Seagate Appreciates OpenTV PVR Solution

OpenTV Corp., a software and technology provider of advanced digital television solutions, announced that its Personal Video Recording (PVR) streaming file system was found to be one of the best PVR file systems available by Seagate Technology.

Designed and built by OpenTV specifically for PVR use and as a component of OpenTV’s complete PVR solution, OpenTV’s Streaming File System (SFS) dictates how video, metadata and other information is written to the hard disk to optimize performance and maximize the life of the drive in the PVR set-top, reducing the likelihood of end user issues and PVR returns.

Testing was conducted by the Seagate Technology System Integration Engineering Lab using a DVR featuring a Seagate Pipeline HD hard disk, which captured the behavior of the file system during a 120-minute simultaneous dual-record and playback session of high definition video content. This test represents the high-end workload that a home theater environment can experience. The test results showed that OpenTV’s SFS delivered excellent performance at the set top box level and could also prolong the life of the hard drive in the field, potentially reducing the number of PVR and hard disk returns.

“The combination of Seagate Pipeline HD hard disk drives along with OpenTV’s SFS system provides an optimized PVR/DVR environment where system performance and reliability are greatly enhanced,” said Bryan Yunker, Seagate PVR Software Tools Manager. He continued, “For stability and to maximize drive-life, OpenTV’s SFS is one of the most stable we’ve tested so far.”

“We were very pleased with these findings which confirm the high quality and robustness of our technology used in conjunction with Seagate Pipeline HD hard disk drives,” said Dr. Joel Zdepski, OpenTV’s Senior Vice President and General Manager, Middleware. “By delivering the advanced OpenTV SFS on high quality drives, such as the Seagate® Pipeline HD™ series, original equipment manufacturer customers, network operators and ultimately TV subscribers can benefit from faster and more reliable PVR set-top boxes.”

Seagate offers Seagate Pipeline HD drives starting at capacities ranging from 160GB to 1TB delivering unprecedented levels of acoustic, power and vibration performance for high-definition PVRs. With the ability to support up to ten simultaneous high-definition streams and function at operating temperatures up to 75°C, they provide reliable storage that enables consumers to take full advantage of premium services like video on demand, and time shifted viewing. Pipeline HD drives are the gold standard for high-definition recording.

OpenTV’s PVR solution is one of the many advanced television services that OpenTV’s technology enables. It has been deployed with leading pay-TV operators worldwide bringing the PVR experience to millions of television viewers around the globe.