Vecly knows what will be your home multimedia center in future

Vecly knows what will be your home multimedia center in future

Estonian startup Vecly, owned by entrepreneurs Indrek Raig, Yrjö and Rait Ojasaar and Artec Group (Tehnopol), aims to benefit from the global digital revolution. They are developing software for Digital TV STBs (set-top boxes) to turn them into multimedia centers and make us use them for many other means than just TV.

Artec's STB's with Vecly's software are currently sold in Estonian electronic stores. But Vecly is now targeting much larger partners such as Renesas, NEC, NXP and Trident-Adecq. The company is also having negotiations with Levira, the main TV and radio broadcast network operator in Estonia.

Vecly's consideration is following: China, where majority of STBs are obviously produced, is an inexpensive country for electronics production, but Chinese software is far from being perfect. Here's where Vecly enters into the game.

Yrjö Ojasaar says that in the next 3-5 years transition to digital broadcasting will happen in many countries worldwide. Consumers will have higher quality TV and much higher number of channels.

Want it or not, all the analog TV watchers will need to buy the STB. But STB, as we know, is basically a computer, enabling much more than just showing TV. It allows to play games, without the need to buy separate console, X-Box or Wii. It can also be used to share content - movies, pictures etc. It allows video on demand. One can even use Skype, Facebook and Twitter via STB.

„Set-top boxes become the multimedia centers of our lives!" Ojasaar imagines.

And that will open up totally new possibilities not only for consumers, but for advertisers. In times when conventional TV ads are drying up and Internet advertising is growing, one could expect to see new special advertising channels distributed via STBs. For example a gardening channel paid by your local gardening store.

We'll see. One thing is for sure though: Vecly wants to be present in all the countries going through the switch from analog to digital.

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