September 20, 2011

Pace, DirecTV Prep Launch of Home Media Center

Pace Americas is making inroads in the United States with satellite and cable operators deploying next-gen customer premise equipment. The set-top manufacturer says its HR34 server hub will help enable DirecTV’s multi-room DVR service, dubbed "Home Media Center," when it launches in October.

At IBC this month, Pace CEO Neil Gaydon, said, “2011 has been a major year for Pace in terms of product and service development, delivering on our vision of the connected home." Earlier this year, a research group declared Pace the world's top seller of set-top boxes. (For more see, IHS: Pace Surpasses Motorola in Set-Top Box Deployments).

“There is a strong and growing demand for interconnected capabilities in the home,” added Mike Pulli, president at Pace Americas, in a statement.

For DirecTV, Pace’s HR34 large-capacity server will act as the central hub to deliver DVR capabilities, including HD-DVR functionality, for each “client” device, including set-top boxes and connected TVs. With the HR34, all connected devices within the home network have access to stored recordings in the DirecTV Home Media Center, and they are able to pause live video, to bookmark programs and to resume playback in other rooms. The HR34 also allows users to set recordings from any connected device.

The HR34 server uses the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) standard to share content around the home over coaxial cable or Ethernet networks, and it has an e-SATA port for expansion. It incorporates multiple tuners to deliver as many as five simultaneous HD streams around the home. The HR34 server also is compliant with RVU, a client/server-based technology that allows the TV viewer to experience a consistent, pixel accurate user interface on various consumer electronics devices. (For more, see Pace Set-Top Client Receives RVU Certification).

Included within the hub is 1 terabyte of storage, thus eliminating the need for hard drives within individual devices.

At the Cable Show in June, Comcast’s Brian Roberts demonstrated a new guide and user interface for Xfinity TV as part of the company's Xcalibur initiative, which Comcast is trialing in Augusta, Ga. Pace is providing the hybrid tru2Way/IP set-top for that trial. (For more, see Live From The Cable Show: Roberts Demos Cloud-Based Xfinity TV).

-Linda Hardesty