Cable operators are holding back on a large-scale transition to the most advanced set-top boxes, but that doesn't mean they're going to be stuck with today's underpowered baseline boxes (referred to as ?thin clients? or ?2000-level? set-tops).

A generation of intermediate boxes is emerging, giving operators new opportunities to offer subscribers revenue-generating services ? such things as personal video recording (PVR), home networking and some advanced interactive applications ? the simpler set-tops can't handle.

?We do see operators gravitating toward the middle ground, toward more cost-effective intermediate boxes,? said Bill Wall, technical director for Scientific-Atlanta's subscriber networks sector.

Those set-tops include Pioneer Electronics' Voyager 3000, which is coming out this month; the Scientific-Atlanta 3000 that will ship by the end of this year; and Motorola's DCT-2500 and 2600, which will debut next week at the Western Show, with shipments scheduled for mid-2002. Pace has introduced an adapter for its 500 that will allow hardware to be added in a plug-in, modular fashion.

The thickest of ?thick clients? ? the more sophisticated set-tops with larger caches of memory and more powerful processors ? incorporate most of the following: multiple interfaces, cable modems, hard drives, interfaces and ports for home-networking purposes and, two ? or even three ? tuners (allowing subscribers to watch one channel while recording another). But those boxes may represent technological overkill for the many MSOs ? at least for now.

They are also expensive. While the thick-client boxes cost between $350 and $450, intermediate boxes cost only slightly more than the thin-client boxes on which they're based, which are priced between $250 and $275.

Some MSOs will forge ahead with limited deployments of the most advanced boxes ? Charter Communications says it will install some advanced Motorola DCT-5000s, and Pace is building a 700 model for Comcast. But most operators are instead trying to extend the usefulness of baseline boxes with software upgrades and deploying new set-tops with intermediate capabilities.

Time Warner Cable, for example, recently announced the purchase of 50,000 of S-A's Explorer 3100HD set-tops, which feature a hard drive, along with 475,000 Explorer 2100 digital set-tops. Both represent upgrades from older models. Still, the company, said, they are ?enabling millions of subscribers nationwide to access a variety of interactive TV applications, including VOD, SVOD, e-mail, Web browsing, chat and e-commerce,? according to the company.

Motorola's intermediate 2500 and 2600 are meant to complement the company's widely deployed DCT-2000, said Bernadette Vernon, the company's director of strategic marketing, digital cable. These boxes will remain capable of running all the applications available on the 2000 but will have additional processing power and memory, which will lead to improvements in games, faster e-commerce and advanced closed captioning. The 2600 has a hard drive for PVR capabilities.

What goes in any given box specified or purchased by a cable operator is dictated by one thing: ?It's all about which applications you want to run. MSOs are interested in interactive session applications. With today's boxes, the speed and power necessary for that are just not there,? said Dan Ward, Pioneer's director of marketing.

A set-top needs memory to host an operating system, a program guide and perhaps some middleware ? software that mediates between applications and hardware. Add one or two applications, and those features combined consume the 8 MB of memory typically incorporated by low-end boxes.

It is possible to compress the software by developing slimmer middleware and writing more compact applications. The applications end up simpler but no less desirable.

Insight Communications is pursuing the software-upgrade route, with low-end DCT-2000s and using Liberate's new slimmed-down middleware. This allows Insight to load its program guide and a VOD application from Diva, while allowing room for downloading at least one other application when a subscriber requests it, according to Patrick Forde, Insight's VP of new-technology integration.

But that strategy will only go so far. ?We think PVRs are compelling, and that's not a software upgrade,? Forde said.

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