Pace RNG-210n/Comcast Xfinity Spectrum DVR is a Pentium® M-based Test Bed

Atoms to Follow

AUSTIN, TX — Today Pace plc (LSE: PIC), Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA, CMCSK), and Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) finally released details on the Pace RNG-210n (a.k.a. Xfinity Spectrum DVR) that cleared the FCC in December of 2010. There was one big surprise: the Pace-made DVR doesn’t use the state-of-the-art, 45nm Atom™-based Intel CE4200 but instead uses the 90nm Pentium® M-based CE3100.

“While I don’t want to belittle the achievement of Intel deploying the first x86 processors into the cable STB market, I was so surprised by the announcement that I called Intel to make sure it wasn’t a typo,” remarked Stephen Froehlich, Senior Analyst with IMS Research’s Consumer Electronics group. He continues, “What this reveals is that Comcast always intended to have an extended market trial of its TV gateway server and then use a more modern CE-series processor in its volume rollout which we are forecasting will begin near the middle of 2012.

“Software integration for TV gateway servers is proving much more difficult than expected, and Comcast and its software integration partner seem to be the only team other than ARRIS that is on schedule. DIRECTV and UPC/LGI have each apparently fallen six months to a year behind their original schedules, with the (Broadcom-based) DIRECTV HR34-700 schedule push-back likely accounting for Pace’s profit warning earlier this year.