Note that the original Series3 (TCD648250) requires two CableCARDs – S-Cards or M-Cards. While the TiVo HD (TCD652160) can utilize a single M-Card. Depending on what your cable company charges for CableCARDs this may or may not be a factor in your decision. The original S3 has the fancy OLED front panel display and the Glo remote, while the TiVo HD has the basic LED indicator lights and a non-Glo remote.

They also have the older Series1 and Series2 units with internal analog tuners and support for external set top boxes, both single-tuner ($299.99) and dual-tuner ($349.99) models. They even have Pioneer TiVo Series2 DVD combo units ($399.99). These units are available in 40GB (single-tuner) or 80GB (dual-tuner & DVD) base models, or upgraded to 80GB ($19.00 S2), 500GB ($99.00 S2 – $149.00 DVD), or 1TB ($149.00 S2 – $199.00 DVD).

The real old-school Series1 units are available in Philips ($199.99) or Sony ($249.99) models, both with 40GB. Upgrades to 80GB ($19.00) or 120GB ($39.00) are available. While I could see some reasons to buy the Series2 units, I really can’t see why someone would want one of the Series1 units these days. Maybe someone really into TiVo hacking with the old TiVoWeb and the like, but even then I doubt it.

All of these units have been refurbished and tested by WeaKnees, and they come with a six month parts and labor warranty. Quantities are limited, so grab one now if you’re interested.

Via the WeaKnees Blog.

Cyber Sale, 2 Days Only, Sunday-Monday. Online Only.
Sunday-Monday Only: Free $10 e-Gift Card with Store Pickup Orders of $100 or More.

Sunday-Monday Only: Acer Iconia Tablet with 8GB Memory, Sale $229.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: Targus Truss Leather Case/Stand for Acer Iconia A500 Tablet, Sale $24.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: Logitech Tablet Keyboard for Apple® iPad® or Android 3.0+ Tablets, Sale $35.99 each.
Sunday-Monday Only: ION Audio iCADE Arcade Cabinet for Apple® iPad® and iPad 2, Sale $49.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: Kobo eReader Touch Edition, Sale $99.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: Gateway All-In-One Computer with 500GB Hard Drive, and 2GB DDR3 Memory, Just $399.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: Asus Desktop with AMD Processor, 500GB Hard Drive, and 4GB DDR3 Memory, Just $349.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: AOC 20” Widescreen LED Computer Monitor, Sale $89.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: SanDisk Cruzer 8GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive, Sale $8.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: HP 2200 Webcam, Sale $7.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: Great Computing, Tablet, and E-Reader Deals.

Sunday-Monday Only: LG 32” Class ED 720p HDTV for $299.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: Great Home Theater Deals.
Sunday-Monday Only: Great iPod and MP3 Player Deals.
Sunday-Monday Only: All iPods on Sale.
Sunday-Monday Only: Great Music and Movies Deals.

Sunday-Monday Only: Xbox 360 Kinect Sensor, Sale $99.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: Select Kinect Games On Sale.
Sunday-Monday Only: Select Pre-Owned Games, $19.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: Buy Any Sims 3 Base, Expansion, or Stuff Pack, get the Second Item Free.
Sunday-Monday Only: $50 Off GoldenEye 007: Reloaded Double ‘O’ Edition Bundle for OPS3, Sale $99.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: Great Gaming and Gadget Deals.

Sunday-Monday Only: 25%-40% Off Select Digital Cameras.
Sunday-Monday Only: Free Bag and Memory Card with Select Digital Cameras.
Sunday-Monday Only: Free Bag with Select DSLR Cameras.
Sunday-Monday Only: 19%-41% Off Select Digital Camcorders.
Sunday-Monday Only: 5%-50% Off Select Digital Photo Frames.
Sunday-Monday Only: Great Digital Camera and Camcorder Deals.

Sunday-Monday Only: Motorola Droid 3 Mobile Phone, Free with a new 2-Year Contract from Verizon and Activation.
Sunday-Monday Only: HTC Wildfire S Mobile Phone, Free with a new 2-Year Contract from T-Mobile and Activation.
Sunday-Monday Only: Boost Mobile BlackBerry Style 9670 No-Contract Mobile Phone, Sale $149.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: Virgin Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8530 No-Contract Mobile Phone, Sale $99.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: Platinum Series MobileDock Dash/Windshield Mount, Sale $9.99.
Sunday-Monday Only: Great Mobile Phone Deals.

While the last round of deals included a link for the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer the link never seemed to work. The deal was only available in stores. I managed to grab one as a gift for someone else. I was still up at 4am Friday so I ran over to my local Best Buy. The Transformer was a ticketed item and all of the tickets were gone, but I managed to social engineer a tablet and keyboard dock from a Blue Shirt in a different department without a ticket. I normally wouldn’t go near a store on Black Friday, but $250 for the tablet and $100 for the dock was a very good deal.

Thursday-Saturday Only: Best Buy Exclusive Asus Transformer 10.1″ Wi-Fi Tablet, $249.99.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Acer Iconia Tablet with 8GB Memory, $189.99.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Dell Streak 7″ Tablet, $149.99.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Barnes & Noble NOOK The Simple Touch Reader, $79.99.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Great Tablet Deals.
Thursday-Saturday Only: HP Laptop with AMD Vision Processor, 500GB Hard Drive, and 4GB DDR3 Memory, $429.99.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Lenovo Laptop with AMD Dual-Core E300 Processor, 250GB Hard Drive, 2GB Memory, $179.00.
Thursday-Saturday Only: HP All-in-One Computer has AMD E-Series Processor, 4GB Memory, 1TB Hard Drive, $399.99.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Toshiba Laptop with Intel Pentium Processor, 320GB Hard Drive, and 4GB Memory, $349.99.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Samsung Laptop with Pentium Dual-Core Processor, 320GB Hard Drive, 4GB Memory, $299.99.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Great Computing Deals.
Thursday-Saturday Only: 50% Off All M-Edge eReader Covers.

Thursday-Saturday Only: Only $999.99 Samsung 55″ Class LED 1080p HDTV. Best Buy exclusive.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Great Home Theater Deals.

Thursday-Saturday Only: Free $50 Gift Card with Apple iPod touch 8GB MP3 Player.
Thursday-Saturday Only: $20 Off Any $100 iTunes Gift Card.
Thursday-Saturday Only: $2.99 Music CDs.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Great iPod and MP3 Player Deals.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Great Entertainment Deals.

Thursday-Saturday Only: Xbox 360 250GB Holiday Bundle with Fable III and Halo: Reach, Only $199.99.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Nintendo 3DS Game Console, $179.99.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Select Games for $34.99.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Select Games for $29.99.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Select Game Accessories for $7.99.
Thursday-Saturday Only: Great Gaming and Gadget Deals.

There are many more deals, so be sure to check them out. The links should be live on Thursday.

Anyway, Amazon’s Black Friday Week sale is in full swing. It actually started on Monday and runs through next Monday. They have deals all over the site, so I’m not going to try to list them all.

But I did want to focus on the deals in Movies & TV. They have specials on DVD, Blu-ray, and Amazon Instant Video – thousands of DVDs and Blu-ray Discs at up to 67% off. Check it out.

• Roxio Toast 11 Pro for Mac – Save $50 plus get a free USB capture dongle, for a $110 total savings! $99.99 – normally $209.99!
• Roxio Toast 11 Titanium for Mac – Save $30 plus get a free USB capture dongle, for a $90 total savings! $69.99 – normally $149.99!
• Roxio Easy VHS to DVD for Mac – Save $10! $69.99 – normally $79.99!
• Roxio Creator 2012 Pro for PC – Save $30 plus get a free USB capture dongle, for a $80 total savings! $99.99 – normally $179.99!
• Roxio Creator 2012 for PC – Save $30 plus get a free USB capture dongle, for a $80 total savings! $69.99 – normally $149.99!
• Roxio Game Capture for consoles – Save $30! $69.99 – normally $99.99!
• Roxio PC Game Capture – Save $20! $29.99 – normally $49.99!
• Roxio Easy VHS to DVD for PC – Save $10! $49.99 – normally $59.99!

Remember, Roxio is the only officially endorsed third party software for use with TiVo & TiVoToGo. And the only sanctioned solution at all for MacOS, since there isn’t a TiVo Desktop Plus for Mac. This is a limited time holiday sale, so act now.

Remember these are new, not refurbished, for just $249.99. The MSRP is $349.99 and Amazon sells them new for $279.98, so this is $100 off MSRP and even $30 off Amazon’s discounted price.

I’d probably jump on this myself, except I already own both Iron Man films on Blu-ray.

On top of the sale, this week’s Blu-ray special is on the first four (of five) volumes of the top-notch anime series, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Volume one, volume two, volume three, and volume four are all $19.99 each, 64% off the $54.98 MSRP. Volume five, the final volume, releases on August 2nd and is up for pre-order for $27.99, 49% off MSRP. I’d be all over this deal… if I hadn’t already (pre-)ordered all five volumes.

Disc 1: The Pink Panther Collector’s Edition ’64 Feature Film
Disc 2: A Shot in The Dark Feature Film
Disc 3: Inspector Clouseau
Disc 4: The Pink Panther Stikes Again Feature Film
Disc 5: Revenge of The Pink Panther Feature Film
Disc 6: Trail of The Pink Panther Feature Film
Disc 7: Curse of The Pink Panther Feature Film
Disc 8: Son of The Pink Panther Feature Film
Disc 9: Pink Panther 2006 (SONY)
Disc 10: The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection Volume 1
Disc 11: The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection Volume 2
Disc 12: The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection Volume 3
Disc 13: The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection Volume 4
Disc 14: The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection Volume 9
Disc 15: The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection Volume 5 (Ant and the Aardvark)
Disc 16: The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection Volume 6 (The Inspector)
Disc 17: The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection Volume 7 (The Inspector Volume 2)
Disc 18: The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection Volume 8 (Roland and Ratfink)

After the trial Blockbuster will offer the one-disc plan for $9.99/month and the two-disc plan for $14.99/month. While Netflix’s one-disc plan is $7.99/month, Blockbuster claims some advantages. Their deals with the studios gives them new release titles up to 28-days before Netflix and other services. And, for those who still have a Blockbuster brick-and-mortar store nearby, they offer in-store exchanges of their by-mail DVDs. So you can return your rent-by-mail DVD and walk out with a new movie, for no additional charge.

If you want to take advantage of these offers you can do so online or bring the tear-off from a Netflix mailer to a participating Blockbuster store.

Via TWICE.

Toast 10 Titanium also includes AVCHD Archive, which makes it easy to burn content form HD camcorders to BD or DVD, Web Video To Go, which allows users to grab video from websites to save locally or transfer to portable devices, place-shifting support which streams content from the Mac to a Streamer application on an iPhone or iPod Touch, and a number of others.

Toast 10 Titanium goes on sale today at http://www.roxio.com/ for $99.99, with special pricing at MacWorld Expo January 5-9. The High-definition/Blu-ray Disc (HD/BD) plug-in, which is required to author BD discs and is normally $19.99, is available free to those who purchase Toast 10 Titanium from http://www.roxio.com/ through February 5, 2009. Toast 10 Titanium Pro is also available for $149.99.

Press release:

Jan 5, 2009 06:30 ET

Roxio Launches Toast 10 Titanium at Macworld Expo

Also Introduces Pro Version Packed with Advanced Photo, Video, and Audio Capabilities

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Macworld Expo, Moscone Center — Roxio®, a division of Sonic Solutions® (NASDAQ:SNIC) , the leader in digital media software, today announced the immediate availability of Toast® 10 Titanium, the latest version of the company’s market-leading burning and digital media software for the Mac®. The latest version helps greatly enhance and extend Mac OS X and iLife® applications with a broad range of additional capabilities for creating, sharing, and enjoying personal digital media content.

Toast 10 delivers groundbreaking digital media functionality to Mac users with a range of pioneering features that includes: Mac2TiVo for sending home movies and other video content from a Mac to a TiVo® DVR; an audiobook creator for converting audiobook CDs into files compatible with portable devices; AVCHD™ Archive for quickly backing up original content from high-definition camcorders onto DVD or Blu-ray Disc (BD), and a Web video file capture and conversion tool that allows Web-based video to be enjoyed on DVD or mobile devices. Toast 10 Titanium is available today at http://www.roxio.com/ and at Macworld Expo booth #2238.

“Toast is far more than better burning on Mac OS; it’s about enabling users to manage, create, enjoy and simply do more with their personal library of digital photos, music, and video,” said Vito Salvaggio, vice president of consumer products, Sonic Solutions. “This latest version will have special appeal to consumers that want to easily move digital media between their Mac and digital devices such as the iPhone® and TiVo®, or enjoy Web-based video content offline.”

New in Toast 10 Titanium:

– AVCHD™ Archive — Backup original video from AVCHD camcorders direct to DVD or BD media in one easy step. Use the discs in BD players or as source materials in future iMovie or Toast projects.

– Mac2TiVo — Send standard definition and HD video from your Mac to your TiVo DVR for viewing on your TV.

– Web Video To Go — Save Web video from your favorite video sharing sites to view offline, burn or convert it for viewing on portable players such as an iPod or iPhone.

– On-the-go Entertainment — Stream and watch television programs, such as EyeTV recordings and TiVoToGo transfers on your iPhone or iPod touch over Wi-Fi with the new iPhone native application Streamer®.

– Portable Audiobooks — Convert audiobook CDs into single audiobook files for playback on your iPod or other portable player — complete with individual chapters — no more individual audiobook chapter files scattered throughout your iTunes library or iPod.

– Music Builder — Expand your audio library by capturing streaming audio. Toast now automatically splits captured songs into tracks, tags them with title and artist information, and then sends them to iTunes.

– Folder Sync — Synchronize folders bi-directionally between multiple computers, network volumes or external hard disks.

– Stunning DVDs — Create personalized DVDs with any of the over 20 new DVD and Blu-ray Disc menu styles — available in both full screen and high-definition widescreen versions.

Introducing Toast 10 Titanium Pro

Today Roxio also released Toast 10 Titanium Pro aimed at prosumers, creative professionals and designers, as well as photo and video hobbyists. In addition to offering everything available in Toast 10 Titanium, Toast 10 Pro includes the High-Definition/Blu-ray Disc plug-in as well as these award-winning, third-party applications for developing advanced photo, video, and audio projects:

– HD/BD Plug-In — Author HD video content on to standard DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. Take high-def (HD) video footage from AVCHD™ camcorders, TiVo® and EyeTV and create Blu-ray Discs or even standard DVDs with HD content that can be played on any standard Blu-ray set top box or PlayStation® 3 game console.

– SmartSound Sonicfire™ Pro — Orchestrate the perfect sound track to accompany videos and slideshows. Use Sonicfire Pro’s unique automatic “Mood Mapping” feature or select from a library of included music tracks and adjust the mix and feel of the score to perfectly match your videos and slideshows.

– BIAS SoundSoap™ — Remove unwanted noise like wind, hisses, scratches, and pops from LPs, cassettes, or almost any audio, music or video soundtrack.

– LightZone™ — Produce striking photos in a simple and intuitive way. Sophisticated features such as zone mapping and relight give you the control to achieve professional quality results.

– FotoMagico™ — Turn pictures into spellbinding slideshows with a few simple clicks, and then present them in high definition. Innovative text, transition and alignment tools ensure astonishing results. Burn your slideshow to DVD or Blu-ray Disc for easy viewing and sharing.

Pricing and Availability

Toast 10 Titanium is available direct from Roxio at http://www.roxio.com/ for $99.99. Special pricing is available at Macworld tradeshow, running January 6-9. An accompanying High Definition/Blu-ray Disc (HD/BD) plug-in, which is needed to author Blu-ray Disc video, is sold separately for $19.99 and is available free for those who purchase Toast 10 Titanium online at roxio.com through February 5, 2009. Toast 10 Titanium Pro also goes on sale today for $149.99.

About Roxio

Roxio®, Sonic’s Consumer Products Group, provides a range of award-winning digital media creation, management, preservation, sharing, and enjoyment applications, field-proven SDKs, and Web-based services. Roxio solutions offer the perfect blend of ease and power, enabling consumers to achieve professional results from their photo, video, and music projects with minimal effort. Roxio’s flagship applications, Creator for the PC and Toast for the Apple Macintosh, are the best-selling products in their respective categories in North American retail.

Roxio’s parent company, Sonic Solutions (NASDAQ: SNIC; http://www.sonic.com/) enables the creation, management, and enjoyment of premium and personal digital media content through its Hollywood to Home™ products, services, and technologies.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward looking statements that are based upon current expectations, including the launch, distribution, and market acceptance of Roxio Toast 10 Titanium and Toast 10 Titanium Pro. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward looking statements as a result of various risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in the Company’s annual and quarterly reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This press release should be read in conjunction with the Company’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K, Form 10-Q and other reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which contain a more detailed discussion of the Company’s business including risks and uncertainties that may affect future results. The Company does not undertake to update any forward looking statements.

Sonic, the Sonic logo, Sonic Solutions, Roxio, the Roxio logo, Toast, Roxio Streamer, and Hollywood to Home are trademarks or registered trademarks owned by Sonic Solutions in the United States and/or other countries. All other company or product names are trademarks of their respective owners and, in some cases, are used by Sonic Solutions under license. Specifications, pricing and delivery schedules are subject to change without notice.

Source: Roxio

CONTACT: Chris Taylor of Roxio, +1-408-367-5231, Chris.Taylor@roxio.com

Web site: http://www.roxio.com/
http://www.sonic.com/

One of the benefits touted by HD DVD supporters had been the capability of the format to support both HD DVD and DVD content on a single side. Though, with only two layers, this meant a HD DVD15/DVD5 was the result – providing limited capacity on both formats. I repeatedly pointed out that the Blu-ray camp had the capability for the same kind of single-sided hybrid disc, and they had been demonstrated by JVC but not commercialized. Since Blu-ray, unlike HD DVD, uses a different layer depth than DVD it is theoretically possible to have higher capacities – in theory a BD50/DVD9 is possible. JVC demonstated a BD25/DVD9, which provides enough capacity on both formats for a lot of content. However, producing the hybrid discs is more complex and costly, and I didn’t really expect to see them move beyond the lab curiosity phase. What we’ve seen to date are some vendors simply packing a standard DVD in with the BD release to support both formats.

Well, color me surprised. On February 18, 2009 Pony Canyon will release the first BD/DVD hybrid discs, in Japan. It is a box set of the TV series Code Blue. It is a multi-disc set, with the discs being hybrid BD25/DVD9 – a single Blu-ray layer ‘over’ two DVD layers. So it is like having a standard dual-layer DVD and a single-layer Blu-ray disc on one physical disc. The DVD’s red laser sees through the BD layer to see the DVD data, while the Blu-ray’s blue laser reflects from the BD layer and never sees the DVD ‘below’.

The discs are produced by Infiniti Storage Media Ltd. and they’re very similar to the hybrid discs demonstrated by JVC back in 2004. Infiniti is also apparently working on a BD50/DVD5 (2-BD layers, 1-DVD layer) standard with the BDA. A BD50/DVD9 isn’t mentioned, though I’d be surprised if that wasn’t the next step, JVC was talking about that in 2004.

It’ll be interesting to see if this catches on or is just a bit of a gimmick. If it is successful we might see more titles using hybrid discs, which would eliminate the BD vs. DVD purchasing decision. Though I’m not sure it will catch on, since they are more complex to make than BD or DVD alone. Still, as a geek I love the elegance of the solution so I kind of hope it will.

Spotted via Blu-ray Stats News Log, which took me to Electonista, and thence to Impress AV Watch. Images from Impress.

We need an HD DVD and Betamax combo deck just for the Epic Fail factor that would represent. (This system supports Digital Audio Tape, Digital Compact Cassette, and MiniDisc – it can’t fail!)

Picked up via Gizmodo.

So today Toshiba dropped a press release entitledToshiba ‘Breathes New Life’ Into DVD with XDE™ Technology. XDE stands for eXtended Detail Enhancement, which to me sounds like nothing more than upscaling with fancy edge enhancement and color contrast adjustment. Frankly it sounds like crap to me, based on the press release.

XDE Flexibility

In addition to upconversion from 480i/p to 1080p, XDE technology offers consumers the ability to customize their viewing experience to their liking with its picture mode settings. With these three selectable settings — Sharp, Color and Contrast — users can get the most out of their DVD movie-viewing experience on their terms.

– Sharp Mode offers improved detail enhancement that is one step closer to high definition. Edges are sharper and details in movies are more visible. Unlike traditional sharpness control, XDE technology analyzes the entire picture and adds edge enhancement precisely where it’s needed.

– Color Mode makes the colors of nature stand out with improved richness. Blues and greens are more vivid and lifelike. Color Mode combines the improvement in color with the detail enhancement of Sharp Mode and is ideal for outdoor scenes.

– Contrast Mode is designed to make darker scenes or foregrounds more clearly visible without the typical “washing out” that can occur with traditional contrast adjustment. Recommended for dark scenes where detail may be difficult to notice, Contrast Mode is also combined with Sharp Mode to provide a clearer viewing experience.

So ‘Sharp Mode’ cranks up the edge enhancement. But too much edge enhancement is one of the most common complaints videophiles have about many titles. This is the kind of cheap trick studios use to try to make an image ‘pop’, but it is unnatural. And now your DVD player can do it to all of your discs. Yay?

‘Color Mode’ sounds like it just tweaks the color palette to favor blues and greens, which can certainly make an image seem more vivid, but artificially so. This is the same kind of trick box stores use to make images on HDTVs look more striking on the wall of screens. And also why the first thing you should do is calibrate your TV, because the settings it comes with are great for selling the set in the store, but not for accurate color reproduction at home.

And ‘Contrast Mode’ cranks up the contrast. But if the contrast isn’t there in the source material, then it must be artificially boosting and/or suppressing some of the picture to increase the contrast. It all sounds like a high-tech, fancy way of doing what people used to do with the color, tint, and contrast knobs on old TVs – and the menus that replaced them on new TVs. This doesn’t sound so much like ‘breathing new life’ into DVD as it does ‘putting DVD in an iron lung’.

You know what these remind me of? Those silly audio modes most receivers have. You know, like ‘Concert Hall’? The settings that mess with the sound to supposedly recreate the feeling of a different space, but in reality are about as close the the real thing as Froot Loops cereal is to real fruit. The snozberries taste just like snozberries!

Sure, I’m just basing this off their press release and I haven’t seen it for myself. But even if they’ve been remarkably clever about the technology, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re just upscaling DVDs and tweaking the picture to try to make it look better. They’re just putting lipstick on a pig compared to real HD media like Blu-ray. No matter how you slice it, the best DVD can provide is one-sixth the raw pixel count as Blu-ray. And no matter how clever your algorithms are to interpolate the data, you just can’t recreate what isn’t there to start with. You can never start with a 480p source and upscale it to 1080p and match a native 1080p source.

So who is going to buy XDE players? People with extensive existing libraries of DVD you say? I have many hundreds of DVDs myself. But Toshiba is selling their XD-E500 1080p/24fps Upconverting DVD player, their first XDE-equipped player, for $149.99. Now, it also handles MP3 and WMA music playback, JPEG display, and is DivX certified, which is all well and good. But you can get a non-XDE player with all of those features (1080p24 upscaling, MP3/WMA, JPEG, DivX), for $50-$60. I myself have a Philips unit I picked up a while back from Amazon for around $60 which has those features, plus known codes to enable region free playback, and it handles NTSC< ->PAL. The Toshiba is unlikely to have either of those features. So is XDE worth the extra $90-$100? Or even $50 if the player is that much cheaper online? Will XDE and the Toshiba logo on the box convince people to pay double what they can get another unit for?

I doubt it will for the majority of users. Any improvement can only be just so good, and you’d need a good HDTV to really get the full benefit. And that’s after you manage to educate users on just what XDE is. When someone in standing in their local Best Buy, comparing units on a shelf, and the only differences are the brand, the price, and that the Toshiba has ‘XDE’, you’ve got an uphill battle on your hands to educate the user on what XDE is and why they want it.

So you’re really after users who are willing to spend more for a (supposedly) better quality picture. But then the users most likely to be willing to shell out more for such improvements are the very same group most likely to be willing to shell out for a Blu-ray deck. Entry level, current model decks are under $300 now, closer to $250 in some cases. And existing stocks of last generation units can be had for less than that. Even some of the best of the current models, with bells and whistles like BD-Live, are between $350-$400. And those prices are falling as supply and competition both increase, and component costs decrease. Entry level units should be under $200 by the holidays, with some well-equipped units under $300.

So where does XDE fit? Users who are just slightly more demanding than a non-XDE DVD player, but not demanding enough to go for even a low-end Blu-ray deck? All Blu-ray decks are also DVD players, all upscaling as far as I’m aware, most quite good at it, some very, very good. Once a person is willing to spend more money on the player, beyond the glut of sub-$100 upscaling players, they’ve already taken the first step toward being willing to make the jump to Blu-ray. It seems like XDE is there just to try to catch those who don’t quite jump high enough to clear the bar. I can’t believe that’s a big market.

The DVD player market is a commodity market now, even for nice upscaling players. It is getting such that there are fairly decent DVD players that cost less than some new release DVDs. Buy a movie, get a free player. That’s a joke, but sometimes it seems like that’s the next step. Toshiba is trying to be the odd man out, and they seem to think XDE will distinguish them from the hordes of commodity players. Enough that users will pay their higher prices. I don’t think it is going to be a big win for them.

Toshiba’s HD DVD decks were very nice units with some great features. They could easily have used the same platform as the basis for a Blu-ray player development. And now is the time (well, six months ago was the time) to get some nice BD players out and make revenue on them. In 2009 when the wave of Chinese BD players hits, there will be a lot of downward pressure on player pricing, making the market less attractive to ‘premium’ brands like Toshiba. That happened in the DVD market years ago. Instead of chasing yesterday’s market long after it has been commoditized, Toshiba needs to go after the marker’s of today and tomorrow, where the margins are higher and competition is lower. I really think it is just their corporate pride and stubbornness which keeps them from embracing Blu-ray.

The full press release:

Aug 18, 2008 04:00 ET

Toshiba ‘Breathes New Life’ Into DVD with XDE™ Technology

XDE offers enhanced picture performance from standard DVDs

WAYNE, N.J., Aug. 18 /PRNewswire/ — Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C. (“Toshiba”) today announces its new video enhancement technology for DVD with the introduction of the XD-E500. XDE, or “eXtended Detail Enhancement,” is more than just DVD upconversion. XDE takes DVD picture quality to a whole new level. In addition to providing upconversion from 480i/p up to 1080p, XDE offers user selectable picture enhancement modes that allow for greater detail, more vivid colors and stronger contrast that bring standard DVD quality closer to the HD experience. XDE technology lets consumers enjoy their existing DVD libraries in a whole new way.

“Consumers have embraced the DVD format like no other technology and invested in large libraries of their favorite movies. As the market moves towards high definition, XDE lets them experience their existing DVD library and the tens of thousands of DVD titles in a whole new way,” said Louis Masses, Director of Product Planning. “XDE offers consumers a simple solution to add on to their HDTV purchase. XDE works with existing DVDs to deliver a near HD experience with enhanced detail and richer colors. Toshiba is delivering to consumers what they want — a high quality experience at an affordable price.”

XDE Flexibility

In addition to upconversion from 480i/p to 1080p, XDE technology offers consumers the ability to customize their viewing experience to their liking with its picture mode settings. With these three selectable settings — Sharp, Color and Contrast — users can get the most out of their DVD movie-viewing experience on their terms.

– Sharp Mode offers improved detail enhancement that is one step closer to high definition. Edges are sharper and details in movies are more visible. Unlike traditional sharpness control, XDE technology analyzes the entire picture and adds edge enhancement precisely where it’s needed.

– Color Mode makes the colors of nature stand out with improved richness. Blues and greens are more vivid and lifelike. Color Mode combines the improvement in color with the detail enhancement of Sharp Mode and is ideal for outdoor scenes.

– Contrast Mode is designed to make darker scenes or foregrounds more clearly visible without the typical “washing out” that can occur with traditional contrast adjustment. Recommended for dark scenes where detail may be difficult to notice, Contrast Mode is also combined with Sharp Mode to provide a clearer viewing experience.

In an effort to reach a broad spectrum of consumers from around the world, Toshiba’s new XDE technology and the exciting experience it delivers, will be featured in an extensive print and online advertising campaign. This includes placement on NBCOlympics.com, a site that signifies strength, performance, diversity and unity among many. A new Web site, http://www.toshibaxde.com/, will be launched to help educate consumers on the benefits of XDE technology and how it works so they can experience the best of what this new technology has to offer and enjoy their DVD movies in near HD quality.

XDE will be launched today onboard the XD-E500 1080p/24fps Upconverting DVD player. Featuring XDE technology, the XD-E500 also incorporates key features found on today’s upconverting standard DVD players such as HDMI-CEC, DivX certification, JPEG capability,

MP3 and WMA playback and much more in a slim, high-gloss cosmetic design to complement today’s HDTV.

The XD-E500 is shipping this month with an MSRP of $149.99 and can be found at authorized retailers nationwide. For more information on XDE please visit http://www.toshibaxde.com/ or http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/.

About Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C.

Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C. is owned by Toshiba America, Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation, a world leader in high technology products with subsidiaries worldwide. Toshiba is a pioneer in DVD and DVD Recorder technology and a leading manufacturer of a full line of home entertainment products, including flat panel TV, combination products and portable devices. Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C. is headquartered in Wayne, New Jersey. For additional information please visit http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/.

Important Notes

This product does not play HD DVD or Blu-Ray discs. It upconverts standard definition (480p) DVD content to HD (720p, 1080i or 1080p) to match the resolution of your HD display. Although near the picture quality, it does not produce or output native HD video content.

To display upconverted 720p, 1080i or 1080p video content, a 720p, 1080i or 1080p capable HDTV or HD Monitor (as applicable) with an HDCP capable HDMI or DVI input is required.

The effect of enhancements may vary depending upon disc content quality and display device capability/functionality/settings. Depending on the quality of the DVD disc, some video noise may be visible.

Some DVD-R/DVD-RW discs may be incompatible due to laser pick up and disc design. Some recordable media or recording formats may not be supported.

Compatibility with other HDMI-CEC products will vary by manufacturer. Some products may not be compatible at all or may only allow for limited functions.

Viewing 24 frames per second requires content created in 480p / 24 frames/sec and an HD display capable of accepting a 1080p/24Hz signal.

Source: Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C.

CONTACT: Nicole Lawler of BRODEUR for Toshiba America Consumer Products,
L.L.C., +1-617-587-2024, nlawler@brodeur.com

Web site: http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/
http://www.toshibaxde.com/

With video downloads it is always a compromise between speed and quality. For instant gratification you have streaming video, but that’s the lowest quality. Broadband speed limitations restrict the maximum possible streaming bitrates. Downloads can offer higher bitrates, but still require fat pipes to be feasible, and, of course, storage. But even the best download services don’t come close to matching the picture quality of Blu-ray, because they can’t match the bitrates. And don’t even get into bonus features, lossless audio (Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD-MA), multiple audio and subtitle tracks, etc. With most commercial Blu-ray titles using between 30GB or more of disc capacity, we’re not going to be downloading content at that quality in the near future.

So I was a little gratified to see this article in CE Pro, entitled Blu-ray and Downloads: Why Both Are Worth Offering. CE Pro is an industry magazine with a primary audience of consumer electronics professionals, the kind of folks who install custom systems in high end homes. The article focuses on Blu-ray for physical media and VUDU for downloads, but Amazon Unbox on TiVo, iTunes on Apple TV, Xbox 360, PlayStation3, NetFlix, etc, are all possible broadband video options for the consumer. Downloads aren’t about to replace discs for those who prefer a quality viewing experience, but downloads offer the kind of instant gratification that discs can’t match. I think having both available is the best approach, the best of both worlds.

The new streaming service will apparently be called Amazon Video on Demand, and it will be distinct from Amazon Unbox, Amazon’s purchase and rental download service. The Times reports Amazon will have 40,000 titles available for instant streaming. I don’t see the new service as a replacement for Amazon Unbox, but rather a compliment. After all, you will need an active Internet connection to stream video on the new service. Unbox allows you to download video to watch later, off-line – such as on your laptop while on a plane, or on a PMP while traveling. And it is a fairly open secret that Amazon intends to offer HD content through Unbox, and true HD content does not lend itself to streaming on today’s networks. Streaming vs. downloads vs. physical media (DVD/BD) really lay along a convenience vs. quality curve, as a generalization. Streaming is instant gratification, but the lowest quality. Downloads take longer, but will generally offer higher bit rates and hence higher quality. And physical media, in the form of DVD, offers yet higher bit rates. As well as extras, often times audio formats not found on downloads or streams (5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS), additional languages, subtitles, etc. But with the inconvenience of a wait to receive the media. And Blu-ray is at the end of the scale with the highest bit rates, full 1080p HD, often 7.1 lossless audio, etc. All of these options compliment each other and will appeal to different users, or under different circumstances to the same user. (I myself buy a number of Blu-ray discs and love the quality. I also still buy some DVDs, though less now with BD. But I also use Amazon Unbox through my TiVo to check out movies I don’t have as strong an interest in, or impulse rentals due to sales, etc.)

Currently, aside from a PC, Amazon has a deal with Sony to make the streaming content available via Sony Bravia HDTVs. Today that requires the Sony Bravia Internet Video link, which is a $300 add-on. But in the future Sony is expected to build the Internet connectivity directly into new models in the Bravia line. Amazon says they’ll pursue relationships with other TV and Internet device vendors. Which, of course, begs the obvious question – what about their current flagship CE partner, TiVo?

While TiVo isn’t mentioned in the article, I really have to believe this is in the works. TiVo releases H.264 and video streaming support, and they just happen to do so on the same day Amazon makes their streaming service available to the first users? TiVo and Amazon already have a relationship with Unbox, an apparently very successful one, so you know they had to discuss the streaming service early on. With the infrastructure in place with 9.4, TiVo could throw the switch at any time just by updating the HME application that is used for all of the broadband video options. No further software update would be required in the field. I think it is a safe bet that we’ll see Amazon Video on Demand on the Series3 & TiVo HD in the future, perhaps the near future.

Picked up via EngadgetHD.

UPDATE: I went looking around Amazon to see if there was any information on the streaming trial, and on the Amazon Unbox page there was a link in the upper right to sign up for the beta. It says space is limited, so I’d jump on it, don’t procrastinate.

And just to fully confirm that Unbox downloads are not going anywhere:

The goal of this Beta is to test our new instant streaming feature. Don’t want to wait for your video to download? Want to avoid downloading additional software? Want to watch Unbox videos on a Mac? Amazon Video On Demand is the solution to these common customer requests. Purchase or rent a video and you will have instant streaming access to your video from any PC or Mac. All of the existing Unbox functionality remains. You can continue to download your videos for offline playback on a PC or TiVo.

Personally, as I’ve said repeatedly in the past, I think a dedicated STB is a bad move. Unless they can make it dirt cheap, and I mean $99 or less, I don’t think a dedicated client STB is a good option. Remember, this is simply a device which provides access to a service you have to pay for via your subscription. And if it is just going to handle the streaming, then it doesn’t need to be that powerful.

But it sounds like they may have taken the route I’ve suggested before, making this a service that will be included on other boxes:

The leader of online DVD rentals will be entering an increasingly crowded and confusing market when it rolls out the new device via an LG-networked player sometime in the second half of 2008.

And:

Pricing and other specific details of the LG product were not available, but a person with knowledge of the situation said LG would likely embed the receiver into its $799 dual-DVD player, which supports the competing Blu-ray and HD-DVD high-definition DVD formats.

So they may be embedding this as a thin software client into LG’s DVD and/or Blu-ray product line. That would follow from what was said on the conference call, and it seems to make more sense than producing a dedicated Netflix STB. Certainly, a DVD or Blu-ray player which also happened to support the streaming service is a much better value proposition than a single-purpose streaming STB.

Actually, that’s another issue, I don’t know that Netflix’s streaming service is going to hold up to being displayed on large screens. It certainly is not going to be HD content as very, very few people have broadband connections fast enough to stream real HD content. Even if limited to 720p using H.264 it would be tough to stream real-time without massively over-compressing the stream. This is probably going to be limited to SD content, maybe 480p streams upscaled by the player – like a DVD. In a world increasingly going HD, that seems iffy. Especially with competitors like VUDU going HD, and Amazon Unbox/TiVo expected to go HD soon as well.

On the other hand, being a streaming-only service does reduce their hardware requirements, particularly in storage, and that could make it easier for Netflix to land additional partners. All HD DVD players have network interfaces, and a growing number of Blu-ray players do as well. TiVo is still a possibility, reviving their old partnership, though likely only on the Series3 and TiVo HD as the older boxes can’t handle the newer codecs. (And streaming MPEG-2 is unlikely.) Just about any media center extender product would be a candidate too. But the first thing to come to mind for me was actually the Sling Media SlingCatcher product, now due in 2008.

Hastings said the LG partnership was the first of many such deals for Netflix. “We’d like to see a hundred Netflix-capable boxes,” he said, noting he also was exploring partnerships with makers of Internet-connected game consoles, cable and satellite companies.

Still a lot of unanswered questions. But we’ll probably see and hear some more at CES next week.

From EngadgetHD.

EDIT/UPDATE: The New York Times has an article today which offers a bit more info. It confirms that the streams will not be HD, at least initially. And it has this:

The deal with LG is something of a strategy shift for Netflix. The company had been experimenting with building its own Netflix-brand set-top box. Last spring, to help create the device, the company hired Anthony Wood, the founder of ReplayTV and a pioneer of the digital video recorder.

But Mr. Hastings said that integrating Netflix into other companies’ devices made more sense. He said Mr. Wood would soon leave Netflix to return to another company he founded, Roku.

So it does seem that Netflix had been toying with their own STB, as rumored for a while. But they came to the same conclusion I’ve expressed all along – something like this is better as a service embedded in other boxes, than part of a standalone box. Standalone boxes that do nothing but download movies have not done well – see Akimbo and Moviebeam, Akimbo morphed into a service for Windows and dropped the boxes, Moviebeam is dead. I don’t think VUDU will be successful either, unless they can sell the box for $99 or less – then maybe. But it is still better to be a value-add on a box with other features.

Product Features

• Play Blu-ray™, HD DVD™ or regular DVD movie on your computer
• Reads data from all popular DVD and CD format – Blu-ray™ and HD DVD™, standard DVD and CD
• Write to DVD+/-R/RW/DL media and CD-R/RW media
• Records up to 8.5GB of data or 4 hours of video on compatible DVD+R DL (dual layer) and DVD-R DL(dual layer) media
• Choice of enclosure for eSATA or eSATA/USB 2.0 interface connection
• Bundled with Cyberlink High-Def Suite – software is for use in Windows XP, 2003, and Vista only
• Sturdy aluminum construction
• Compact size for convenient transportation
• Plug and play
• Stereo ear phone jack
• OS support – Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, XP, Vista, Linux (Kernel 2.6 and above), Solaris 10, Mac OS X 10.4*

The drive can read Blu-ray, HD DVD, DVD and CD, and can burn DVD and CD. It is a fairly peppy Blu-ray reader too, 6x reads. The eSATA version is $409, the eSATA/USB2.0 is $429.

Via EngadgetHD.

I’ve had my deluxe box set of Blade Runner on Blu-ray on order for a while. I am very much looking forward to watching that.

Via Blu-ray.com.

As evidenced by the flanking banners, BestBuy.com is having two back-to-back sales. First is the Thanksgiving Weekend Sale. Thursday, Friday and Saturday only 11/22 – 11/24, and then the Cyber Monday Sale, 2 Days Only: Sunday – Monday, Online Only.

There are a few deals I’d highlight for my audience:
Thursday Only: 50% off select DVD box sets 11/22 Only!

Free $100 Best Buy gift card with Sony BDP-S300 Blu-ray Disc player for $399.99 11/22 – 11/24. Remember, this is also eligible for five free Blu-ray movies via mail-in.

Free Open Season Blu-ray disc and NBA 08 game with PlayStation 3 40GB hardware 11/22 – 11/24. This makes a great Blu-ray Disc player – and it is also eligible for the five free movies offer.

Free $10 gift card with any PS2, PS3, PSP hardware and select games 11/22 – 11/24.

50% off the top 62 HBO DVDs 11/22 – 11/24.

Select TV on DVD for $14.99 11/22 – 11/24.

Free $25 iTunes card with purchase of three $25 iTunes cards, plus free shipping 11/23 – 11/24. $100 worth of iTunes credit for $75? Sounds good to me. (No pun intended.)

There are a lot more, check out the sale.

They’re supposed to email me with the Cyber Monday specials this weekend. I’ll post them if I can – due to a crisis at work I’ll be flying to a client site in Omaha, NE on Friday and I’ll be there until Monday. I’m bringing my laptop, of course, but I don’t know what my time and access will be like.

So, you’re thinking of buying a nice Samsung HDTV? What would go great with that? Well, it seems Best Buy thinks a $400 massage chair would be just the thing! Free massage chair (shipping extra) with select Samsung HDTVs at BestBuy.com. Now through 11/3. Yep, buy one of 28 different Samsung HDTV models, ranging from 32″ to 63″ in LCD, DLP, and Plasma models, and get a free massage chair. I personally endorse the Samsung HDTVs – at least the DLPs, I have an HL-S6187W and it is fantastic. If I were buying today I’d probably get the HL-T6187S, which is basically a newer version of my set with an LED light source instead of a lamp. But, in any case, I was just amused by the unusual promotional pairing and felt the need to share. It is certainly different from the usual TV stand or Blu-ray/HD DVD/DVD player bundle promos.

On a more useful note, they’re also offering 10% off a wide assortment of DVD players and recorders, and portable DVD players. There are a number of good upscaling DVD players in the list, fairly cheap, and a few DVD recorders. Those may be useful for those of you who want to dump shows off your TiVo to DVD, without messing with TiVoToGo and PC burning software. It seems that as DVRs grow in popularity, standalone DVD burners are getting thinner on the ground. But they have a handful of models on sale: 10% off select DVD players, portables and recorders at BestBuy.com. Now through 11/3.

See this week’s sale events at BestBuy.com

For sales for the week ending 8/26, Blu-ray had 8 of the top 10 positions, with HD DVD the other 2 – and 1st place was 300 on BD, while 2nd was the HD DVD version. For aggregate high-def sales, 5 of the 10 are Blu-ray only, while the other 5 are available on both Blu-ray and HD DVD. There is also a high-def supplement with a number of articles on HD DVD and Blu-ray. Year-to-date through August 5th, out of the Top 20 high-def best sellers, BD has 16, while HD DVD has 4. And three of those are on the list under both formats (300 – BD #1, HD DVD #4, Planet Earth: Complete – BD #10, HD DVD #6, The Departed – BD #3, HD DVD #11). The 4th HD DVD title is Batman Begins (#14) , which is one of Warner’s titles not yet on BD. 300 sold 134,200 BD and 70,200 HD DVD – still roughly 2:1 BD. The Departed sold 73,300 BD and 43,000 HD DVD – not quite 2:1. And Planet Earth sold 52,900 HD DVD and 44,700 BD – pretty close.

On the aggregate Top 20 YTD eleven titles are BD only (numbers 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15, 18, 19, and 20) eight are dual-format (numbers 1, 2, 4, 6, 10, 14, 16, and 17), and only one is HD DVD only – Batman Begins (#13). Interesting only, on all of the top sellers lists, Universal failed to place at all. On the week ended 8/26, Paramount only placed due the Blu-ray releases of Shooter and Disturbia. On the YTD, Paramount failed to place at all on the individual list, and only placed on the aggregate list (at #17) with their dual-format Babel. It is pretty clear than BD sales have been stronger, dominating the top sellers lists, and neither Universal nor Paramount have really been major players to date. Even on the HD DVD Top 20 list Universal held six spots (6, 8, 12, 15, 16, and 18) and Paramount only two (14 & 20). Warner dominated the list with 11 slots – all the rest except #2, which went to BBC Video for Planet Earth! The real winner has been Warner, with 11 of the Top 20 HD DVD and 4 of the Top 20 BD released – including #1 and #3 on both lists – 300 and The Departed in both cases.

It is kind of freaky seeing the extensive coverage of holiday movies, since it is August – but it makes sense, this is aimed at industry and they have to start months in advance with orders, etc.

OK, moving on. Yesterday I mentioned that Acer had joined the BDA. Well, it looks like they’ve backed that up with the launch of a media center PC that incorporates Blu-ray. The Aspire iDea 520 is designed to fit into your entertainment center, with a layout more like an A/V component than a traditional PC. According to The Register:

At the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin today, Acer announced the Aspire iDea 520, a media centre system with a slot-load Blu-ray Disc drive. The machine is based on a 1.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 and packs in 2GB of DDR 2 memory, a 500GB hard drive, an AMD ATI ‘M76M’ graphics chip with 512MB of video memory, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, and a digital/analogue TV tuner.

The iDea 520 is due to go on sale in Europe in October for €1999.

And speaking of IFA, Gizmodo was at the HD DVD press conference today. They really make it sound weak. No real new news, and no real rebuttals of the BDA’s claims at their press conference yesterday. They again trotted out the completely bogus ‘stats’ of“For every 2 ps3′s, one movie is sold. While 4 movies are bought for every [HD DVD] player” which is really dishonest. Yes, I’m sure it is factually correct. But you can’t count every PS3 as a BD player since not everyone who buys one will ever use it to watch movies, conversely you can’t not count it at all. It is simply an unknown since no one, except maybe Sony, has any idea what the split is. The HD DVD camp likes to include the PS3′s numbers when it makes HD DVD look good – as here with attach rates (how many movies sold per player), but they’ll exclude the PS3 when that makes them look good (total players sold). Such as when they said, in the same press conference“The hi def format is about stand alone consoles, not game machines.” It is bogus either way. (And yes, it is also bogus when the Blu-ray camp plays similar games.) Their big claim? That they have 70% of the European IT market. Not sure if that’s 70% of PCs sold with a high-def drive, or 70% of models with a high-def drive, or what. But either way, if that’s the best claim they can make – weak.

While I’m on HD DVD, EngadgetHD noticed a new HD DVD promotional site from Universal. It looks like they found it before it is fully baked – it hasn’t officially launched yet and a number of sections of the site don’t work yet. It also has auto-playing video with sound – lame. Something to keep an eye on for when they finish the site and launch it.

HD DVD isn’t the only format getting a black eye though, the BD camp gets one for Disney’s terrible framing on the Blu-ray Pirates of the Caribbean. See the link for screen-captures from the DVD and BD releases, showing the difference in how some scenes were framed in the transfer from film. The BD release cuts off more of the top of the frame, removing heads and the like in some scenes, while showing more of the bottom of the scene – which is generally not as meaningful. Nothing to do with the format itself, but it would be nice if Disney fixed that.

And, lastly, despite all the talk about BD and HD DVD – DVD isn’t dead yet. The Gadgetress is reporting on a new release from JVC – 8.5GB dual-layer DVD-RW discs. This bumps -RW to the capacity previously limited to DVD-ROM and DVD-R discs. The discs require burners that are compatible with the “DVD-RW for DL” specification, and support 2x writing on drives supporting Ver. 2.0 of the spec. The discs also have a hard coat which makes them 150 times more resistant to scratching than a standard DVD. JVC also issued a press release.

Tivo2dvd creates and executes the series of commands required to access, format, and burn television shows from a Series II Tivo directly to a DVD. It supports processing multiple shows at once, to a DVD with menus.

As the man page says:

tivo2dvd is a command-line script which automates the process of fetching television programs off of a Series II Tivo device, processing them, and burning them to a DVD.

To use TiVo2DVD you must have the prerequisites installed: perl, curl, Net::Tivo, tivodecode, transcode, mjpegtools, and tovid.

Technically it is supposed to run on any POSIX OS, so you could probably get this to work on MacOS, and even Windows. But this is definitely not something for non-geeks.

Nine Inch Nails Live in Your Home February 27th With the Ground Breaking DVD Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You In Time, the First Music DVD to Be Released Simultaneously on DVD, HD DVD and Blu Ray Configurations

Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You In Time Captures the With Teeth Tour Including Concert Performances of 24 Songs Spanning NIN’s Entire Career Plus Music Videos, Rehearsal Footage and More

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Jan. 29 /PRNewswire/ — The infamously dark intensity of Nine Inch Nails scorched the stage during the 2005-2006 “Live: With Teeth” tour following the release of the With Teeth album. That compelling musical and visual concert tour can now be experienced on DVD, HD DVD and Blu Ray configurations on Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You In Time (Interscope), released February 27, 2007. In a breakthrough typical of NIN mastermind Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You In Time is the first music DVD to be released on all three formats simultaneously.

Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You In Time will certainly satisfy fans as they await the expected release this spring of Year Zero, the new NIN studio album. Along with stellar performances of NIN classics, Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You In Time features renditions of 10 of the tracks on With Teeth, which debuted at #1 on the album chart and was named one of the Top 40 albums of the year by Spin. All three of the singles from With Teeth went #1 Modern Rock. Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You In Time also includes both the live versions and the music videos for “The Hand That Feeds” and “Only.”

Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You In Time is presented in 16×9 anamorphic widescreen with the audio in DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound.

Viewing parties for Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You In Time will be held in San Francisco (Slim’s/January 26), Chicago (Metro/January 28), Los Angeles (Henry Fonda/January 28), New York (Knitting Factory/January 29), Boston (Middle East/February 1), Dallas (Addison Studio/February 1), Seattle (Experience Music Project/February 2) and Detroit (St. Andrews Hall/February 6).

Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You In Time DVD TRACKLISTING:

North American Winter Tour 2006
Love Is Not Enough
You Know What You Are?
Terrible Lie
Line Begins To Blur
March Of The Pigs
Something I Can Never Have
Closer
Burn
Gave Up
Eraser
Right Where It Belongs
Beside You In Time
With Teeth
Wish
Only
Big Come Down
Hurt
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like A Hole

ADDITIONAL CONTENT:

North American Summer Tour 2006
Somewhat Damaged
Closer
Help Me I Am In Hell
Non-Entity
Only

The Collector [Live Rehearsal 2005]
Every Day Is Exactly The Same [Live Rehearsal 2005]
Love Is Not Enough [Live Rehearsal 2005]
The Hand That Feeds [Music Video]
Only [Music Video]

Source: Interscope Records

CONTACT: Lauren Burns of Interscope Records, +1-310-865-4563,
Lauren.burns@umusic.com