However, before you get too excited, according to AVC Product Manager Allan Hsieh, the TV will not support placeshifting from Sling Media’s standalone Slingboxes. Rather, it is designed to work with DISH Network’s placeshifting products. I expect that means the ViP922 SlingLoaded DVR, and the USB SlingAdapter used with the ViP722 and the new Hopper DVR. I don’t understand why companies do this kind of thing, what is the logic behind limiting the usefulness of the embedded SlingPlayer? I really don’t see this pushing people to sign up for DISH and their products. Placeshiting is already a niche, there’s no reason to artificially limit the product.

That aside the set is respectable. It uses a 55″ LG Display flat pattern retarder panel with a 120Hz refresh rate, and it will be packaged with four pairs of 3D glasses. It has 4 HDMI and 2 USB inputs, and 4GB of internal storage with 2GB of DDR3 RAM to run the built-in apps on a dual-core Mediatek processor. No pricing has been released as of yet.

In addition to focusing on small- and medium-size U.S. operators, TiVo will seek to expand distribution in Western Europe, Rogers said. But TiVo has parted with one potential partner in Telenor’s Canal Digital direct-to-home satellite service in Scandinavia, Rogers said. TiVo signed an agreement with Canal Digital in late 2010, but the company has undergone a management shakeup, including the departure of CEO Tone Krohn Clausen, and is said to have been up for sale.

“They had a big strategic process they were going through in selling the company and we decided pouring resources into a company that might be selling itself near term might not be the smartest thing,” Rogers said. “It’s not clear what they are doing and for the kind of shoulder that it takes roll out what we do, we knew that it would not be the best circumstances.”

So we finally have an explanation of what happened with that deal. It’s dead, Jim. Well, at least for now. It sounds like the door is still open if Canal Digital sorts their issues out and is still interested, but TiVo doesn’t want to get involved for now.

You might have noticed the first sentence in the quoted material, about small- and medium-sized US operators. That’s actually the main gist of the CED article. TiVo is seeing most of their traction in the US come from those operators, and not the big boys. So they aren’t putting a lot of energy into pursuing ‘Comcast-size’ deals. While TiVo’s deal with Comcast is significant, it is clear that Comcast’s focus is on their own in-house developed service, X1. While it seems that Comcast will fulfill their end of the agreement and continue to expand coverage of TiVo support for XFINITY VOD, TiVo is really a secondary offering for them. Their primary push is going to be X1, and understandably so.

Five of the largest MVPDs in TiVo-served territories – Comcast, British Sky Broadcasting, DirecTV, Dish Network and Time Warner Cable – are working on DVR strategies in-house and are unlikely to ever adopt TiVo’s software as their primary platform. I’d also add Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-Verse to that list. While TiVo may be able to collect licensing revenue for their patents from these providers, there’s little chance they’ll contribute directly to subscriber numbers. But the small- and medium-size MSOs don’t have the resources to develop their own DVRs, so they need third party vendors to fill the need – which is where TiVo comes in. They’ve already had success in the US with MSOs such as RCN, Suddenlink, Grande Communications, and more.

Of course, they have landed one major MSO as well – Charter Communications. But the deal seems to be stuck in neutral. Charter began deploying TiVo in Fort Worth, TX last November and at the time planned a“full production launch enterprise wide in the first half of 2012.” However, in February of this year they announced they they were pushing the schedule out, without providing any new time frame.

Since then we haven’t really heard much, and Charter’s TiVo deployment remains limited to Dallas & Ft. Worth, TX. Rogers stated that TiVo is “working closely” with Charter to expand their deployment into new territories. There has been some speculation, which I also heard going around The Cable Show, that Charter might be one of the early customers for the new Pace XG1 running the TiVo software. And that could account for the hold up, waiting for the XG1 to be available, but that’s just a rumor and I don’t know that I’d put much stock in it.

Check out the Consumer Electronics Daily article for yourself.

Keeping terrestrial TV broadcasting relevant will require “making it more mobile, making it more on demand, personalizing it more and making it more interactive,” said Kutzner, who has chaired several ATSC 3.0 working groups.  “We do need to deliver higher quality, and we certainly need to make it more efficient.” ATSC 3.0 will be targeted at both fixed and mobile receivers, and will need to encompass “state-of-the-art compression,” Kutzner said. It also will need to be “fully converged with broadband” and it will need to be upgradable to keep pace with fast technological developments, Kutzner said. “Looking ahead,” ATSC 3.0 is “likely to be a complete replacement” for ATSC and ATSC 2.0, “and so it does need to be worth the effort in terms of time and expended resources,” he said.

To accomplish these goals ATSC 3.0 is looking forward to the new High-Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC) being developed by the Motion Picture Experts Group, with the first version expected to be published in January. HEVC is expected to be twice as efficient as today’s MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 codec. That is vital if 4K & 8K video is expected to work over terrestrial broadcast, but it would also be a major advance for ‘standard’ 1080p HD video. Of course, HEVC content will require new hardware to support it.

The article also covers UHDTV delivery over IP, the possibility of using Blu-ray as physical media for UHDTV, and James Cameron talking about the adoption of 3D. Check it out.

Note that TiVo’s major MSO partners in Europe, Virgin Media and ONO, handle their own advertising sales and thus will not count toward that ten million subscriber target. Nor does it include the “TiVo Design” Insignia Connected TV’s sold by Best Buy, at least not at this time. Maitra did point out, however, that TiVo’s recent deal to bring their platform to Pace hardware does include an advertising component. So that deal may open up new MSO markets for TiVo.

In the meantime TiVo does still sell advertising, of course. It seems it must be somewhat successful for customers as Maitra stated that over 50% of TiVo’s ad buyers are repeat customers. TiVo users are probably familiar with these ads. They may be seen on the screen that pops up at the end of a recording, at the bottom of a program group in the Now Playing List, or on the main ‘TiVo Central’ menu screen. TiVo also has had other ad options, such as static ‘billboard’ ads that overlay a commercial for the same product if the commercial is being fast forwarded. TiVo seems to have a working formula for advertisers, now they just need to bring the numbers up to create a more attractive market.

“We used to hear all kinds of things from advertisers and agencies about pricing,” Maitra said. “I feel that we have gotten it all right except that they just want more homes. Now we have at least satisfied the trajectory and growth requirements. We have priced the advertising for the number of homes that TiVo is in and it’s working, but none wanted to invest in something that they didn’t have confidence would be a growth platform.”

CED also spoke with Thomas McMillin, Chief Operating Office for Suddenlink, one of the MSOs currently distributing TiVo DVRs directly to their customers. McMillin had some good news, and some bad news. First, the good news; Suddenlink serves 1.37 million homes and TiVo is available to customers in 70% of their markets, and it should be in 90% of their markets by year end. But he bad news is they currently have only 20,000 TiVo units deployed, in 10,000 homes. Yes, clearly some homes have multiple units.

Suddenlink is taking a “conversative” approach to marketing TiVo to their customers, positioning it as a premium upgrade from their standard HD DVR. Suddenlink charges a $15 monthly fee for TiVo and requires that customers have broadband with a minimum speed of 10Mbps. All told they have HD DVRs, TiVo included, in 47.7% of their customers’ homes. Doing some back-of-the-envelope math that means 653,490 homes with HD DVRs, 643,490 of which are not TiVo households.

The main reason for the soft sell on TiVo seems to be their existing stock of non-TiVo HD DVRs. They don’t want to be “stuck with” them if they were to more aggressively push TiVo. That does leave a ray of sunshine though. Hardware has a finite usable life, and that stock of non-TiVo HD DVRs will eventually be exhausted and begin to wear out and need replacing. If TiVo can position themselves as that replacement they’d have a slow but steady market by attrition.

Via Consumer Electronics Daily.

Sony will also reportedly introduce the previously announced BDP-S550 with an MSRP of $399, instead of the expected $499 price point, in mid-October.

The price reductions will certainly result in competitive pressure on other vendors.

In fact, HD Guru reports that Funai will cut the MSRP of their NB500 from $299 to $249 to remain competitive. The NB500 is a Profile 1.1 / BonusView player sold in the US under the brands Philips, Magnavox, Sylvania, Insignia, and others.

Since these are the MSRP prices the players will almost certainly be available for less online, and even at retail. While the NB500′s MSRP has been $299, it has been selling normally at stores such as Wal*Mart and Best Buy (under the other brands) for $280 or less. So the cut to MSRP will likely result in a further reduction in retail pricing.

I expect that this is just the beginning of price cuts for the holidays. With the inevitable sales, there should be some good deals on Blu-ray players. And the price cuts on BD-Live units will finally make them competitive with the PS3, unless Sony also cuts the pricing on those. While an entry-level PS3 remains $400, with the BDP-S350 at $300 (and less online) it becomes an option to consider.

From HD Guru via Gizmodo.