Pace server hub to enable DIRECTV multiroom DVR service

Pace Enables First interconnected Multiroom DVR experience with DIRECTV’s Home Media Center; Changing the landscape in the home, Pace’s HR34 server hub enables DIRECTV’s (Nasdaq: DTV) unique Multiroom DVR service

BOCA RATON, Florida — Pace plc (LSE: PIC), a leading developer of technologies, products and services for global broadcast and broadband markets, announces today that the company’s HR34 server is the central hub in the DIRECTV® Home Media Center, set to launch October 2011. With its unique multiple connectivity capabilities, the HR34 enables the satellite industry’s first fully interconnected DVR experience.

Pace’s HR34 is a cost-effective, large capacity server that delivers full DVR capabilities, including HD-DVR functionality, for each ‘client’ device, such as set-top boxes and connected TVs. The HR34 includes one-terabyte of storage in a single central hub, eliminating the need for hard drives within individual devices. The HR34 delivers on Pace’s vision to develop flexible and scalable solutions that seamlessly evolve entertainment in the home.

“There is a strong and growing demand for interconnected capabilities in the home,” says Mike Pulli, president of Pace Americas. “The HR34 is a game changing technology that demonstrates our strategic vision of the interconnected home-networking evolution. This is the future of home media centers in the payTV industry.”

With the HR34, all connected devices within the home-network have access to stored recordings in the DIRECTV Home Media Center, and are able to pause live video, bookmark programs and resume playback in other rooms. The HR34 also allows users to set recordings from any connected device. It enables consumers to move content and interact with entertainment in line with how they move around their homes.

“The Home Media Center is another industry first for DIRECTV,” said Romulo Pontual, executive vice president and CTO for DIRECTV. “With Pace, we can now offer unique capabilities that consistently optimize the TV viewing experience. Innovation and reliability are critical to us in this incredibly fast-paced market, and Pace is the long-term technology leader, delivering an entirely new, enhanced home entertainment experience to customers.”

The HR34 server uses the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) standard to share content around the home over coaxial cable or Ethernet networks and has an e-SATA port for easy expansion. It incorporates multiple tuners to deliver up to five simultaneous high definition streams around the home with complete flexibility over the combination of viewing and concurrent recording and playback options on four televisions. The server is fully compliant with RVU, a client/server-based technology that allows the television viewer to experience a consistent, pixel accurate server generated user interface on various consumer electronics devices. The RVU specification uses widely implemented UPnP and DLNA technologies to enable a gateway device such as an advanced set-top box to work with non-proprietary client devices. The flexible RVU architecture allows client implementation on multiple devices, such as TVs, PCs, laptops, tablets and Blu-ray™ players.

DIRECTV plans to begin rolling out the Home Media Center to subscribers across the US in October 2011.