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.

The common factor in the campaign, summed up in one word, would have to be: quirky. They really don’t say much about the product, just quickly work in the highlights of “record up to six programs” and “lots of storage”. The second ad is even stranger:

Personally I feel like the take away from this one is that if you buy a Hopper you’re crazy enough to jump out of a moving car to avoid losing an argument. I’m not sure that’s a selling point.

The last one features a frighteningly peppy family in what seems to be commentary on the dangers of over-praising… or maybe I’m reading too much into the ad:

Personally I don’t think these ads are that great, and I prefer something with more actual product info, but I know I’m not the target market average consumer. What do you think about the campaign? Do you have a Hopper?

We’re very happy to announce that BBC Red Button is now available to Virgin Media TiVo customers. The features available include video news, full length text articles from the BBC News website and coverage of F1 season that is always up to date and available whenever you want to watch. Later this year the BBC Sport Red button services will be extended to cover other major events e.g. Euro 2012, Wimbledon and Olympics.

If you’re watching any BBC channel, just press the red button on your TiVo remote. Then arrow up or down to choose iPlayer or the News or Sports app, then select OK. Or you can select the BBC News or Sports app from the ‘Apps & Games’ section of your TiVo menu.

The new service is being rolled out to everyone over the next 24 hours, so don’t worry if you can’t see it yet.

Thanks
Mark Wilkin
Help & Support Forum Manager

Actually they started deploying it a week ago, on April 11th, I’m just a little behind on my reporting.

Via The Virgin Media TiVo Blog

Three tuners, but it can record up to six HD channels at once? What kind of dark voodoo is this? Well, note the asterisk: “*DURING PRIMETIME HOURS”. And now note this from the quote above “ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC”. How it manages this trick is actually pretty simple, but requires a little explanation.

I’ll oversimplify a bit, but for analog broadcast TV you have one channel per frequency. A tuner did just that – it tuned a given frequency and therefore a program. But with digital content frequencies and channels have a more nebulous relationship. A single frequency block may contain several digital channels all multiplexed, or MUXed, together. And this is precisely how satellite works. They can’t use a dedicated transponder and frequency for each channel, rather channels are MUXed together. So ‘tuning’ a single channel is actually a multi-step process.

First the tuner tunes the desired frequency and this allows the unit to receive the data stream that is the MUX. Normally the next step is that the signal is de-MUXed and the desired channel is extracted, with the other data being discarded. This one channel is then saved to the drive as a recording. Can you see where I’m going?

Since DISH controls everything end to end, what they’ve done is place ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC in one MUX. And instead of de-MUXing the data as it is received they’re saving the entire MUX to the drive, all four channels. Then it is de-MUXed at playback time, not record time. That’s how it can record up to six channels with three tuners. You have one tuner recording the MUX, for four channels, and two tuners each recording a single channel.

But this is limited. As the page states, they do this during prime time hours only. And recording four channels takes up four times the space, even if you’re never going to watch all four channels. The Hopper has a 2TB drive, but only half is available for user recordings – up to 250 hours. The other half is used to store these PrimeTime Anytime MUX recordings, as well as pre-cached OnDemand content pushed the the box. And you can’t record up to six programs you select, you can only record up to three individual programs. Or two programs while the third tuner is occupied recording this MUX.

So you can record any three channels or the four-channel prime time MUX of the major networks and any two other channels – which is how they get six total. And it only does this during prime time, 8-11pm Eastern, so you won’t be doing this for day time programming, etc.

In addition to this PrimeTime AnyTime feature, the Hopper also supports TV Anywhere place shifting with the Sling Adapter add-on.

Last week DISH launched a new YouTube channel and they’ve gone on a tear uploading videos – most of which have to do with the Hopper. They do provide some useful product info:

They even have a couple of TV spots for it, though I’m not really sure if I should be amused or offended seeing as I currently live in central MA and my wife is from South Boston. And no, she does not have this accent:

They’ve even uploaded videos from the launch at CES:

Some more findings, as reported by CED Magazine:

• 80 percent of DVR owners rate the service 8 to 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being excellent) – compared with 80 percent last year and 77 percent two years ago.
• 62 percent of cable VOD users rate the service 8 to 10 – compared with 60 percent last year and 55 percent two years ago.
• 74 percent of premium on-demand (POD) users rate VOD 8 to 10 – compared with 54 percent of non-POD users.
• 63 percent of all Netflix subscribers rate the Watch Instantly feature 8 to 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being an extremely important feature or benefit of the Netflix service) – compared with 48 percent last year and 37 percent two years ago.
• 20 percent of Netflix subscribers use Watch Instantly daily, and 57 percent weekly – last year, 10 percent used Watch Instantly daily, and 43 percent weekly.
• 78 percent of Watch Instantly users use it to watch movies and TV shows on a TV set.
• 86 percent of Netflix households subscribe to a multichannel video service, and 43 percent with a multichannel video service subscribe to a premium service – similar to all households in the sample, and similar to Netflix households last year.

So while conventional television is still going strong, time-shifted access, VOD, and streaming services are clearly growing in importance.

Via CED Magazine.

The user still has to request specific recordings, and a separate copy is kept for every user. If you and ten of your neighbors record the same program, eleven copies are kept on the head end. While this is inefficient and, frankly, stupid, from a technical standpoint, it is due to legal requirements. Cablevision is deploying nDVRs in some of their territories in NY and CT. They were sued by content providers over the nDVR – and won. But the ruling hinges on the fact that the nDVR works just like a ‘normal’ DVR with each user recording their own content. The functionality is the same, only the storage has moved from the customer’s home to the central office. Making one copy and providing access to multiple users would be redistribution, legally, and is a no-no. Hopefully someday the law will catch up to reality, but I’m not holding my breath.

There is one point in the Light Reading article reporting on this that I’m not sure I agree with:

That means EchoStar’s system will be built to store the individual programs a given customer sets to record, and won’t back up that data. So if a hard drive fails, all of the recorded content on that drive goes poof.

My understanding is that, while the ruling does require separate recordings for each user and would not allow backups, it doesn’t forbid using modern storage technology such as RAID. Indeed, there are some home DVRs that use RAID today. For the non-geeks, RAID is Redundant Array of Independent Drives. To over-simplify, picture to physical hard drives acting as one logical drive, with two copies of everything – one copy per drive. You only have the storage capacity of one drive, but you have redundancy – if one physical drive fails you don’t lose any data, it is safely on the other drive. And you can swap out the dead drive, copy everything over, and restore redundancy with nothing being lost. Since I’m sure EchoStar’s system will be using commercial grade storage arrays at the central office I’d be a bit surprised if they didn’t use some form of RAID or the equivalent.

Beyond the possibility of offering some form of redundancy, there are also economies of scale. Since a storage array will be shared across many users, even with redundant recordings the total raw storage space required to support a number of users, for the same number of recordings, is less than with individual drives in every home. It just works out to be a more efficient distribution with less wasted space. The environment in a data center is likely to be better for the drives than the average home too – clean, reliable power, good environmental controls, minimal vibration, etc. And since the recordings are already in the ‘cloud’, and EchoStar is of course the owner of placeshifting pioneer Sling Media, I would expect them to include the ability to stream your recordings to other devices. And that would be without requiring you to buy a Slingbox or use your broadband connection to send the data out of your home.

EchoStar says they’ll deliver the nDVR to their first customer by the end of 2012. While sister company Dish Network normally gets first dibs on new EchoStar products, I’m not sure that will be true this time. The problem with nDVRs is that they require sending different streams, possibly multiple streams, to every home. Imagine watching one show in the living room, while three other household members watch other recordings in other rooms. That’s four data streams into your home. Now all of your neighbors are doing the same. Satellite doesn’t do this well, it is best suited for sending the same content into multiple homes because of the fixed number of transponders. Even satellite data systems are more bandwidth limited than cable, fiber, or even DSL systems. They could have something tricky up their sleeves, like a wireless data play for delivery, but I think it is more likely that this will show up with a cable MSO. Very likely a second tier MSO looking for a technical edge, much as RCN & Suddenlink have turned to TiVo.

And speaking of TiVo, many view the nDVR as a threat to TiVo as their business has been built around placing ‘conventional’ DVRs into homes. But I disagree. TiVo’s main selling point is their UI, not the fact that the hard drive is in the STB. TiVo could just as easily split their product and create an nDVR. In fact, something like the TiVo Preview could easily be the STB client for an nDVR system. Right now it is designed to stream from a DVR in the home, but that data stream could just as easily be delivered into the home from remote storage. Exactly the same way OTT content is delivered to TiVo today. If demand for nDVRs takes off I’m sure we’ll see an nDVR from TiVo. The Virgin Media TiVo in the UK already has a DOCSIS modem and it looks like the upcoming 16.x software includes DOCSIS support, which could be hinting at future US products as well. And there is MoCA as well, which could communicate with an MSO gateway unit. Saying ‘data is data’ is a bit simplistic, but not too far off the mark.

In any case, it will be interesting to see if EchoStar gets more traction with their nDVR than they’ve achieved with their SlingLoaded cable products to date.

Via Light Reading.

This acquisition has spurred talk in some circles about TiVo’s fate. Why? Well, a number of people think TiVo is a candidate for a buyout. TiVo still has a poison pill to prevent a hostile takeover, but that is expiring in November. And even with the pill in place the BoD can accept a buyout offer at any time without triggering the pill. The pill just helps prevent hostile bids.

There has been speculation that Google could be a suitor. TiVo has a history with hardware, a successful DVR platform, and deals with MSOs. All things Google could use to beef up Google TV – but now all things they have in Motorola, only moreso.

On the other hand, TiVo is involved with patent lawsuits with Verizon (who uses Motorola HW) and AT&T (who also uses Motorola HW), having recently finally settled with Dish Network for $500 million. If Google feels that they may have a liability in these suits, it is possible that they would seek to have them settled as part of the acquisition. Possibly even buying TiVo in order to do so, along with acquiring their patents which could be useful for Google TV and Motorola’s own DVRs. Though I think that’d be a drastic step to take, they could likely settle with TiVo for less than the cost of a buyout. They’d really have to see value in owning the whole package to go that far.

Personally, while my dream marriage would be Google buying TiVo and integrating it into Google TV, I think that is much less likely to happen now that Google has MMI – on top of their recent SageTV acquisition. They’ll have everything they need to roll their own super STB in house once the Motorola deal closes.

On the other hand, if I’m Cisco, Motorola’s largest competitor in the STB market, I might be looking to beef up my product offering. Cisco and TiVo already work together – Cisco is providing the hardware for Virgin Media in the UK and ONO in Spain. So they have a solid track record. Cisco’s STB software has perhaps a worse reputation than Motorola’s, and offering a TiVo-based solution could be a real shot in the arm for them. Especially if Google does push Google TV onto Motorola DVRs.

Cisco also has a retail presence through Linksys, and increasingly under their own brand. They’re familiar with STB hardware, DVRs, retail, and TiVo’s software. They could conceivably add the TiVo Premiere, Premiere XL, Premiere Elite, and Preview to their STB lineup as is for both retail and MSOs. Motorola did something similar when they offered a couple of Moxi-based DVRs and the MoxiMate to MSOs. Those units were unlike any others in their lineup. That would be a rapid way for Cisco to offer a TiVo-based solution, and then they could incorporate the interface into their other STBs going forward.

Of course, that’s all pure speculation. Cisco seems to have little to lose in buying TiVo though. There’s nothing to upset the existing MSO deals in the US, or in most other countries. Most of the foreign TiVo deals are using TiVo developed or Cisco HW already. It could cause some friction with the DirecTV deal as that is using Technicolor HW, same for the Scandinavian deal with Canal Digital, but that could be addressed in contracts. And even if it killed the deals, I think Cisco could live with it. The DirecTV deal is approaching two years past due now and there’s reason to be skeptical about it ever coming to fruition at this point anyway.

I don’t think it would cause an issue for deals like the Best Buy Insignia TVs as there is no direct competition with any Cisco products. They’re complimentary, not competitive.

On the other hand it would give Cisco’s STB product line a boost when trying to land deals with MSOs against Motorola, especially if the latter gets Google TV.

In light of the Google-Motorola deal, as pure speculation, I think I’d consider Cisco the leading candidate to acquire TiVo at this point. I don’t necessarily think it will happen, just that if anyone did I’d put them in the lead.

As for other suitors that have been speculated on.

Apple – No way. They have a strong ‘Not Invented Here’ culture. TiVo is Linux based, Apple uses BSD, it’d be a major rewrite to bring TiVo over to iOS to merge it with Apple TV or the like. And Apple is all about providing content silos via iTunes, I’m not sure a DVR fits their plans.

Microsoft – Doubtful. MS is mildly allergic to Linux. They already have Media Center and successful IPTV STB software – AT&T runs on it. They also have the Xbox 360 for OTT content. Media center extenders are neglected, but still out there too. If MS wanted to get into the DVR business I think they’d roll their own based on their existing STB software before buying TiVo.

Rovi – Maybe. Rovi, formerly known as Macrovision Solutions Corporation, has several product lines, including software for set top boxes. If they had an inclination to get into DVRs and get onto more MSO boxes, they might do so via TiVo.

Dish Network or EchoStar – Doubtful. There was speculation that they may buy TiVo as a way to settle their long-running lawsuit. But now that they’ve settled the case I don’t see Dish or EchoStar having a good reason to buy TiVo. EchoStar already has one of the better DVR platforms out there, along with Slingbox, so they have little to gain in a buyout.

DirecTV – Doubtful. With the new DirecTiVo sliding further and further to the right, DirecTV hardly seems excited about TiVo. They already have a deal in place that covers TiVo’s patents, and they seem to be happy evolving their own DVRs. And they already acquired ReplayTV’s IP a few years back, so they have DVR patents of their own too.

I’ve seen other speculation – that NDS might buy them to kill the competition off or that Comcast (or another MSO) will buy them to monopolize the TiVo interface on their network, etc. But all of those seem even less likely to me.

Right now, I think Cisco would gain the most from acquiring TiVo.

Of course, then again, Cisco has been pulling back from consumer products, such as in shutting down Flip. So I might be completely off base.

But, like I said, this is all just speculation. It is fun to talk about, but I’m not going to put down money on any of these deals happening.

So, what do you think? What does the Google-Motorola deal mean for TiVo, if anything? Or who do you think might be a suitor for TiVo? Or do you think that’s backwards and TiVo is going to use part of their $500 million award from EchoStar/Dish to buy someone else? Or just grow organically?

Leave a comment with your thoughts!

10% of HDTVs in the US are now Connected TVs, like the Insignia TiVo models launched last week. The FMA study also indicates 6% receive OTT content via TiVo or other DVRs (I’m guessing mostly TiVo, since few other DVRs offer OTT content). Apple TV and Google TV account for 4% each, Roku nabs 3% while Slingbox and Boxee each grab 1%. I’m not sure what Slingbox is going in there, since a Slingbox is a sending device, not a receiving device. And the SlingCatcher surely doesn’t register.

I think the most surprising number out of all of these is that Google TV is 4%. It is only in a handful of devices, I find it hard to believe it would have more penetration than Roku. It just seems strange. The price on the Logitech Revue was slashed just last week. (Mine arrived yesterday, BTW. I haven’t had time to set it up yet.)

Also somewhat surprising, the study says only 7% of US households have a connected Blu-ray player. With network connectivity seemingly standard in so many players today, I’d've thought that number would be higher. But I suppose it hasn’t been that long since the trend started.

The end result of all this? 10% of adults watch at least one video a week on their TV via one of these devices.

Via MediaPost.

Or do we? As I mentioned in my last post, during the Q&A at the end of their recent quarterly call, Virgin Media said“Just think about October, the second drop. The access your hard drive from another device.” That certainly sounds like they’ll be enabling streaming in October. And we know that Virgin Media intends to deploy the TiVo software on non-DVR STBs as well, as it was stated in the initial partnership announcement. While the UK HW is different, it still would be quite similar to a Premiere/Premiere Elite streaming to a Preview in the US. And the software used in the UK is related to the software used in the US, so perhaps not so very different after all.

If UK TiVo users will be getting streaming in October, perhaps the same time frame will hold true for the US? It makes some sense to roll out such a feature in time for the holiday shopping season, so I think it has some merit.

During the quarter, we have seen an encouraging early take-up of Virgin Media TiVo, our new game-changing entertainment platform, and we have recently unveiled a high impact advertising campaign which will see this compelling service marketed to new customers for the first time.

And:

We have now started to sell and market our new TiVo service to new customers. This is the UK’s first next generation TV service, seamlessly bringing together the best of TV, on demand and the web through an intuitive graphical interface. This enables us to launch exciting new entertainment experiences, such as we developed with Warner Bros Pictures to complement the launch of ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2’. We introduced a dedicated TV app that brought together live film premiere coverage with extra online content. We have also introduced a mobile app allowing customers to set their TiVo service to record shows remotely. The strong early demand for this service has matched our high expectations and, as of 26th July, we had approximately 50,000 installed TiVo customers.

But the real interesting comments are from the call itself, fortunately captured via transcript:

Neil Berkett – CEO: Thanks very much everybody. I think TiVo will do to our video business what DOCSIS 3.0 to our broadband business. I think it will significantly change our brand, our perception and our ongoing delivery, but more about that later.

And so, later:

Testimony, 75,000 TiVo sales, 50,000 in store (the gap) we’ve only being selling for two weeks. Testimony, 50% of our broadband ads at 30 meg and above. Testimony, two price increases in the last six months and you can see the trend.

This is about a business that is targeted to consumers and business customers that need data. They need data and may want data, but the most important thing is they need data. So our drivers are broadly going well. We continue to move with price and there will be periods when that is not available to us. We just launched TiVo at a GBP3 delta in terms of its price over of V+ Box.

But the real interesting part is the following:

On to application. So, you saw we have journey, it’s reasonably predictable around connectivity. You upgrade speeds; you run tiers within your huge pipe; you manage across that, and periodically you upgrade everybody. Tried, proven, you’ll see us do it again and again. The top tier speed at the moment a 100 meg starts out very quietly as did 50, and then accelerates. You tested the market on price, it accelerates again.

Application is different. Application starts to create the glue beyond the raw horsepower of connectivity. Applications is nothing without connectivity, and connectivity is nothing without application, and TiVo is the best connected TV certainly in the U.K., and I would argue in the world because it’s produced by connected TV experts. It’s all they do. That’s why we partnered with them. That’s why it’s actually launched on time, because a lot of our peers decided that they would build their own. It has a net promoter score, major of advocacy (over detraction) of plus 30%. If I had a customer base that had a level of advocacy of plus 30%, I wouldn’t be standing here today talking to you, I would have retired.

It is a massive, massive driver of advocacy. Our customers absolutely love us. Every single review of TiVo puts it as the best way to watch TV bam bam and I’m obviously deliberately using that phrase and I may not use that but that’s what they are saying and that’s what you’re seeing on the billboards at the moment.

It is an amazing product and it allows us to create the glue between the social strength, the TV, the personal screen your PC or laptop and the remote screen, your smartphone and tablet somewhere in between, because you will be able to access. Just think about October, the second drop. The access your hard drive from another device. Your connected TV would by then know you. It will be recording things the things you’ve forgot to record.

It will allow you to go backwards and see that somebody has deleted something that you didn’t want deleted and you can undelete it; just lucky can on a PC. It will have applications like the Harry Potter app where we created an application around the launch of the first series where we had little clips and customers can go into Harry Potter and in they can go in and view and purchase Harry Potter. They can look at that video on demand library. It’s got the intelligence to look at how (linear open garden), a linear walled-garden in video-on-demand are now selected over the top. It will do for us in the TV space what DOCSIS 3.0 has done for us in connectivity

Mobile; so we saw for the first quarter the impact of mobile bonus. We drove a record 83,000 net contract ads in the quarter and some 47,000 – I think it was actually 50,000 contract ads into the home. That’s a 48% increase over Q2, 2010. So, you are starting to see now the acceleration of mobile into the home and that will continue as TiVo as an application is more powerful either by price or by feature on a Virgin Mobile as opposed to Voda or Orange or anything else. So that our customers will see the glue between their remote device and their fixed devices, and that would allow us to accelerate their quad-play and it will allow us to accelerate the very strong economics.

Those are some very strong, and positive, words. It really reinforces the importance Virgin Media is placing on TiVo as the focus for their TV efforts. Which also bodes well for their TiVo customers.

Oh, and did you catch this?“Just think about October, the second drop. The access your hard drive from another device.” It sounds like October is when they’ll be enabling streaming between units. And perhaps also when they’ll have the TiVo software load for their non-DVR platforms? It’ll be interesting to see.

Transcript spotted via The Virgin Media TiVo Blog.

After the announced shutdown of the ReplayTV programming guide service, we have had many positive, enthusiastic comments about the ReplayTV DVR products and services. In light of this response, ReplayTV and its parent company Digital Networks North America, Inc. have decided to continue the electronic programming guide service pursuant to the terms of your service activation agreement. We thank you very much for all of your support and enthusiasm over the many years these products have been sold.

As we have said previously, the analog programming that the ReplayTV units are capable of recording is in fact likely to be converted to digital signals in the very near future at which point the ReplayTV units will no longer be able to record such programming. We encourage our users to consider digital video recorders that have this digital recording capability as well as additional technological advances which are not a part of the ReplayTV units (all of which were end of lifed by 2006). For monthly subscribers of the ReplayTV service, we are exploring options by which you may continue paying for and receiving such service going forward. We apologize in advance should there be any minor disruptions in the ReplayTV service while we implement the continuation of the programming guide. Thank you. ReplayTV

I noticed something interesting in their wording:For monthly subscribers of the ReplayTV service, we are exploring options by which you may continue paying for and receiving such service going forward. They specifically call out ‘monthly subscribers’ – but what about those with lifetime subs? I suspect they’re looking at doing something like transitioning ReplayTV boxes to Schedules Direct, the official data service for MythTV. As the community produced WiRNS software already uses Schedules Direct as a programming data source. Schedules Direct costs $20/year, so lifetime subscribers would have to pay the additional fee. And that’s only for 4k/5k units, as earlier units are dial-up only and there would need to be a dial-up infrastructure maintained. That could pay for itself via a monthly fee, but perhaps not for lifetime as there would be no revenue to cover the ongoing costs.

It’ll be interesting to see how this develops.

It is quite a piece of work, very extensive. I think anyone comparing the DVR options in the UK would be well served by checking it out. I recommend the ‘live’ copy, since it will be the most current, but I’ve also captured a snapshot for posterity – and just in case.

MissingRemote reports that the Hauppauge WinTV-DCR-2650 dual-tuner USB CableCARD box has passed CableLabs certification and will sell for just $129. Pre-orders start Monday, and it will ship in late June.

Also shipping in late June, the SiliconDust HD HomeRun PRIME will come in two models. The HDHR3-CC is a three tuner box selling for $249.99, while the HDHR3-6CC-3X2 is a six tuner box selling for $499.99. Both are available for pre-order now.

Still a bit more nebulous Ceton Corp, which recently finally shipped their much anticipated InfiniTV 4 internal quad-tuner CableCARD card, also announced a InfiniTV 4 USB model back at CES. Given that they’ve finally started shipping the internal model, and the competition is about to ship their USB tuners, I have to expect this will see the light of day sometime soon.

Just in time to take advantage of the newly updated tuning adapters. I’m sure PC-based DVR enthusiasts will line up for these products if they deliver on their promises.

Additionally MagnaGlobal reports that 71 million, 57.7%, of households will have access to VOD content, up from 53.3 million, 45.6% – though they include over-the-top (OTT) services such as Netflix in their numbers. Most interestingly they predict that by 2016 8.4 million people will be completely reliant on OTT services, aka cord cutters, up from only 87,000 by the end of 2011. I’m not so sure about that personally, I tend to feel that cord cutting is a bit overblown, but we’ll see.

Not as surprising, the report also covers Internet access numbers. 85.2 million, or 72.2%, of US households were online at the end of the first quarter, with 90% of those households using some form of broadband. By 2016 that will jump to 98.7 million, with 97.2 million on broadband.

Well, it looks like they’re still out there working away, and they’ll be at CES 2009 next month. As will I, so I’ll try to check out their booth again. They issued a press release to announce a successful test of their transport system using the AMC-16 satellite. This confirms that their technology works using existing FSS (Fixed Satellite Services) capacity, which is part of their plan. They’ll use leased capacity on existing FSS satellites to distribute their content to end users.

Their technology and plans are interesting, but it remains to be seen if a new entrant can carve out a piece of the market. The last to try, Voom, didn’t succeed.

Dec 16, 2008 07:30 ET

XStreamHD™ Performs Successful Transport System Test

First Direct-to-Home Full HD Transport Network Company Validates Extraordinary Technology

MCLEAN, Va., Dec. 16 /PRNewswire/ — XStreamHD, an emerging leader in the delivery and distribution of Full High Definition (HD) entertainment to the home, has successfully tested its revolutionary transport system.

The unique transport system, tested on the AMC-16 satellite at 85 degrees west longitude, enables XStreamHD to deliver Full HD movies, music, and games directly to subscriber homes throughout North America.

“By unlocking existing FSS (Fixed Satellite Service) capacity, our service delivers Full HD (1080p) content to homes, independent of Internet or cable congestion,” said George Gonzalez, founder and CEO of XStreamHD. “Our advanced technology enables consumers to experience a new level of quality, convenience and service never before offered.”

This test of the XStreamHD unique transport system validates the ability of the network to deliver Full HD (1080p), Blu-ray quality video with up to 7.1 lossless channels of DTS Master Audio. The company will offer its customers unparalleled access to movies, HDTV, music and electronic games.

XStreamHD will be showcasing its unique transport system at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show January 8-11, 2009 in booth #21402 in South Hall 1.

About XStreamHD

XStreamHD is leading the HD revolution, setting a new standard for the delivery and distribution of Full HD entertainment throughout the home. XStreamHD provides the first-ever transport network to deliver high-definition movies and music directly to the home via satellite — offering Full HD (1080p) video and up to 7.1 channels of lossless audio. With XStreamHD, consumers can build a customized, unique, and unparalleled in-home entertainment network and enjoy the content they want most — including movies, music, electronic games, broadcast HDTV, and more — when it’s most convenient, anywhere in the home, and at the quality today’s home theaters were designed to support. XStreamHD is based in McLean, Virginia.

For more information, visit www.XStreamHD.com.

Source: XStreamHD

CONTACT: James Mahoney, Vice President of XStreamHD, +1-703-852-1343,
jmahoney@XStreamHD.com

Web site: http://www.xstreamhd.com/

The way WeaKnees does this is by using an external RAID1 drive enclosure. This replaces the internal drive in your system.. Basically things are re-cabled to use the external enclosure as the primary storage system instead of an internally mounted drive. They’re offering the external storage configured in 2x320GB, 2x500GB, 2x750GB, or 2x1TB capacities. Note that since the drives are mirrors and store the same data, two 1TB drives gives you 1TB of storage, not 2TB. You have the same 1TB stored redundantly on two drives.

WeaKnees is selling pre-upgraded TiVo HD DVRs and pre-upgraded DirecTV DVR Plus models. As well as upgrade kits for the TiVo HD, TiVo HD XL, and DirecTV DVR Plus models.

According to Nielsen Media research’s numbers, these are the five most time-shifted shows for the week of September 22-28.

Those are some pretty significant increases over the number of people who watched the episodes ‘live’. 28% of homes now have DVRs, up from 20% last fall. While new DVR users are reportedly not as fanatic about recording their programs, the sheer increase in numbers is having a growing impact on network programming. And the biggest impact is from viewers in their 30s, a prime audience. While the seven day numbers look good, networks still sell advertising based on lower three day ratings numbers. The industry needs to accept that DVRs are not only hear to stay, but rapidly consuming the market, and largely in the most valuable demographics, so advertising sales will need to adapt. It is really up to the networks to collectively take a stand and force change on the ad industry.

I found the report interesting reading just from the data on the numbers of actual product placements. I was surprised by just how many placements there are. For example, in the first half of 2008 American Idol alone had 4,636 product placements, followed by Biggest Loser with 4,364. Coca-Cola was the top brand, with 2,990 placements. The market was bombarded with 204,919 product placements in just the first half of 2008. So if you thought there were a lot of products slipped into your shows, you’re right.

Not surprisingly, reality programing has the most product placements as its easier to work products in than it is in a scripted show. But with the deluge of reality shows clogging up the airwaves, there may be too many programs to go around. Audiences can only take so much, and with more shows on the air advertisers may not get as much of a concentration of viewers.

Personally I abhor most reality shows and do everything I can not to watch them. I guess I few shows I watch, like Iron Chef America, technically fall into the category though. But even avoiding the big reality shows, I’ve noticed a growing amount of product placement. One of the shows I enjoyed last season, The Big Bang Theory, had a lot of product placement worked into the program. Characters made very obvious use of Dell laptops, and one character works at The Cheesecake Factory, as is mentioned repeatedly. This season of Eureka is partly sponsored by Degree antiperspirant, which includes fairly intrusive, annoying product placement in the program itself. It is so clumsily handled that it’d be better if the characters just stopped and pitched the product for 30 seconds. It is annoying enough to make me want to never use the product.

I wonder if the increasing ‘in your face’ aspect of product placements is a symptom of the same saturation effect. It reminds me very much of web-based advertising, and how ads became increasingly aggressive with pop-ups, pop-unders, sound, animation, etc. Desperately trying to attract consumers, while in reality it was increasingly driving them away. Unfortunately I don’t expect an ad-blocker for product placements any time soon.

Spotted through Silicon Valley Insider.

Of the 26 million DVRs in the U.S., only 1.7 million of them are from TiVo. I understand completely why so many people opt for a DVR from their cable company rather than purchasing one from TiVo. After all, it’s cheaper (about $15 per month, as opposed to spending $300 on an HD TiVo and $13 per month for the service) and it’s convenient. I just wish that all of those people didn’t have to settle for a DVR that can be too hard to use and simply not as good.

I won’t quibble over her pricing, there are less expensive options for TiVo hardware and subscriptions, but she’s right on about settling for a lesser product. TiVo is worth the cost because it is a better experience, that’s my opinion anyway.

Of course both Dave Zatz and myself left comments pointing out that you can use a TiVo Series3 or TiVo HD with Verizon FiOS, as they support CableCARD.

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.

Picked up from The Gagdetress.

Then Mark and Leslie introduce something that blows me away… The 722s. Its a 722 with Sling technology built in. Besides having Slingbox technology built in it also has Clip and sling which will let you send clips to friends. The 722s has a totally new interface, it has a guide with channel logos plus a totally new UHF remote, which features a touchpad and a trigger below it. This s a amazing unit. The front of the 722s also features al touch technology with no buttons and is backlit instead of using LCD’s. They are looking at having 1TB drive at launch, however 500 GB will be used by Dish and the DVR will come loaded with name HD movies preloaded on the drive. The 722s also has a built in browser (although Jackson said it will only go to certain sites and will be tightly integrated with Yahoo.)

But it is more than just a Slingbox with Clip+Sling – it is a SlingCatcher too!

Out comes Sling CEO Blake Kerkorian and he talks about the Slingbox and talks a little more about the 722s. The 722 will be able to do Clip & Sling and Slingcatcher, plus it will be able to run more applications as well.

So it is a Dish PVR, Slingbox, and SlingCatcher all in one. And from a follow-up post in that thread, it will be an HD Slingbox, like the upcoming Slingbox PRO-HD.

This isn’t really surprising in general, since EchoStar purchased Sling Media last year, but I think this is the first time we’ve heard of this as a real product and not just speculation. And being a SlingCatcher too wasn’t something I’d seen discussed before. The built in web browser is interesting, though it is a shame they have it restricted. (And I’d presume that only works for boxes connected to broadband, same with the Slingbox capability.)

That’s not all they talked about at the summit. The 700MHz spectrum Dish picked up at auction recently was mentioned, unsurprisingly, as a carrier for Dish Mobile. So you’ll be able to access Dish Network content in your car, on your boat, etc.

There are other new Dish STBs as well, the 222k and 722k lack OTA tuners, but a tuner module can be added. And apparently the module provides dual OTA tuners, instead of the single OTA tuner in today’s ViP722. And the tuner module also adds an RF modulator so you can distribute the output through the home over existing coaxial cable on channel 2 or 3. As well as some new two-way remotes, which apparently can store all of your DVR settings and resend them to a new box if you have to have your STB replaced.

Check out the thread at SatelliteGuys.us for all the details.

Disclaimer: I’m currently employed by Sling Media, which is owned by EchoStar.

So, what features are you looking forward to? What features are you jealous of? What do you really want out of your STB/DVR that no one is offering or announced?