Integrated Solution Targeted to Consumer Electronics Manufacturers
to be Featured at CES 2005
LAS VEGAS, CES 2005, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Ucentric Systems and Broadcom
Corporation are joining forces to provide whole-home media center solutions
for consumer electronics manufacturers. Ucentric has successfully ported their
Digital Home Software Suite to the Broadcom(R) BCM97038 media center reference
design. The software not only extends DVR (digital video recorder)
functionality through the home, but also enables the sharing of personal media
such as music and photos to multiple display devices throughout the home. The
two companies will feature their combined solution at the Consumer Electronics
Show (CES) 2005 in Las Vegas, January 6-9.
"The increased penetration of personal digital media and the FCC mandate
for HDTV and cable card standard from operators have come together to create a
huge market opportunity for consumer electronics manufacturers to deliver
cable TV ready whole-home media centers at the retail level," said
Brian Sprague, Senior Director of Marketing for Set-Top Box Products of
Broadcom's Broadband Communications Group. "We're excited to be working with
Ucentric to provide a compelling whole-home media platform for CE
manufacturers. The modular design of Ucentric's software suite layered on top
of Broadcom's set-top API allows for easy addition of new features, as well as
the complete customization of the user interface for differentiation at
retail."
The Broadcom BCM97038 reference design sets a new standard for media
center system integration and performance. For the first time consumer
electronics manufacturers will be able to deliver media center products with
dual audio and video channels, triple-channel, high definition DVR features,
secure in-home networking, as well as support for cable card tuners, satellite
tuners, and ATSC broadcast video.
In addition, the BCM97395 offers new advanced capabilities not yet
available in HDTV systems, such as support for integrated DVD-RW navigation
and burn capability.
To facilitate robust and compelling application solutions such as
Ucentric's, Broadcom integrates a high performance 64-bit CPU combined with
graphics acceleration, which takes the home media center to the next level in
performance.
"As a leader in integrated semiconductor solutions, Broadcom brings
significant expertise in cable and satellite set-top box engineering for
broadband and advanced media codecs," said Michael Collette, Ucentric chief
executive officer. "By leveraging our combined solutions we are introducing
advanced technology that can enable new business models for sharing and
delivering secure PayTV content to consumers within a cost-effective,
fully-featured, Whole-Home media center platform."
Ucentric's Whole-Home DVR(TM) application creates a single recording
library, shared among multiple television sets that allows users to
independently record, pause, play, rewind and fast forward live or recorded
programming from any TV in the network. Additional applications available from
Ucentric include Whole-Home Music(TM) and Whole-Home Photo(TM) applications
that allow users to access, share, and transfer their complete digital music
and photo collections to any connected device in the home.
About Ucentric Systems
Ucentric is a leading provider of networked media server software and
applications for the new digital home. Its patented technology enables the
secure, high quality digital distribution of HD and SD video signals from
broadcast, satellite or cable sources to all connected rooms in the home. The
Ucentric solution is uniquely capable of unifying networked television,
including whole-home DVR with networked personal media (music, photos, home
movies) and networked communications (broadband Internet access and telephony)
-- all on a standards-based, cost efficient, interoperable IP networking
platform that can easily scale to support any array of applications.
Ucentric is committed to supporting industry standards and is a member of
the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) and the Universal Plug and Play
(UPnP) Forum and actively supports CableLab's Open Cable initiative. Based in
Maynard, Massachusetts, Ucentric is backed by Polaris Venture Partners. For
more information, please visit http://www.ucentric.com.
NOTE: Broadcom(R) is a trademark of Broadcom Corporation and/or its
affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other
trademarks or trade names mentioned are the property of their respective
owners.
SOURCE Ucentric Systems
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Related links:
http://www.ucentric.com
CONTACT:
Stacy Oaksmith of JLM Partners,
+1-206-381-3600, or mobile, +1-206-755-9771, or
stacy@jlmpartners.com, for Ucentric
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