Personal progress: The forthcoming launch of services by the UK's Telewest and Germany's Premiere highlight the appeal of PVR. However, the speed with which European cable operators adopt the technology remains to be seen

摘要

Personal video recorders - digital TV set-top boxes with hard-disk drives - are starting to make an impact in Europe, following strong growth in the US. UK MSO Telewest recently announced its forthcoming PVR deployment in a bid to challenge the Sky Plus service from BSkyB and companies such as Humax and Fusion are building PVRs into flat screen TVs. However, operators in Europe are still wary of the effect PVR services have on advertisers, and are concerned about the cost of boxes. "Pretty much worldwide, most operators now have PVR on their roadmaps," says Mike Tometzki, head of product management at leading set-top box maker Pace Micro Technology. "We are definitely seeing a growth in the proposal responses and interest from operators - both new and existing customers. A huge proportion of the growth going forward over the next 12-24 months will be PVR and the majority of our technical efforts are moving to PVR with hybrid tuners with broadband, terrestrial, cable and satellite."