While Comcast pushes ahead with the latest version of its X1 platform and fancy new user interface for set-tops and mobile devices, Charter Communications has also been toiling away on a next-gen guide that lives in the clouds.
Charter is testing that UI, appropriately referred to internally as the “Sky” guide, in Fort Worth, Texas. The new HTML5-based guide is expected to be a central player in the MSO’s coming World Box, which will provide an array of services and apps from a cloud-based platform.
Charter, which has been working with ActiveVideo Networks on the project, has been keeping a lid on its handiwork, but offered a small glimpse of it today.
Tucked away on page four of the presentation that accompanied the MSO’s fourth quarter earnings results, Charter offered a visual hint of the new interface’s look and feel. Below a screen grab of its current Charter TV app for mobile devices, Charter pasted in a graphic of a “cloud-based UI” that clearly carried the “future” label.
While this cloud-based version is for portable devices, it’s likely that some of its visual traits and underlying capabilities will also grace the set-top version.
If all goes to plan, Charter's cloud-based UI "will be available on every single set-top box in every one of our video customer homes," Charter president and CEO Tom Rutledge said on Friday's earnings call.
