3.19.2007
Skunk Works (A Digital Cable Tuner Saga)
Posted by Chris Morley

When you hear of Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division – the loving name given to their Advanced Development Projects Unit – you might think of the U2 spy plane or the SR-71, both of which were aircraft that were ahead of their time and encompassed the best of American aeronautical technology. But the Skunk Works’ story is one of true grit and forged out of dire necessity.

Formed in WWII, Skunk Works was tasked with developing aircraft capable of combating German technology. Their first plane, the P-38 Lightning, would prove to be the most successful of the war. Later, a small team at Skunk Works rolled out the United States’ first jet prototype in 143 days, the P-80 Shooting Star.

Similarly, our team of product development engineers has been hard at work getting ready to roll out digital cable support in our media centers. We started late to the game as the big name OEMs have been working on it for three years. We have had three months. The documentation was sparse, we had to jump through legal hurdles, and forge new relationships with partners like Cable Labs. To be honest with you, we were greeted with raised eyebrows when we talked about our intentions to deliver cable cards to our customers, but very quickly everyone found out how serious we were. So serious, in fact, that we not only completed our validation and engineering (which I consider to be some of the most grueling of my career - couldn't have done it without ya, Iggy!), but we were the first to submit our conformance documents to Cable Labs since the program officially launched in November of last year.

I consider this a prime example of what a motivated, resourceful, and agile company can do to be truly innovative in a market where the term is thrown around like a beach ball.

So lately we’ve been getting high fives around the office and from Microsoft, Intel, and AMD. NVIDIA’s pleased that they’ll be part of the story too, and we are all very happy that our customers are going to be getting these systems soon, as we will be the first company to actually ship a digital cable certified system. Our first customer systems will be rolling out of our facilities late this week, and we couldn’t be more excited about it. Expect reviews to be popping up from the usual suspects as well…

Take a gander at the Velocity Micro CineMagix series, all of which feature ATI's TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner (OCUR).

Labels: amd, ati, cinemagix, digital cable tuners, grand theater, ocur, pro cinema

[3.19.2007 @ 2:35 PM]  [Digg it]