Nearly 500m homes worldwide will have personal video recorders (PVR’s) by 2010, according to research published today.
A survey carried out by Informa media, which publishes reports on the sector, predicts that there will be around 1m PVR homes in the UK by the end of this year. By 2002, when PVR technology will be included in most next generation set top boxes, the situation will improve significantly as manufacturing costs drop and PVR’s ride the boom of digital TV penetration.
The research forecasts that PVR systems such as TiVo, which allows viewers to digitally record up to 40 hours of TV and replay it at leisure, will enjoy a substantial boom from 2005 when improved network storage facilities will mean that subscribers will no longer have to buy expensive equipment, instead paying a nominal monthly fee to the operator. It is expected that PVR will become a standard rather than the luxury.
The global total for PVR homes is then expected to rise to 54m by the end of 2005. Informa predicts that PVR penetration will be highest in digital cable and broadband/ADSL homes, rather than in digital satellite households and digital terrestrial homes.
By 2010 nearly 500m homes are predicted to have PVR, with digital cable homes representing 62%, digital terrestrial homes 18%, digital satellite 13% and ADSL 7%.
