presence in your living room with the Xbox. They introduced Mediaroom in 2007 as their IPTV offering and have 37 partners across America, Europe & Asia.
Mediaroom offers on-demand video streaming and recording across Microsoft’s consumer devices (Windows, Xbox and Windows Phone). Microsoft has signed a deal with Tech Mahindra to setup a testing lab in Bangalore. The lab will be testing equipment to be used by Microsoft partners to offer Mediaroom services. Streaming of video requires efficient encoding which has conform to several technical specifications. Tech Mahindra will be testing the encoders and transcoders against Microsoft’s specifications.
In 2008, Tech Mahindra and Microsoft signed an agreement to help Microsoft in integration and deploying Mediaroom services. The new deal seems to extend the partnership. The Encoder Conformance Testing Lab (ECT Lab) at Bangalore will look into interoperability of the encoders. This would include testing both software and hardware components that are essential for IPTV. Tech Mahindra’s L Ravichandran talking about the partnership said, “Tech Mahindra has been selected by Microsoft to setup an authorised Encoder Conformance Testing Lab (ECT Lab) for video encoders used in deployment of IPTV solutions on Microsoft Mediaroom based platforms. This initiative will drive Microsoft Mediaroom ecosystem partners to offer feature rich products and service.”
Reliance Communication is expected to announce availability of their IPTV service through Xbox as part of their partnership with Microsoft signed in 2007. Unfortunately we haven’t heard a lot about it.
According to Microsoft, Mediaroom has been deployed across 7 Million subscribers.
