DirecTV Launches Non-TiVo Digital Recorder (merged)

[mikey]

Bad News (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&e=3&u=/nm/20050107/tc_nm/media_directv_dc) for tivo.?
Mikey

[captain_video]

This was mentioned quite some time ago when it was announced that DTV was disassociating itself from Tivo. The plans were to introduce their own brand of non-Tivo PVR similar to what Dish has to offer but will still continue to market and support DirecTivo PVRs as their upscale version. I'm guessing that this may mean a price increase for the Tivo units down the road if DTV decides to stop subsidizing them in favor of their own PVRs.

[Montaño]

I am most interested in the last sentence:

DirecTV Machine Will Compete With TiVo

January 7, 2005

DirecTV Machine Will Compete With TiVo
By ERIC A. TAUB


LAS VEGAS, Jan. 6 - TiVo, the company that created the market for digital video recorders, received a serious challenge to its business on Thursday when DirecTV, the satellite provider, announced that it would begin offering its own brand of digital video recorder later this year.

The move ends an exclusive relationship between the companies that supplied TiVo with two million of its three million subscribers.

The satellite company hopes that many of its customers who now use machines with TiVo technology will switch to DirecTV's machine.

"We will still support our TiVo service, but our core marketing and sales efforts will be with our new DVR," said Bob Marsocci, a DirecTV spokesman.

For its part, TiVo remains optimistic about the change in relationship. "We fully expect to compete for DirecTV's business," said Brodie Keast, TiVo executive vice president, who noted that the company competed against the Microsoft UltimateTV product for DirecTV subscribers when TiVo started its service in 2000.

DirecTV executives declined to discuss how much longer they would maintain their contractual relationship with TiVo, although Mr. Keast noted that the company's current arrangement to supply TiVo boxes to DirecTV customers runs through the end of 2007.

The new DirecTV digital video recorder is being designed by NDS, which is based in Britain and owned by the News Corporation, which owns a minority interest in DirecTV.

To encourage subscribers to switch, DirecTV will offer advanced features on its device, including longer recording capacity and the ability to use interactive services.

DirecTV subscribers using the new recorder will also be able to record several pay-per-view movies at a time and then pay for a movie only if it is viewed, the company said.

DirecTV also said that it would offer local high-definition TV broadcasts in 12 markets beginning later this year. To increase its channel capacity, the company will launch several satellites designed to carry HDTV programming.

DirecTV will market a home media center by the end of this year that will permit customers to transmit programming stored on a digital recorder to any other television in the house.


Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Montaño]

This (http://www.ucentric.com/index.php?products/productdetails#multitvpvr) looks like what DTV will be using for 'multi-room DVR'. Seems to be a software only application that will share tuners/recordings/live TV among all TV's in the house.

More news. (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050106/65721_1.html)

The first link seems to imply that the networking will be over a broadband connection.

OK.... one more (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1748954,00.asp)

[RavenStL]

Wow! I hope its conveniant, capable, scalable, etc.

I would love to see set top boxes and Home Media Centers that I could customize and scale to meet my satisfaction. Menus run slow? Add 1+ GIG of memory, tell it to load all menu data into SDRAM and watch it fly!

Am I thinking too big, I dont think so.

[ds2ktj]

This (http://www.ucentric.com/index.php?products/productdetails#multitvpvr) looks like what DTV will be using for 'multi-room DVR'. Seems to be a software only application that will share tuners/recordings/live TV among all TV's in the house.

More news. (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050106/65721_1.html)

The first link seems to imply that the networking will be over a broadband connection.

OK.... one more (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1748954,00.asp)


Nice articles. Part of me likes this idea - part of me doesn't. Having been a DirecTV suscriber for many years now I have seen the hardware change quite a bit. Parts have improved and parts have gotten worse. Case in point is the reciever hardware themselves. I have had several generation 1 units that never died. One series 2 unit that died several months after series 5 hardware came out. And a series 5 hardware that died in less than a year (granted it was an RCA product..but my series 1 RCA recievers still worked after 6 years!). I can't imagine having one Reciever for the house with 4 tuners...and having that one box die. That would be very un-cool. Although if they (DirecTV) decide to go to MPEG4 by 2007 subscribers won't have much of a chioce they will have to switch or go with cable (yuck!).

Although this capability that they propose will make them much more competitive with "on-demand" cable. Heck I only use 2 of the 5 tuners in my house at a time.

I just recently got their $50 special - a Philips DSR-708 (yeah the 80 HR version). I really like it :)