Pace demonstrates leadership in high definition and hybrid set-top box technology for the payTV industry
Pace leads the market in hybrid service deployments
September 10 2009
At IBC 2009, Pace plc will underscore its success in enabling high definition and hybrid service launches for the global payTV industry through a line-up of real-life customer deployments.
Pace has been at the forefront of high definition (HD) since launching its first HD box into the US in 2002 and Europe’s first MPEG-4 HD product in 2005. Since these landmark launches the Group has delivered advanced HD products to more than 70 payTV operators around the world, with over 60 of those operators selecting HD personal video recorders. In 2009 Pace commenced won new HD business with Sky Germany, Net Brazil and Viasat. The Group also commenced shipments of HD set-top boxes to Comcast in the US. This is in addition to the 20 HD PVRs Pace shipped to customers around the world during 2008.
Pace’s track record in high definition is making an important contribution to the Group’s 50 million set-top box shipment milestone1 which Pace expects to reach by the end of 2009.
Pace’s commitment to driving payTV technology evolution is now placing it at the forefront of hybrid developments, creating set-top boxes that combine traditional broadcast services with IP broadband content delivery. Pace launched Europe’s first satellite/IP hybrid set-top box, Le Cube, for leading French pay-TV operator CANAL+ in 2008. Since this ground-breaking launch Pace has recently announced a hybrid HD PVR product launch with Viasat in Scandinavia, in addition to its ongoing work with BT in the UK.
Richard Slee, President, Pace commented: “Through our engineering and commercial expertise Pace has achieved an incomparable number of first-to-market deployments of high definition and hybrid set-top box platforms for the payTV industry. Each product we create is unique to the service and network requirements of each payTV operator. We have over 100 operator customers around the world, testament to our focus on payTV and the development of set-top box technology, which has made us global number two in HD2 .”
“Mathias Hautefort, President, Pace added: “Pace anticipated the growing market demand for hybrid; and we have worked with operators and our partners to create payTV box solutions that seamlessly combine ‘over-the-top’ content with broadcast services to deliver greater content choice to consumers. By ‘lighting-up’ our products’ Ethernet interface for the delivery of new content and services, we have already won customers that include Canal+, BT and Viasat. We expect more to follow as we work to launch new hybrid boxes and exploit the latent hybrid potential in many of our deployed HD PVRs.”
Pace will demonstrate a wide range of high definition and hybrid products on Stand 1.B19 at IBC.
More information is also available on Pace’s website at:
http://www.pace.com/ibc
1 - This milestone incorporates current market expectations for Pace’s 2009 shipments.
2 - Screen Digest September 2009
