After years of increased consumer demand for DVR and On-Demand services, the next wave of home entertainment and media consumption calls for place shifting of video and media content to anywhere in the home. Innovative technologies like Motorola's Follow Me TV (FMTV) enable the sharing of digital media among connected devices throughout the home and beyond.

Motorola's Follow Me TV solution consists of a combination of digital set-tops or connected devices, related firmware, enabling application software, and leverages existing in home wiring. It comprises a whole home ecosystem that enables subscribers to connect their digital devices to share media throughout the home. FMTV offers a platform from which to build a range of applications and shared media services. One key application is the multi-room DVR, where content is recorded on the hard drive of a single DVR set-top and may be displayed by other set-tops within the home. Consumers love the idea of pausing a show that was recorded on a DVR in one room and then resuming playback in another room. In fact, studies show that 70% of consumers want DVR in every room of their house (C-Cubed New Wave). They can also watch, pause, fast forward, and rewind the recorded show in a remote location, without interrupting the viewer of the DVR set-top in the other room. FMTV allows non-DVR set-tops to take on DVR-like functionality, such as trick play modes and remote scheduling.

FMTV functionality goes beyond just sharing video among connected set-tops in the home. By connecting a personal computer to this home network, music, pictures, and personal video stored on the PC may be also be displayed on the TV without the need for new wiring. With the proper software and enabled devices, subscribers can upload pictures, music, and video onto their home computer, develop slide shows and multimedia presentations, and finally display this content on their TV, via a connected set-top device. Consumers love the idea of sharing their pictures and music over a comfortable and inviting digital home theater set-up, rather than huddling around a PC -- Motorola’s FMTV experience brings that media sharing capability to the comfort of a consumer’s living room environment.

One of the key building blocks of the FMTV platform is the use of MoCA® (Multimedia over Cable Alliance) technology, which enables operators to utilize existing home coaxial wiring thereby eliminating the cost and complexity associated with running new wiring. The MoCA technology is embedded into the enabled set-tops and shared devices’ hardware and software stacks. These connected devices may then share data to and fro, over a higher frequency spectrum on the coax, via IP protocol. The protocol is robust and has sufficient bandwidth to share multiple video and data streams as well as high definition TV. Finally, the data transfer could also be used to support compelling user applications that help drive increased revenue.

It is hard to stop the momentum that has been building with Carriers already launching FMTV technologies. Data shows consumers are willing to pay a premium to be able to place shift their media consumption in the home. Operators are already exploiting possibilities of connected home devices, such as merging the PC with the set-top over a home network. As research shows and studied consumer behavior indicates, consumers’ appetite for media consumption is insatiable and now that desire has expanded from time shifting to place shifting in the home and beyond. Not surprisingly the growth rate of networked set-tops is increasing and has been estimated, by Parks, to reach 18 million homes by 2012.

We are in a mobile environment with daily consumption of media and data currently on the move and on a variety of devices: PCs, cell phones, television, etc. With FMTV, that paradigm is enabled via a home network of connected data, video, and compatible devices. The FMTV experience melds subscribers desire to consume what they want, when they want, and now where they want. Read more about Motorola’s Follow Me TV Solution in the Implementing Follow Me TV Solutions whitepaper.