DVR Archives - Page 44 of 65

DST: TiVo versus ReplayTV

As I wrote earlier in the week, TiVo has mostly resolved issues surrounding the daylight savings time date change for Series2 and Series3 units. However Series1 units have not received a software update. While Season Passes, Wishlists, etc should record as scheduled… TiVo will “display a time one hour behind the actual time” and manual … Read more

Cellphone DVR Scheduling For Homezone, TiVo

AT&T Homezone customers will able to…

use their mobile handsets to remotely view listings and schedule or delete recordings from their DVR set-top boxes. All that is needed is a WAP 2.0-enabled handset that lets subscribers access the AT&T-Yahoo portal.

As soon as I read that, my immediate thought was: Where’s the TiVo Verizon Java scheduling widget? Well, PVRWire reports something may be announced shortly:

Next week Verizon and Vodafone will launch a service allowing customers to program TiVo units by phone. Sprint plans to enter the remote recording market later this year.

Time Warner Faces Inferior DVR Legislative Action

Forrester recently did a survey where they asked consumers an open ended question about how they felt towards their DVR and 20% of the respondents used the word love to describe their relationship with the gadget.

When a consumer electronic device can generate this type of an emotional response, it’s safe to assume that for better or worse, the technology is going to have an impact. On a positive note, Forrester’s study revealed that this passion translates into DVR owners churning less and being more likely to pay for premium services.

less than 2% of people who owned DVRs have stopped using them. While today’s DVR owners are demographically mainstream, they are off the charts in their adoption of premium TV services and home electronics. Nearly half of them have a home network, which is four times the penetration of a typical online household.

Expand Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR Storage

As a guy living in Comcast + Motorola country, I was pretty surprised to learn that Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVRs (running SARA) support external drives. I’m only two years behind in the news, but being able to upgrade a stock cableco box is pretty exciting. I could see myself putting up with an inferior interface … Read more

Hollywood Killed Replay But Can They Take On Microsoft?

Shortly after I purchased my first TiVo, a friend of mine wanted to know my thoughts on whether or not he should get a DVR. Like any rabid obsessed TiVotee, I immedietely started gushing over, all of TiVoâs innovative features and about how much of a transformative effect, time shifting has played on my life.

After trying to hard sell him on a TiVo unit for over three weeks, I finally succeeded in convincing my friend to buy a DVR, but instead of going with the TiVo unit I recommended, he went with the ReplayTV 5000. I tried to talk him out of it, but no matter what I said he wouldnât budge. I showed him the superior interface, I let him test drive my own unit, I tried pointing out that suggestions and wishlists were exclusive to TiVo, I even tried to scare him into believing that Replay would possible stop working, if the company went bankrupt. No matter how hard I tried though, I couldnât convince him to choose TiVo over that ReplayTV 5000 unit because it had a feature no one could touch. Automatic commercial skipping.

When TiVo first launched, the movie studios completely freaked out over DVR technology. They understood early on, the impact time shifting would play on their revenues and went to great lengths to put a stop to it. Initially, TiVo wanted to partner with the studios, but instead the studios threatened to sue the company, if they even launched their product. Hollywoodâs huffing and puffing turned out to be little more than hot air when it came to TiVo, but when ReplayTV had the nerve to introduce automatic commercial skipping, the studios knew they had to draw a line in the sand.

Since Engadget and PVRWire mentioned the new Motorola box (DCH-3416) this weekend, I thought I’d chime in with a bit more info. This HD DVR was announced at CES, and in fact Moto had quite a few on display (pic above).

First, it looks much sharper, more modern than the 6412 (and others). Second, the reason this is on the way to a cableco (or telco) near you is the FCC’s 7/07 seperable security requirement: This box supports CableCARD, both M-Card and CC 1.0. Mari tells me it contains a 160GB hard drive and is OCAP-capable.

But is it TiVo capable? TiVo believes their Java-based software can easily port to other platforms. While it’s not indicative of anything, I did observe TiVo briefing a group of Moto folks in Vegas. Hmm… or was Moto briefing TiVo.

95% Of Canadians PVR-less

The Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) ran a study where they looked at PVR usuage in the US and in Canada and determined that only 5% of all Canadians are currently using PVRs and only 38% were even familiar with how they worked. When they surveyed American consumers, the number of people who have PVRs jumps up 15%, but even at that level, it’s still a pretty small number given how powerful the technology really is.

The crazy thing about a PVR is that it’s really tough to demonstrate the benefits to someone without seeing it first hand, but once a consumer experiences the power of time shifting, it’s very tough for them to go back to live TV.

When I bought my first TiVo, it was actually on accident. I had gone to Best Buy to buy a home theater system, but the sound set up that I wanted was a little too expensive. Rather than go home empty handed, I made an impulse decision when I saw the TiVo and after taking it home was immediately floored with how transformative the technology was. Going from a world where you had to schedule your TV to a world where everything was available on my own schedule had a huge impact on my life and instantly made me an evangelist for the company.

On January 26th, in response to a TiVo motion to enforce his earlier order to deliver certain documents, a frustrated-sounding U.S. District Court Judge Duffey slapped the wrists of Echostar and “non-party witness” Homer Knearl, requiring them to sign pre-prepared affidavits that they had, in fact, complied with his order. Duffey accused Knearl and Echostar of playing “a legal shell game” and called their earlier responses “vague, equivocal, and qualified.”

TiVo has been seeking documents produced by Knearl and his former associates at the Merchant and Gould law firm that relate to a legal opinion of non-infringement that M&G gave Echostar in their patent dispute with TiVo. That opinion was not allowed into evidence at trial (primarily because of Echostar’s failure to deliver related documents under an earlier court order), and has now become a significant factor in Echostar’s appeal and TiVo’s counter-appeal.