Digital Trends

Motorola Broadband Communications Sector today introduced an enhancement to its advanced interactive digital set-top family.

The new Motorola DCT6000 series supports operators' plans to deliver a powerful combination of interactive and entertainment services, such as personal video recording (PVR), high-definition television (HDTV), and other processing intensive applications, to their cable customers.

Designed in response to network operator and consumer feedback, the DCT6000 platform builds on the Motorola DCT5100 and DCT5200 set-tops. With increased processing power, digital interfaces to digital television (DTV) and related consumer electronics, an integrated DOCSIS™-compatible cable modem, and features such as pausing live TV and recording programs via the electronic program guide (EPG) interface, the DCT6000 family presents operators with a single solution for PVR, HDTV, and advanced interactive applications.

The Motorola DCT6000 family of set-tops includes:

Motorola DCT6200. The DCT6200 is the next generation of Motorola's popular DCT5100 platform. Motorola has enhanced this set-top with an 800 MIPS internal processor — an upgrade of over 150 percent. Additionally, the Motorola DCT6200 includes an "Entertainment Package," which enables a direct digital connection to consumer audio and video devices via 1394-DTV and DVI interfaces.

All DCT6200 outputs (both analog and digital) are available, which facilitate consumer interaction in multiple DTV interface configurations. The DCT6200 includes an MPEG encoder, making the set-top "PVR-capable" with the addition of an external 1394 hard disk drive. These enhancements provide an even more compelling, easy-to-use, HDTV and PVR experience for the cable customer

Motorola DCT6208. The DCT6208 becomes the cable industry's first fully integrated, solution for HDTV, PVR, and advanced interactive features. Like the DCT6200, the DCT6208 offers an 800 MIPS processor and has 1394-DTV and DVI interfaces, and an internal 80 GB hard disk drive.

Designed with evolving industry standards like DOCSIS set-top gateway (DSG) in mind, the DCT6200 and DCT6208 come with a host of standard features including a DOCSIS-compatible cable modem, a smart-card reader, Ethernet and Universal Serial Bus (USB) interfaces, Y-Pb-Pr video output, S/PDIF optical and coaxial digital audio outputs, and baseband and RF audio-video I/Os.

Motorola plans to deploy the DCT6000 set-tops this summer. Additional products on the Motorola roadmap include a dual-tuner variant and "whole-home" PVR capabilities. The OCAP-capable DCT6000 platform will support a variety of applications from Motorola Horizon developer partners, including software from Concurrent Computer Corp., Gemstar-TV Guide International, Liberate, Microsoft TV, Pioneer Digital Technologies, and SeaChange International.

"Operators must continually grow their ‘multiple-service' offerings to remain competitive in today's marketplace. The Motorola DCT6000 family provides compelling features and services to cable subscribers by incorporating today's most advanced technology in fully integrated, easy-to-use devices," said Carl McGrath, Motorola corporate vice-president and general manager, digital core gateways. "Motorola will continue to respond to changing operator and consumer needs, and is proud to be the first manufacturer to integrate PVR with interactive digital cable services and HDTV capabilities."

"We are excited about Motorola's new DCT6000 family. It offers a powerful, robust platform that will support our ongoing strategy to offer advanced digital services to our customers," said Mark Hess, vice president of digital television, Comcast.

"Our recent market research has shown that our customer base is extremely interested in entertainment services such as PVR and HD," said Marc Tobolski, director of marketing, digital video and Internet services, CableONE. "The Motorola DCT6000 platform delivers the advanced services our customers will purchase today, and supports our future plans for growth. We applaud Motorola for being the first to integrate HDTV and PVR into one set-top."