Thanks for the TiVo Rewards Referral, Gregg!

Following up my post from the other day, expanded storage for the TiVo HD is becoming available. WeaKnees.com is now shipping drive kits and expects to begin shipping pre-expanded units soon. It isn’t clear if they’re using Spike2k5’s WinMFS tools, or if they’ve updated MFSTools themselves (or had someone do it for them), or something else entirely.

I checked with DVRupgrade.com and they say they plan to ship upgraded units soon, with their expansion kits to follow later. So they’re doing it the other way around. They are planning to use Spike2K5’s WinMFS tool for their expansion.

I’ve sent a query to Spike2k5 to see if he can shed some light on what tool WeaKnees is using. I’ll update this post if and when I hear back. Spike says WeaKnees is definitely not using his tool, so it looks like they’ve done their own development.

The image is a capture from the current ViXS.com homepage. Notice what the top news item is? Yeah, they actually linked to my review. Of all the reviews out there, they linked mine. Damn. I feel all special and stuff.

OK, that’s enough basking. (Seriously, thanks ViXS.)

More interesting is the second item, a press release about the ViXS XCode-2115 used in the TiVo HD. An excerpt:

Dual stream MPEG2 encoding in the TiVo HD is achieved using the ViXS XCode™ 2115 IC which provides a high performance cost effective solution TiVo was looking for when designing the TiVo HD. The ViXS IC provides a number of key benefits which enhance the capabilities of the TiVo HD DVR:

● Single chip with dual channel MPEG2 encoding for efficient physical space utilization of PCB
● High video quality with multiple bitrate options for optimizing disk space utilization
● Excellent filtering capabilities to deal with poor analog broadcast
● Support for custom data required by TiVo PVRs

A number of people have made the VHS vs. Betamax argument with Blu-ray vs. HD DVD, including the sub-argument that the format embraced by pornographers will prevail. Personally, I don’t buy that argument - or at least I don’t think it really matters. Back when video tape came out the only access to video porn was with 8mm film and projectors, so being able to acquire it on VHS really did fire up the market. Today you can get it on VHS, DVD, and, most of all, the Internet. So I don’t think the sales will really sway one format or the other.

But, that said, since the argument comes up often enough, I thought I’d share:

Japanese porn industry embraces Blu-ray Disc.
Japanese adult film makers have turned decisively to Blu-ray Disc, breathing new life into its bid to replace DVDs as the disc of choice for home movies.

The article does repeat some fallacies about the US market. “HD DVD has already won over the U.S. adult film industry” is just plain hogwash. Let me check AdultDVDEmpire.com… Oh, yeah, really tearing up the market. HD DVD is leading Blu-ray in releases 4:1. Of course, that’s a total of *12* HD DVD releases and *3* Blu-ray releases. And one of those is on both formats. Really nothing that’s going to turn the tide there. Japan already has 10 adult BD releases with more on the way, and just one adult HD DVD release. I just don’t thing adult films are going to matter that much in this format war - not compared to the weight of Fox, Disney, and Sony on one side and just Universal on the other.

And the HD DVD camp has been pumping out their spin on recent news, of course. They’re downplaying the announcements from BJ’s Wholesale Club and Blockbuster, and continuing to beat the only drum they really have left - that HD DVD is “more affordable”. Yes, the cheapest HD DVD player is less expensive than the cheapest BD player, no argument. But the higher grade players are roughly comparable in features and price, and on the low-end the price gap continues to narrow. Toshiba is subsidizing their HD DVD players to gain sales, which keeps them cheap. But I expect the prices to be fairly close going into the holiday season, I think Sony will drop the price on their low-end BDP-S300, and probably offer some kind of further promo. Even with a price advantage on the low-end players, HD DVD is falling behind BD in total adoption - more BD movies continue to be sold. The PS3 is a large part of that.