Digital Trends
Just a day after the company spilled news about re-partnering with cable operator DirecTV, DVR pioneer TiVo has unveiled a new DVR unit at this year’s CEDIA Expo—and it’s a whopper. The new TiVO HD XL includes a 1 TB hard drive, enabling users to record up to 150 hours of high-definition programming. As with previous TiVo HDs, the unit offers dual tuners, THX certification, HDMI connectivity, and a backlit Series 3 remote control. The new DVR is available now for $599.99.
A new survey or more than 1,000 DVR owners in the U.S., UK, Australia, and Italy commissioned NDS Group (a News Corp subsidiary that makes pay-TV distribution solutions) finds that 7 out of 10 DVR owners say they can’t live without the devices. In fact, DVR owners rank their recorders as the second most essential gadget overall, with only mobile phones ranking higher. Among household items, only washing machines and microwave ovens ranks more highly than a DVR…except in Italy, where hair dryers mysteriously edged out DVRs in popularity.
Almost a year and a half ago, Cablevision lost a copyright suit brought by content owners over “remote DVR” service. The basic idea behind remote DVR service is to take hard drive-based video recorders out of cable subscribers’ homes and instead let them set up their recording preferences and store their preferred shows on servers managed by the cable provider. When users want to watch recorded video, it streams to the user’s residence just like any other on-demand programming.
Folks who receive service from a cable franchise that doles out set-top DVRs made by Scientific Atlanta may find themselves in a unique position: a third party storage vendor is offering to expand that DVR’s storage capacity. Iomega has announced its DVR Expander eSATA Hard Drive, an external mechanism that can connect to Scientific American 8300 and 8300HD DVRs via an eSATA port and add up to 300 hours of standard-definition storage to the units.
Market analysis firm The Carmel Group has published its study “Digital Video Recorders 2007: Time In A Magical Box,” in which it projects that some 46 percent of U.S. television households will be using digital video recorders by 2010. Furthermore, the group notes that U.S. cable television providers already account for the majority of DVR users, with cable companies accounting for 56 percent of the estimated 26 million DVR users in the United States. Satellite providers account for 38 percent, telcos for 1 percent, and independent providers like TiVo or 4 percent of the market.
U.S. cable television operator Cablevision announced today tht it is filing an appeal of a court decision which bars he company from introducing a DVR server which stores users’ recorded programming on the company’s own servers, rather than on set-top boxes located in subscribers’ homes. The appeal follows a court decision last month in which a U.S. District Court in Manhattan barred the company from launching the service, upholding complains from television networks and Hollywood studios that the service would violate copyright laws.
In a victory for DVR pioneer TiVo, U.S. District Court Judge David Folsom has ruled that EchoStar has willfully infringed on TiVo’s patents and EchoStar must essentially disable DVR functionality in all but roughly 190,000 digital video recorders it has distributed to its satellite television customers within 30 days. The judge also denied a request that the injunction be suspended pending appeal, giving EchoStar very little time to strike up a deal with TiVo or another DVR developer in time to keep its subscribers happy.
ReplayTV today announced ReplayTV PC Edition, the company’s long-anticipated DVR software for PCs. ReplayTV PC Edition promises users “the ultimate DVR experience,” combining an intuitive interface with multi-room networking capabilities and quick searching tools.
“For many consumers, their PCs are the center of their entertainment life for music photos and the Internet. And with the PC experiencing exponential growth as an entertainment platform, it’s natural that TV and DVR will be a central experience on the PC. We’ve created an affordable DVR that lets everyone in the home enjoy TV on the computer. We at ReplayTV consider ourselves true ‘TV fanatics,’ and after seven years in the DVR business, our new PC Edition is everything we’ve always wanted to provide for our customers
Tivo today officially debuted a new Series2 digital video recorder which adds one of the most long awaited features by fans of the set top box: dual tuner support. The new Tivo Series2 DT DVR will be available for purchase beginning May 1 as an 80-hour model priced at $99.99 after rebate and service activation.
The Tivo Series2 DT DVR (available with one year of pre-paid service for $254), said Tivo, is targeted towards households with cable and allows basic cable (analog) subscribers the ability to watch one show while recording another as well as record two shows at the same time. Digital cable subscribers can record one analog and one digital channel at the same time, but not two digital channels at the same time.
Nielsen Media Research has announced it will begin offering national TV audience estimates next week which include data from shows viewed using digital video recorders (DVRs).
Beginning December 26, programs and networks will receive three separate ratings:
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