UK set top provider Pace Micro Technology said this week that Viasat has chosen to source its main HD DVR from Pace, using the confusingly named TDS850NV, across the Nordic countries. Viasat is owned by the Modern Times Group (MTG)’s and is the leading satellite Pay TV service in Scandinavia and the Baltic states.
Pace says that the TDS850NV is a twin tuner DVR using H.264 compression and DVB-S2 demodulation, and comes with NDS middleware and content security. However on its web site Pace has the TDS850 as having triple tuners, two DVB-S2 tuners and a third tuner to enable a dedicated push-VOD service. It has a 250GB hard drive which allows up to 60 hours of HD or 120 hours of standard definition, and uses HDCP for secure transfer to the display via HDMI.
The Viasat win lines up with wins at Comcast, DirecTV, Premiere in Germany, BSkyB in the UK, some of these also HD wins, as was a deal announced last year for Pace to supply HD PVR to MultiChoice Africa
‘Launching HD in the Nordic countries is an important part of our strategy as the premium Pay TV operator in this region. It was important that we chose a supplier we could rely on to deliver the product on time and to the required quality.’
Neil Gaydon continued: ‘Viasat is the third European operator to choose Pace’s HD PVR technology. Our early investment in HD technology, with the launch of the first H.264 DVB-S2 set-top box nearly two years ago has put us in the lead position for the HD PVR worldwide, and we now have deployments across three continents – in North America, Africa and Europe, making us the leading supplier of HD PVRs worldwide.’
Just prior to Christmas Pace agreed to acquire the Philips set top business in a deal which almost doubled its size in a stroke, acquiring a $512 million business for a pittance, just $136 million, mostly in an issue of new shares, with a spattering of cash.