Pioneer Delivers Supreme High Definition Set-Top to the Industry

[Gregg Lengling]

The Highly Anticipated Voyager 3510HD Ships to Time Warner Cable

    LONG BEACH, Calif., March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Pioneer Electronics (USA)
Inc., a leader in cable television digital set-top boxes, announced today that
it has begun shipping its Voyager 3510HD digital set-top box to Time Warner
Cable.  Engineered to meet the extraordinary demand for high-definition
television entertainment, the new set-top box is competitively priced with
many rich features.  Pioneer's Voyager 3510HD offers viewers the ability to
enjoy maximum picture quality from analog, digital and HDTV signals.  With the
Voyager 3510HD, cable customers will have the ability to view high-definition
programs in all 16 ATSC formats supported by the cable industry including
720p, 1080i, as well as 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios.
    (Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020628/PIONLOGO )
    "Cable operators want to offer the most compelling HD tier to gain a
distinct advantage over satellite," said Paul Dempsey, president of the
Business Solutions Division at Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc.  "The Voyager
3510HD will ensure that cable operators can offer the most superior platform,
at the most competitive price, guaranteeing a true value for their customers."

     The Voyager 3510HD boasts a generous feature set, including:

     *  Graphics Over HD Video -- Pioneer's 3510HD supports full graphics over
        HD capability with video scaling, allowing cable customers to enjoy
        uninterrupted HD content while viewing program descriptions or
        utilizing other capabilities of an interactive program guide.

     *  High Definition Decoding Capabilities -- Decodes all 16 Advanced
        Television Systems Committee (ATSC) high-definition digital formats
        supported by the cable industry including 480p, 720p and 1080i and
        outputs to a variety of devices including plasma, HDTV-ready TVs, and
        standard TVs.

     *  Aspect Ratio Control -- Allows for the user to determine the video
        format based on their TV and personal viewing preference for a variety
        of display options.  Setting zoom, stretch or letterbox aspects are
        effortless through a simple on-screen user interface.

     *  Video Up and Down Conversion -- Customer configurable controls enable
        the Voyager 3510HD to output screen resolutions optimized for any
        display type.  Incoming video resolutions are detected and
        up-converted or down-converted automatically based on the configured
        output.

     *  DVI (HDCP-compliant) and a host of other connections -- Digital Visual
        Interface when combined with High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection
        technology provides additional security against recording and creates
        a protected digital connection for viewing high value digital content.

     *  Advanced dual processing power -- For optimum display of 65,000 colors
        on HD video simultaneously using an enhanced graphics engine.

     *  Allows for both interlace (1080i) and progressive (720p) scanning for
        greater flexibility.

     *  Allows both analog and MPEG2 digital channels to be displayed.

     *  Flexible memory configurations up to 32 MB of SDRAM memory --
        Increases the number of instructions that the set-top box can perform.

     *  Built-in ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) digital
        decoder -- Doubles both vertical and horizontal resolution in analog
        displays.

     *  Supports leading audio standards -- From CD quality, digital sound
        including Dolby(R) AC3(R).

[Snard]

Cool! Thanks for the post, Gregg.

I'm assuming it won't be too difficult to get TWC to give me a new box once they come in; I can always claim (rightfully so) that the black bars I get on my wide screen set for their box's 4:3 output could cause permanent damage if I keep it up.

It's also nice to see that it has a DVI output; hopefully it will come with a DVI cable for those of us who can use it.

I notice that it offers both 720p and 1080i output; I hope it switches on the fly based on the programming (I seem to recall that the 5100HD always outputs in 1080i, so it must be converting ABC's signal)