online media

1 definition found

online media - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  Online Media
  
     <company> A company formed by Acorn Computer Group plc to
     exploit the ARM RISC in television set-top box decoders.
     They are wooing British Telecommunications plc to use the
     box in some of its video on demand trials.
  
     The box will be based on an ARM8 core with additional
     circuits to enable MPEG to be decoded in software - possibly
     dedicated instructions for interpolation, inverse DCT or
     Huffman table extraction.  They have already moved audio
     MPEG to sillicon.  The box will use Acorn's RISC OS
     operating system as the control environment and is also
     looking at putting Oracle and Microword on it.  Online
     will reduce component numbers and therefore cost by
     transferring functions presently on boards into the single
     RISC chip.
  
     The interactive set-top boxes are not limited to the
     television - personal computer videoconferencing and extended
     networking are being developed.  Acorn already has
     partnerships with Bell Northern Research and Northern Telecom
      Limited, News International, Alcatel NV and its
     majority shareholder Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA.
  
     The company is presently wholly owned by Acorn, but eventually
     expects to bring in external investment.  Online will start a
     four phase trial in Cambridge with Cambridge Cable Co,
     Advanced Telecommunications Modules Ltd. - the Hermann Hauser
     company promising super-cheap Asynchronous Transfer Mode - and
     Anglia Television, later this year.
  
     [Article by nobody@tandem.com cross-posted from
     tandem.news.computergram, 1994-07-7].
  
     (1997-05-14)