Sky Italia chooses Pace for HD PVR and next generation SD PVR

Pace to supply product for HD PVR launch; Additional supply of Next Gen SD PVR; New orders received for Pace SD and HD set-top boxes

SALTAIRE, West Yorkshire, UK — Sky Italia, Italy’s premier provider of satellite television, has chosen Pace plc (LSE:PIC), the leading independent developer of digital TV technologies for the global payTV industry, as its launch partner of high definition personal video recorders (HD PVRs) for the launch of its HD PVR service.

The Pace HD PVR (model TDS850NS) comes with dual DVB-S2 tuners, H.264 compression and a 250GB hard drive to store up to 60 hours of HD programming. The TDS850NS is integrated with OpenTV middleware and NDS conditional access.

Pace has also been chosen to supply an MPEG-4 capable standard definition (SD) PVR, the TDS480NS. This twin-tuner PVR uses MPEG-4 compression, which will enable Sky Italia to make better use of future bandwidth. It comes with a 160GB hard drive, capable of storing up to 60 hours of SD programming.

The TDS850NS and TDS480NS are both advanced designs with future-proof engineering considerations, such as SVP (secure video processor), Ethernet and USB Hardware support.

Pace has also won new orders for two non-PVR products – the DS-255NS, Pace’s 5th generation SD set-top box for Sky Italia, and the DS830NS, Pace’s 3rd generation HD set-top box for this customer, which is also SVP-compliant.

Paola Formenti, Sky Italia Technical Director commented: “Pace has been our prime set-top box partner for many of our service launches to date – from our first digital deployment with NDS conditional access in 2003, to PVR and HD in 2006. They have successfully demonstrated their expertise in delivering the whole family of set-top box technologies and we look forward to continuing to work together in bringing the latest technologies to our customers.”

Richard Slee, President of Pace EMEA and APAC added: “This latest agreement demonstrates our passion for finding new ways to improve our current products while, at the same time, developing the technologies that will help Sky Italia maintain its role as a leading European payTV operator”.