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 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 and Whole-Home Photo applications that allow users to access, share, and transfer their complete digital music and photo collections to any connected device in the home.

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