Pace launches world's first mobile PVR for payTV
08:58 BST, Tuesday 14th September 2004 -- by Alan Jay
The Pace Handheld PVR2GO is its latest innovation and makes it possible to view conditional access protected digital TV content, wherever and whenever a subscriber chooses.
Pace’s PVR2GO has a 5” (12.7cm) widescreen display and users can download protected TV content onto a 40 GByte hard drive, to view on a handheld screen anywhere that they choose: on the train, in the car, on holiday. The display is encased in a robust outer with touch screen controls that include pause, fast-forward and rewind. In addition to television, PVR2GO can be used for audio (MP3 and Windows media audio), viewing j-peg images and playing games.
“This is a new era in PVR,” comments Neil Gaydon worldwide sales and marketing director. “Every operator we talk to has or wants PVR in their business plan as it totally revolutionises the viewing experience, enabling the viewer to watch what they want, when they want. Now with PVR2GO a viewer can watch TV where they want too, an exciting new proposition for operators seeking to attract high-value long-term subscribers.
“PVR2GO makes a PVR subscription even more attractive and valuable to the end-user, as well as extending revenue opportunities for the operator - it’s a win-win proposal. This new device will also help operators take on new competitive threats coming from illegal peer-to-peer downloading and gaming devices capable of storing content downloaded from the internet.”
He continues: “PVR typically attracts premium subscribers from high income, but often very busy families. Our own in-depth customer research with pay-TV subscribers has revealed real excitement for the viewing flexibility PVR2GO can now provide. In addition, our research has shown that VR2GO’s class-leading form factor is small enough to take anywhere a subscriber wants, enabling them to catch up on favourite shows or download additional pay-per-view content for watching on the move. Our PVR2GO platform can be tailored to an operator specification, with different screen sizes, functionality and travel accessories.”
PVR2GO comes with integrated speakers and 3D-surround sound, has a stereo headphone socket and wireless headset support and ‘analogue out’ for large screen viewing and sharing. Connectivity options include USB 2.0 for content downloading and 1394 for multimedia distribution.
Pace engineers have designed PVR2GO to support all industry standard conditional access systems and can be configured for operator specific middleware and applications. It can also be formatted to utilise MPEG-2, MPEG-4 or Window Media 9 content.
There are no details as to in which markets and at what price this might be made available. Obviously it looks like this might have been on Sky’s list of things to add to the new Sky+160 – which has USB2 connectivity – but it seems unlikely that Pace developed it for Sky and was then announced to announce a general purpose version at IBC last week.
