All PVR

On August 31, 2007, I posted an article about a DirecTV secret-weapon. It seemed there was a product leak, featured in a CEDIA color-supplement, about a powerful new “Super-DVR”. A DVR capable of recording 100 hours of HD programming… Well, they’ve finally revealed it’s true identity.

The HR21 Pro is a rack-mountable rig that sports optical HDMI output and supports 1080p. It contains 2 HD tuners (for recording and watching at the same time), and not only records 100 hours of Hi-Def, but records 400 hours of Standard-Def programming.

Superhero of HDTV? Maybe.

The Stinger (above) may be “old-school gamer” on the outside, but it’s all modern-tech on the inside.

David Flagg, President of Game Cabinets Inc., describes it like this:
“Anything you can do on your home computer you can do through this joystick on your TV.�? That includes surfing the Internet and having fun with online gambling, using Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition, loading in PC games and using its DVR function, he says, adding that it also has a DVD drive.”

Upgrade to The Stinger Plus, and it includes about a trillion old arcade games. It’s like a Video Game conjuring genie, magically producing games like Dragon’s Lair (1 &2), EA Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Pacman, Toobin’, and Dig Dug (click here for entire list of games).

It’s geared toward home theaters, but it’s also a fairly portable video game/entertainment system. With dimensions of 28.5w x 13.75d x 5h inches, you can easily take it to a buddy’s house.

Flagg says it successfully unites nostalgia and modern technology: “It wraps everything into one. The functionality is cool because there is so much you can do with it.�?

You can even get a Xbox and PSX adapter, which converts the output from the Stinger Controller into X-Box or PSX commands.

Think it’s expensive? Starts at $499 (’nuff said).

From Spycatcher of Knightsbridge, comes a pair of sunglasses befitting of “007″. As if from the dusty journals of “Q”, these sunglasses are not what they appear. Hidden inside the frame is a color video camera, PVR, and microphone (to film everything the wearer sees). And, that’s not all:

“The personal video recorder includes a built-in colour monitor and speaker, 32MB internal memory, which can be expanded by inserting a more powerful SD/MMC card and the ability to time and date stamp all video recordings.”

“Video system: NTSC/PAL
Resolution: 350 lines
Number of effective Pixels: 510×492 (NTSC) 500×582(PAL)”

Being like James Bond, will of coarse, cost you. In this case, (minus the Martini’s) the price is £816 or $1650.

Godzilla has been unleashed upon Japan…only…much smaller. The new Qosmio G40 from Toshiba is set to trample much of Nippon into a pulpy mess. It’s jam-packed with powerful guts, DUAL DIGITAL TV TUNERS, and a heavy price tag (did I mention dual digital TV tuners?).

Here’s a few specs:
-Watch one program, record another (contains CyberLink SoftDMA and HDMI-CEC compatible with new Regza TV’s).
-HD-DVD drive.
-NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics, 256MB.
-17-inch WUXGA (1920 x 1200) display.
-2 megapixel webcam.
-2GHz, T7300 Core 2 Duo processor.
-2GB memory, upgradable to 4GB.
-320GB of HD space.

And so, the “thunder-lizard” stampedes on, cutting a swath through Japanese cities the size of the Amazon river basin. To tame the beast it’ll cost you ¥400,000 or $3252.29 USD.

Engadget.com

Could this be the solution to our home entertainment nightmares? It’s certainly a step in the right direction. The Sony VAIO LT is an “All-In-One” 22″ Widescreen TV/PC with a DVR (and BluRay). Here’s what Sony has to say about it:

“Watch and record TV - including premium HD cable.
The high performance VAIO® LT PC/TV lets you watch and record analog, digital and cable TV (including premium HD channels2) on a stunning flat screen display. Featuring Windows Vista™ Ultimate (or Home Premium) with Media Center functionality, a remote control, and an optional external cable TV tuner that works with a CableCARD™ from your local cable provider, the VAIO® LT PC/TV lets you watch and record your favorite cable TV broadcasts, including premium HD channels, right from the box.”

“The VAIO® LT PC/TV can serve as your entire entertainment center – it’s all-in-one. The 22″ LCD display2 with XBRITE-HiColor™ technology acts as your HD flat panel TV while the cable TV tuner works in conjunction with Windows Media Center to act as your cable set top box with DVR. And since the VAIO® LT PC/TV features an available Blu-ray Disc™ optical drive, you can enjoy a movie in Blu-ray Disc® format and experience incredible picture and stunning clarity.”
“The VAIO® LT HD PC is sleek, slim and beautiful, but it can also rock some serious power. With an Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM and an easily expandable roomy hard drive, the VAIO LT HD PC/TV is super-fast and can run multiple demanding applications simultaneously - such as graphics-intensive games and high-quality TV and movies - while downloading music or running virus-scanning security programs in the background.”

It also comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse, built in camera and microphone, wireless LAN technology (802.11 b/g/n), and wall-mounting system.

To make the purchase of this small wonder, you’ll have to shell out $2900 clams. (there’s also a no-frills standard model, without the BluRay drive for $1900).

Visit Sony.

According to the New York Times today, Time Warner Cable will offer a free “DVR-like” service to it’s customers, called Look Back.

The good news? There’s no extra monthly fee.
The bad news? You can’t fast-forward commercials. And…you can’t save the shows, and, you have to watch the programs on the same day, before midnight (almost sounds like a Time Warner “Gremlin”).

Starting in October, in South Carolina, and working it’s way across the country, Look Back will be a tested in different markets to see if it takes flight. At the moment they’re still shopping around for channels that will take part.

The reason Time Warner created this service is because they believe that advertisers and consumers have similar interests. Peter Stern, executive VP for new product development said “Many customers do fast-forward through commercials when given the choice, and that is an obvious and undeniable benefit of a digital video recorder. But the digital video recorder is principally about enabling customers to watch what they want, when they want. It returns control to customers over the television schedule.�? Basically, you’ll watch commercials if you have control over what you watch.

Well…it is free “time-shift viewing”. It’s genuine competition for companies like TiVo and Comcast. Jeffrey L. Bewkes (president of Time Warner Inc.) said in July, “People are used to advertising. A good number of people like the advertising. Our research and our in-market tests show people would rather have free everything you want, when you want.�?

Maybe they’re right, maybe they’re wrong. It’s all up to you, Americans!

Apparently this offer expires April 30, so get to it! Right now this Amazon/Tivo campaign will give you $15 dollars to buy whatever your heart desires in Movie and TV Show downloads, delivered straight to your Registered Tivo box.

Of course if you did sign up, tell us all about it in comments! I didn’t have a chance to try it myself, but from what I hear, it’s the best thing since sliced bread! If you have your Tivo hooked up to the Internet, I believe that this is one of the easiest ways to get mainstream media downloads straight to your TV. If not, stay tuned for our other ideas.

No Tivo? How about Vongo then?

Virgin Media said that it was changing the name of its personal video recorder (PVR) from TV Drive to VPlus box. Marketing Week in the U.K. says that the name now will compete with rival company BSkyB’s Sky Plus service.

According to the article:

Sky refuses to comment on Virgin’s use of the “Plus” name, but executives are said to be amused at the cable company’s “nerve”.

Sky’s PVR launched in August 2001 and recently announced it had over 2 million PVR customers.

Engadget has some news that Archos is making a mobile DVR, the Archos 704 with WiFi. Although the product hasn’t been released yet (and apparently was revealed by the FCC!), rumors abound that the 704 will have a TV tuner built-in. And it will have a bigger screen than previous products, 7″ rather than 4 something inches.

Apparently, the FCC broke Archos’ confidentially request and posted pics of the Archos 704 Mobile DVR.

Archos, DVR, PVR, digital video recorder, FCC

Tivo and Amazon teamed up today to let customers download movies and TV shows directly to their Tivo boxes.

In a test of the service, Amazon’s Unbox movie downloading service will deliver shows to a few hundred Tivo users. Later, Tivo says any of its subscribers will be able to buy and download content using their broadband network.

This is the first service to allow purchases and downloads directly to a DVR.

This is also the first time a movie downloading service is made for watching on a TV rather than a computer screen.

Competitors, like Wal-Mart, CinemaNow, Movielink, Netflix and iTunes requires that customers download files on a computer.

Sorry, Comcast and DirecTV/Tivo users—this won’t work on your machines.
Amazon offers downloads of recent movies for about $14.99 and episodes of TV shows for $1.99.

From a story on USA Today:

How the service will work: TiVo users will go to Amazon.com to sign up and designate where they want movies and TV shows they buy to be sent. Unbox will send purchases to two TiVos, two Windows PCs or one of each. The PC then can load the video on up to two portable devices using Windows copy protection (no iPods). Buyers can burn DVD copies for backup, but they won’t play in a DVD player. The Unbox service also keeps a record of purchases and will send backup copies if needed.

Perhaps now is a good time to get rid of Comcast and DirectTV DVRs and get the Series 2 Tivo.

[Via Tivo Press Release and Gizmodo]

Amazon, Unbox, Tivo, DVR, PVR, Netflix, digital video recorder

A website that encourages people to ask “Why Not?” had a submission recently that asked:

Why not allow DVRs to have a direct connection for iPods to download shows directly?

That’s a great question. Why isn’t there a simple way to transfer shows from your DVR to a portable media player, like a video iPod or Archos media player? Instead, you need to use our computer as an intermediary, which means downloading software, re-encoding then syncing it back with an iPod.

Why not make it simpler?

There’s no technological hurdle. A DVR can come with an iPod connection and software to download shows. (Someone please Tivohack this!)

One product that helps to bridge the DVR-iPod gap is the iRecord. It’s a box that you connect to the TV and an iPod. It has one big red record button. Press it while watching a TV show and it automatically records and transfers the show to your iPod. Press it again and stop recording.

The sole commenter for this question says that it’s a three part answer: 1) copyright issues from the content owners preventing this 2) CPU horsepower to transcode video and 3) closed systems like the iPod, which makes it difficult for anyone to install media.

Essentially, it’s legal issues–copyright and content owners are probably not happy with users being able to rip content from from a TV to a portable device. The layers that exist protect the content owners and discourage users from having the convenience of TV on the go.

Sure, Apple has iTunes with a few TV shows and movies, but it’s not enough.

I want a simple, easy connection on my Tivo so I can connect my video iPod. Please.

CTAM Canada performed some research and released data showing that only 5% percent of Canadians own a PVR. In the U.S., it is widely reported that 15% of Americans own a PVR.

According to research from CTAM Canada, when users are made aware of PVR functionality, especially watching TV on their own schedule, interest grew as well as the likelihood of purchasing a PVR. Interestingly, 23% of Canadians say they will purchase a PVR within the next six months.

Awareness of PVRs in Canada was dramatically lower than awareness in the U.S. Only 38% of Canadians are aware of PVRs vs. 65% of Americans.

CTAM is the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, a trade group for cable TV marketing.

A NY Times writer tries his hand at building a DIY home media network after being inspired by a top-of-the-line set-up from Seagate’s CEO who has 7 terabytes of storage. That means “600,000 songs, 584,000 photographs and 1,000 hours of TV shows.”

So on a quest, the Times writer tried building his own under $1,000. While doing research he spoke to a Tivo product manager who spoke about Tivo’s desire not to be a media hub.

James Denney, vice president for product marketing at TiVo, said the company had not set out to be the center of everything. “Our approach is that there isn’t one hub in the house,” he said. “Our role is a display device near the TV.”

The overall result? His media network cost just about $850. and whole lot of effort.

PVR, DVR, digital video recorder, personal video recorder, home media, media server, DIY

Is it too early to stat thinking about the Olympics in Beijing? Perhaps. But Mike Bloxham, writing at MediaPost, says that this may be the first Olympics where “a decent number of households have grown used to (if not addicted to) their DVRs.”

In this article, Mike incorrectly says that the Olympics are this year, but actually they start August 2008. So that means that one additional year where people will get introduced (and addicted) to DVRs.

Since research has shown that most DVR viewers primarily view sports events “live” rather than recorded, it may change how people and advertisers see the Olympics. Will advertisers ask for lower rates because of DVR viewers? Will viewers want to watch the Olympics live in order to stay current and not have to run away when co-workers start talking at the water cooler?

I’ve owned a PVR for many years and used it to watch a number of Olympics and what I discovered is that it’s too difficult to know when a certain event, for example Curling, is going to be on TV. Some sporting events are delayed for another time block or they’re buried somewhere inside a four hour block of programing making it impossible to find your event.

Also, when NBC was broadcasting one recent Olympics in the U.S., sister networks like CNBC or MSNBC would also broadcast some less popular sporting events. And it was difficult to know the right channel to watch. Plus, with time zone differences, it’s an even bigger challenge to know what’s going.

Searching for particular events or countries with my DVR was impossible since their electronic program guides aren’t very detailed. So I would have to go to the Olympic and network website and find out times and channels, then go back to my DVR and record it. It required too much work and was too cumbersome.

So I just gave up and watched whatever I happened to remember to record. Or I would even just watch some shows live or “nearly live” (delayed by just a few minutes).

Even so, I never had enough time to watch everything I recorded with my DVR. Between work, relaxing and other TV shows, I would sometimes delete programming without even watching it. Last Winter Olympics, I kept some recorded shows well after the Olympics had ended promsing myself I would watch it. But I never did, and simply deleted them.

Overall, watching the Olympics with a DVR was not a very intuitive experience. But at least I was able to bypass many of those annoying and lengthy Olympic commercials, and those treacly personal narratives that interrupt the sports. Let’s hope the networks and DVR companies learn a little bit and make it easy for viewers to watch their favorite Olympic events.

What’s your experience watching the Olympics with your DVR?

Olympics, DVR, Tivo, PVR, Beijing

John Ryan of the San Jose Mercury news offers up a great column on the “Rules of the DVR“. This stems from having to tell friends not to reveal the result of the latest football game, for example, because you recorded it to watch later.

The list is interesting, but focuses on the sports-DVR connection. Check it out at MercuryNews.com (registration required or try BugMeNot).

My favorite is number 7:

7. Leave the remote to trained professionals. For one thing, the fast-forward button and the LIVE button (which returns to real time) are way too close together for an amateur. For another — again with Neighbor Don, who recently missed a game because of a relative’s accidental acceptance of the “Delete recording” option.

DVR, PVR, personal video recorder, digital video recorder, Tivo