By Bob Tourtellotte

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Growth in sales of new personal video recorders, or PVRs, which allow television watchers to pause live TV shows, is seen as far slower than first expected, according to a report on Tuesday from industry tracker Screen Digest.

Currently there are just over 2.3 million PVR devices from manufacturers like TiVo Inc. TIVO.O , SONICblue Inc. SBLU.O and others in U.S. homes, and that number is expected to rise to 15.3 million by 2006, or 14 percent of U.S. homes with TV.

But that figure is far below those forecast when the devices first hit retail shelves in the late 1990s. Those predictions called for a rapid uptake of PVRs and an installed base of anywhere from 20 million to 50 million U.S. homes by 2005.

In Europe, the adoption by consumers is expected to be even slower, according to Screen Digest, rising from a current 306,000 to just under 5 million in 2006, or about 3 percent of all European homes with TV.

Screen Digest is a media research company and publisher of 30-year-old Screen Digest magazine, which is read in 46 countries around the world.

Personal video recorders, which are also called digital video recorders or DVRs, operate much like a computer but look more like a cable TV set-top box.

Using a hard drive with a large storage capacity and sophisticated communications software, a PVR can track a TV watcher's viewing habits and automatically record shows a viewer watches. The devices also give users the ability to "pause" a live TV show, among its features.

PVRs have proved popular with consumers who own them, but the uptake has been slow due to wrangling over various issues among makers, broadcasters, advertisers and cable and satellite TV operators.

For consumers, the devices can be costly, and they lack any long-term storage. Moreover, the manufacturers have not been very successful at boosting consumer awareness.

"One of the weaknesses of the PVR proposition is its inability to permanently store recorded material, (and) manufacturers have failed to convey the benefits to consumers," said the report's author, Arash Atmel.

Indeed, the Screen Digest report suggests that in the future, the PVR technology will be licensed by consumer electronics makers and incorporated into digital cable TV and satellite TV set-top boxes or other devices.

As a result, the penetration of stand-alone PVRs should decrease compared with set-top and other devices using the technology.

The Screen Digest report predicts that stand-alone devices will see their market penetration fall to 19 percent in 2006 from the current 35 percent.

Meanwhile computer server-like devices with PVR technology for television will increase their penetration to 33 percent from 2 percent. The market penetration for basic set-top boxes incorporating PVR technology will be around 35 percent, with various other devices accounting for the balance.