Sharp and Rovi renew DivX deal

Sharp has renewed its multi-year DivX licensing agreement with Rovi Corporation, allowing it include DivX HEVC technology in its next-generation of AQUOS TVs and Blu-ray recorders.

The agreement will allow Sharp to support high-quality streaming and playback of DivX HEVC HD 720p/1080p and Ultra HD/4K HEVC content. The deal also includes use of Rovi’s adaptive streaming solution, DivX Plus Streaming.

“Sharp is a leader in the global consumer electronics device industry, and our new agreement is a significant milestone in our continued efforts to accelerate broad market adoption of HEVC,” said Dr Kanaan Jemili, senior vice president, product management at Rovi.

Rovi has also done a deal with LG Electronics, which will use Rovi video metadata in LG smart devices. Rovi’s data portfolio covers 55 countries and is available in more than 15 languages.

The news comes a day after Rovi announced that DivX DRM has now received conditional approval by UltraViolet for digital downloads. DivX will now with the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) – the consortium that operates UltraViolet – to achieve approval for deployment. DivX DRM for streaming use has already previously been approved.