MultiChoice South Africa to launch HD service with Pace in time for 2008 Olympics

Friday, August 8th, 2008
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Pace Wins Olympic Gold in South Africa

SALTAIRE, West Yorkshire, UK — Pace plc (LSE:PIC), the leading developer of digital TV technologies, has taken podium position as the launch partner of MultiChoice South Africa’s high definition (HD) service.

Pace is supplying its TDS850IMC HD personal video recorder (PVR) for the launch of the South Africa’s leading payTV operator’s HD service. The TDS850IMC features a 500GB hard drive – sufficient to record up to 50 hours of HD content or 150 hours of standard definition (SD) content – and quad-tuners for the ultimate HD PVR experience. Two tuners will be dedicated to programme recording, while the third will enable users to view a third channel, with full PVR functionality, while two other programmes are being recorded. The fourth tuner will be dedicated to the electronic programme guide (EPG), enabling full programme information to be accessed even when all three other tuners are being used. This fourth tuner is also capable of delivering HD and SD push-VOD content to the consumer.

The TDS850IMC incorporates OpenTV’s Core 2.0 middleware and PVR 2.0 software, together with content security from Irdeto.

Richard Slee, Pace President for EMEA and APAC, commented: “Multichoice is launching one of the most advanced HD platforms available today, with a highly-specified Pace product.

“Our early investment in high definition recording technology has resulted in a number of high profile service launches for us around the world. This is the first HD PVR deployment in Africa and we are excited to enable MultiChoice subscribers to get this product to launch in time to witness one of the most spectacular sporting events of the decade in high definition quality.”

Nolo Letele, Chief Executive Officer, MultiChoice Africa commented: “Pace is a leader in the field of both high definition and personal video recorder technology, which made them the natural choice for us as a key partner to work with on the launch of our HD service.”