Broadcom and Liberate Partner on DVR

Looks like everyone wants us to ditch our VCRs and move on to the wonderful world of Digital Video Recording. Watching all the developments unfold, however, I haven't even bought a DVD player yet since I'm waiting for one that will do DVD playback, DVR, and burn DVDs. Seems like an affordable box like that should be just around the corner. Or, I guess I could just build one. At the The Western Show 2001 this week in Anaheim CA USA, Broadcom and Liberate Technologies are now showing off their combined software and silicon efforts for Digital Video Recording (DVR) in digital set-top boxes. Broadcom's announcement today quotes Forrester Research as saying that DVR is the fastest growing segment in personal technology, with digital video recorder sales expected to reach 53 million units by 2005. The Liberate/Broadcom solution lets users of digital set-top boxes record TV, control live programs, and create viewing preferences for watching time-shifted TV. To bring DVR capabilities to the set-top box, the companies ported the Liberate TV Navigator client software, including the Liberate DVR Extender software, to the Broadcom BCM93740 digital set-top box reference platform, enabling digital recording of TV programs, live TV controls, and customized viewing functions. The Liberate TV Navigator client supports applications and content authored in Java, JavaScript and HTML. Broadcom's BCM93740 reference platform includes the BCM7041 dual-channel MPEG encoder chip and supports existing analog channels for watch-and-record DVR. Watch-and-record lets you time shift on the program being watched and record a separate program on another channel at the same time so that you don't miss any NBA games .