Ekioh SVG Engine

Ekioh provide an SVG engine. Described as :

(the) most advanced user interface engine, available for any embedded device such as a television, Set Top Box (STB), mobile phone or portable media player. Utilising the latest Web 2.0 standards from the W3C, the Ekioh UI Engine can provide a user experience second to none, with a completely customisable user interface and comprehensive integration with media controls.

Some details can be found at Ekiohs website. It appears to be the engine I saw in action on Dreamparks stand at IPTV world forum 2009 and blogged about previously. Ekioh is a small company formed by ex employees of ANT but with some good momentum judging by their press releases.

SVG, technically, plays to the same space as FLASH and Abobe creative tools can output SVG in some form. The hype surrounding SVG right now may die down once set tops have FLASH 10 and can play many of the games now available on the internet. In the mean time there is little to chose between FLASH and SVG. They are both vector formats that have been bent to make use of images through blitting and will also exploit OpenVG/GL-ES as it becomes mainstream.

Guessing right now you would have to say that FLASH has the edge in terms of momentum, future usefulness (games) and trained designers. It has heavyweight marketing and resources on its side and the chip vendors are supplying FLASH but have not been clear yet on SVG. SVG is more lightweight and seems to run a little faster.

The future has a way of eluding prediction, but the logic suggests SVG and FLASH may both have a place. SVG could be used with low end solutions, useful for the user interface but little else. FLASH meanwhile could be used at the higher end, faster platforms with higher performane 3D. The content available on the internet for FLASH would then be available on the higher end platforms. The picture probably will not clear up until we reach FLASH 10 for set tops...2011?