HD DVD to incorporate region-coding restrictions

Posted on Saturday, May 27, 2006 by MegaZone

HD DVD is to get region coding after all, if the DVD Forum, the industry organization that maintains the DVD format, has its way. This week, the Forum decided to put in place a team to create a region-coding scheme for the next-generation optical disc technology.

I’m not surprised, I knew HD-DVD would never remain region free. The question is will they just adopt the DVD regions, which frankly never worked so well and don’t make a lot of sense (The UK and Japan are both Region 2?), will they adopt regions similar to, or the same as, Blu-ray (which could make sense with 2 of the three HD-DVD studios also releasing on BD), or create yet another region map?

As for the China-only physical disc… What’s up with that? ‘HD DVD content’ – so in other words it is a new disc that happens to use the same codecs. By that measure, Blu-ray is a “physical disc format capable of holding HD DVD content.” So if it isn’t DVD and it isn’t HD-DVD, what the hell is it?

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LG touts 4x Blu-ray Disc recorder

Posted on Friday, May 26, 2006 by MegaZone

LG has announced what may be the world’s first Blu-ray Disc recorder to run at 4x speeds. The catch: it doesn’t support dual-layer, 50GB media, only single-layer, 25GB discs.

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Cablevision sued over on-demand plans

Posted on Friday, May 26, 2006 by MegaZone

Four Hollywood studios and the three major television networks have filed a copyright suit seeking to prevent Cablevision Systems from launching an “on-demand” service that aims to replace the living room digital video recorder.

I’m a bit torn about this. One the one hand, if Cablevision can deploy a centralized DVR system it could be bad for TiVo. A centralized system is inherently more efficient (economies of scale) than DVRs in every home. The hardware in the home only needs to receive and decode the data – no encoders, no storage, etc. Unless TiVo could provide the UI for the client devices (possible) it’d be more competition for them.

On the other hand, I like seeing technological innovation in general. And I agree with Cablevision’s stance. What they’re offering is functionally no different than TiVo or any other DVR. The differences is simply that the encoders and drives are in a central location – kind of like having half the DVR (recording & storage) in their server room and the other half (playback & UI) in the home. This isn’t OnDemand or rebroadcasting, IMHO. Just like with a DVR in the home, the user has to request recordings and each user has their own recordings, it isn’t a shared system.

So I have to hope the courts agree with Cablevision and not the foot-dragging entertainment industry.

Posted in TiVo | 10 Comments

TiVo Announces Results for Quarter Ending April 30, 2006, Posting 38% Year-Over-Year Service and Tec

Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 by MegaZone

TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today reported financial results for the quarter ended April 30, 2006.

The conference call starts in 25 minutes or so, I plan to listen.

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TiVo Statement on Developments in Lawsuit Against EchoStar

Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 by MegaZone

TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVR), today offered the following comment on the recent developments in the lawsuit against EchoStar Communications Corporation:

“The level of misleading spin that EchoStar is putting out with respect to
our patent case against them is quite extraordinary. We are pleased to
state that the USPTO issued its first Office Action in the reexamination.
The USPTO reexamined all 61 claims set forth in the Barton patent
confirming the validity of most of the claims, including two of the claims
that EchoStar has been found to have willfully infringed. In the Office
Action, the USPTO expressly rejected the invalidity arguments put forward
by EchoStar. While certain of the patent claims were rejected by the
patent office, this should in no way impact the jury verdict. We will now
be given an opportunity with the patent office to discuss our claims which
we believe should result in a reaffirmed and strengthened patent. We will
provide a real understanding of how this process works on our earnings
call after close of market today.”

Posted in Press Release, TiVo | 1 Comment