Shaping Set-Top Box Evolution: Technological Trends

The user experience is growing due to the device's evolution, offering new use cases and introducing a new layer of intelligence. The STB is indeed experiencing a period of tremendous innovation due to the rising demand for more computing power, sophisticated graphics, and machine learning capabilities.

Organizations to enhance the whole viewing experience on television, including offering premium video and audio quality, digital video recording, and storage options. Thus, it is anticipated to propel the market growth. In addition, according to a research report by Astute Analytica, the global Set-top Box Market is likely to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.9% over the projection period from 2023 to 2031.

More effective content delivery
The most popular streaming services in the world presently have hundreds of millions of subscribers. The STB is significantly influenced by each of these services, which results in greater user experiences and expanded functionality.

The best user interfaces all emphasize the UI heavily, offering a high-resolution user interface and tailored content recommendations. Thus, the improved capabilities, meanwhile, are primarily focused on the requirement for better image quality for 4K video throughout the entire process. All pipeline components must handle 4K video, even for cheaper STBs.

Support for smart cameras
People behavior has altered due to remote work. Microsoft Teams, Facebook, and Skype are examples of video call programs that are now available for smart TVs. Facebook Portal is a separate device that connects to the DTV and is only used for video calls. This calls for support for smart cameras, but enabling concentrates on immersive images. This enables hand and body motion recognition, backdrop enhancement or blurring, augmented reality (AR) features such as those in the Snapchat app, and intelligent focus with facial tracking.

Fitness and Gaming
Cloud gaming services like Tencent Games and Google Stadia in China supply a variety of game applications through STBs. Better CPUs and GPUs are needed for cloud gaming, as well as STBs that provide low latency, video, and command streaming. Even low-end STBs can provide the most basic cloud gaming experiences since Android TV already supports Android game apps.

UI for voice
Voice command is a crucial function for STBs. Both basic voice commands for an improved user experience (UX) and voice UI are required for these devices to enable more complicated experiences and applications, such as the fitness applications previously mentioned. It is crucial to use specialized NPUs in this situation since they add AI functionality for better Local Automatic Speech Recognition.

Superior clarity
This entails improving the STB device's picture quality using AI. Super Resolution employs a combination of AI and conventional video processing techniques to produce a high-quality picture When upconverting footage from lower resolution to 4K. This might even reach 8K for the most expensive set-top boxes. While 4K STBs presently dominate the market, it won't be long before more than 8K STBs start to be sold and supplied internationally. Major athletic events are anticipated to hasten consumer adoption of 8K STB.

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Set-Top Box Evolution
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