Why do companies/countries insist on doing this kind of thing? Maybe they’ll get some backing from local content providers, and it sounds like these systems may play the WMV-HD DVD-ROMs that have been released that are currently only viewable on Windows PCs.
But packing a 1080i movie into 11GB max using WMV9? That’s got to be compressed to hell and back.
Remember the talk of ‘billboards’ and pop-up ads during FF/RW over ads that went around before 7.1 ever shipped? Well, theeeeey’re heeeereeeee…. 
Personally I’m totally cool with this, but I’m sure there will be screaming bloody murder by some.
I added a feed for the TiVo HME Resource center blog as tivohmeresource
I question the bit about HD-DVD catching on in the US and Blu-ray being overseas. With half, or more, of the US studios backing Blu-ray, the weight of the CE industry – and the PlayStation3, I think BD will pick up in the US too.
Earlier today PVRBlog found a little teaser of a news byte:
TiVo to launch in Japan by 2006 – report
TiVo Inc. (TIVO) is expected to launch its digital recording service in Japan as early as next year, according to a published report Sunday. The Alviso, Calif.-based company will form a Japanese unit and is looking to partner with local cable television networks and Internet providers as part of the deal, reported the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.
This isn’t much of a surprise for anyone who’s been watching the company. At CES this year Mike Ramsay mentioned expanding overseas as part of the business plans for TiVo – and, IIRC, Europe, China, and Japan were mentioned specifically. And if you watch TiVo’s careers page you’ll see jobs like this one: Japanese language UI Designer. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out if they’re hiring people to develop in other languages that they’re probably looking at that market. There have been others like that in the past too, I think I remember seeing one position that mentioned German.
I found the original Japanese article on Nikkei.net – the index and the article. Unfortunately it requires a subscription – but I put my credit card on the line. 
The article:
Continue reading
