Broadcom has taken the wraps off of a new technology that it said can improve channel-change speeds by up to five times the current speed.
The technology, FastRTV, is now available across a wide range of Broadcom’s system-on-a-chip offerings for digital cable set-top boxes and universal digital transport adapters.
Broadcom said that Comcast was the first cable operator to deploy its FastRTV technology in its uDTA deployments to transition from analog to standard-definition digital TV broadcasts. Comcast has previously said that it expects to have the analog-to-digital project completed in 80 percent of its systems by the end of this year.
“Broadcom’s FastRTV technology is an innovative solution that improves the channel-change times to nearly instant speeds,” said Steve Reynolds, Comcast’s senior vice president of customer premises equipment. “As we continue to transition our customers from analog to digital broadcast, this is a significant benefit, in addition to the improved picture quality and increased capacity for advanced services that an all-digital platform offers.”
The fast channel-change chips work with existing conditional access systems and don’t require changes to broadcast streams, which in turn makes it easier to deploy in both existing and new cable systems.