Crave

(Credit: ChinaGrabber)

Somehow, I just cannot take the Spy Coke Can DVR seriously. No, it's not the misspelled "Classic" on the red can. Rather, I'm trying to imagine how people will react when they pick up the drink and try to pop it open.

The gizmo comes with 4GB of onboard memory, which is more than enough for the 640x480-pixel videos it can record. The bottom of the tin opens up to reveal a power switch, USB port, and record/save button. For $17 more, you get a remote control that toggles start and stop for movie capture. Too bad it doesn't come in matching Coke can design.

Among all the spy cameras we've featured on Crave, this one probably won't generate as much fizz, and yes, the pun's intended.

(Source: Crave Asia via Gizmodo)

HP's ultra-compact Pavilion is stuffed with home theater-friendly features.

(Credit: HP)

If you're in the market for a PC to serve as the hub of your home theater, look no further than the refurbished HP Pavilion Slimline S3750F. It's compact, loaded, and on sale at Buy.com for $479.99 shipped.

As many of you pointed out in last weekend's post about the Nero LiquidTV TiVo PC, Windows Media Center offers some pretty killer DVR features.

I agree 100 percent, which is why there's a PC much like this HP sitting in my family room, connected to my TV.

The S3750F features a quad-core AMD processor, 4GB of RAM, a 640GB hard drive, and a Blu-ray drive/LightScribe DVD burner.

It also comes with an AverMedia ATSC/NTSC TV tuner, which can pull in analog cable or over-the-air digital signals. My advice: add a couple extra tuners so you can record multiple shows from multiple sources simultaneously. (Thursday night is just a bear this year, isn't it?)

HP supplies a remote for couch-friendly operation and 802.11n Wi-Fi for wireless-friendly operation.

My one and only complaint with this system (apart from the 90-day warranty, which I consider minor) is that it comes with Vista Home Premium, not Windows 7. And because it's a refurb, it's not eligible for a free upgrade.

Still, I'm running Vista on my media-center PC, and it's been absolutely fine and dandy. In other words, an upgrade isn't essential, IMHO.

Shop around a bit and you'll see this system selling for at least $800 elsewhere, and as high as $1,000 at many stores (including Amazon). A desktop this loaded for $479 is a real deal.

This TiVo-in-a-box comes with everything you need for PC DVR goodness.

(Credit: Nero)

It's been awhile since I've sung the praises of TV tuners, which let you watch and record shows on your PC, TiVo-style. Well, now you can get more than just the style: Nero's LiquidTV TiVo PC brings the actual TiVo software to your system.

The retail package includes the software, a TiVo remote, a USB IR receiver, a one-year subscription to the service, and a high-end USB tuner.

Originally it sold for $199.99 (way too steep, IMHO), but right now you can get the LiquidTV TiVo PC for $69.99 shipped.

The TiVo software probably needs no introduction--it's nearly identical to what you'd find on a TiVo set-top box, complete with Season Pass and KidZone features (but without extras like music and photos).

The tuner is a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950Q, a top-rated model that, purchased separately, would cost you $99.

It can pull down over-the-air digital signals (a small antenna is included, but you might need something larger), QAM channels, or analog channels. The remote is the same one that comes with the TiVo HD.

I reviewed a LiquidTV about a year ago, and while I encountered a few setup wrinkles, overall it did a fine job duplicating the TiVo experience. My only real complaint is that after the first year, a TiVo subscription will cost you $99 annually. That's cheaper than set-top box rates, but still--ouch.

CNET hasn't covered the product, but check out Maximum PC's LiquidTV review. Verdict: "Our new favorite PVR software solution for the PC."

Thanks to reader "nkeith" for sharing this deal!

The availability of instant digital downloads from services like iTunes, Amazon, or Netflix has made it convenient for me watch TV shows on my time, without the commercials. Isn't it obvious? I choose when to watch a show and I save about 15 minutes worth of useless advertising.

(Credit: TV.com)

Similarly, one might use a DVR to record shows and watch them at a later time, with the liberty of fast-forwarding through ads. Although there are those who don't mind commercials, most would probably skip them. So it's not surprising that TiVo reported "nearly all of the television shows that won 2009 Emmys showed higher levels of ad-skipping than the averages for their respective genres." The one exception: "30 Rock."

NBC broadcasts commercials during "30 Rock" that have tactfully cast its very own Tina Fey, resulting in a fluid show-to-commercial transition. I've seen Bravo use a similar strategy, placing a micro clip of the show in between commercials, forcing me to sit through ads while I wait to see NeNe and Kim in another wig-pulling, stiletto chucking cat fight ("The Real Housewives" is my guilty pleasure).

This report seems silly--would anyone sit through commercials if they didn't have to? Some ads are just nonsense (one more Ped-Egg commercial and I might throw up). Even when I watch live TV, I switch to mute, or load Facebook and Twitter to kill time. Nielsen has confirmed that others share my habit, as it found that a fair amount of people are watching TV and surfing the Net simultaneously.

TiVo's report isn't a shock to me, and perhaps networks and advertisers will take it as a hint: it's time to consider new marketing techniques. Better yet, get rid of commercials altogether!

Until then, those of you who watch live television and would like to skip through commercials might want to check out GeekSugar's "How to: Skip ads with a standard remote control."

As a Time Warner Cable customer, I've experienced rather annoying issues with the Scientific Atlanta 8300HDC digital video recorder (DVR). I've been forced to replace it on several occasions. Other times, it would simply stop working, requiring me to unplug it from the wall to reboot.

It had become such a problem that I finally decided I'd had enough last week and that I'd ditch Time Warner Cable's HD DVR for a TiVo HD. For $239.99 at Best Buy (the company was offering it on sale--the TiVo HD usually retails for $299.99), it was a great deal. I also paid $129 to get one full year of TiVo service.

My new toy.

(Credit: TiVo)

With the TiVo HD in hand last Monday, I was ready to enjoy my new toy. I contacted Time Warner Cable to get all the details I needed to get set up.

Training anyone?
When I called Time Warner Cable last Monday, I was extremely displeased by the company's customer service. No one quite understood what I was talking about when I told them that I wanted to switch from my HD DVR to the TiVo HD. I asked them what the set-up process was. I wanted to know if I lost any channels.

After waiting for about five minutes for the customer-service representative to find information on the TiVo ("Sorry, we don't get many of these requests," she told me), she finally read to me, verbatim, what it said on her sheet.

According to the technician, I would need to have a multichannel CableCARD installed to get my programming. Unfortunately, I would lose several channels even with the CableCARD. I was told by the agent that I would need a Switched Digital Video adapter in addition to the CableCARD to retrieve those channels. An SDV adapter is basically a black set-top box that connects to the TiVo HD, allowing you to watch switched digital video channels. It's a fancy term for saying that Time Warner Cable is trying to save bandwidth.

Somewhat satisfied by the information, I told the agent that I wanted to schedule an appointment for a Time Warner Cable technician to come to my house and install both the CableCARD (you're not allowed to install it yourself) and the SDV adapter. No luck. The agent told me that I would first need to go to the Time Warner Cable Web site and fill out an online form. Upon doing so, I was put in line to receive an SDV adapter.

The TiVo: close, but no cigar.

(Credit: TiVo)

Roku announced this week that it signed on with Major League Baseball to deliver MLB.tv Premium to its set-top box. It's the first live content that the device, which is best known for its Netflix streaming, will offer.

But like many other set-top boxes on the market, the services the Roku box offers aren't unique to that device. Netflix streaming is available on a large and growing number of devices, including TiVo DVRs, the Xbox 360, and all newer LG and Samsung Blu-ray players and home theater systems. In addition to the Roku, MLB programming is available on the PC, through Boxee, and through various cable and satellite TV packages.

Indeed, many TVs, Blu-ray players, DVRs, and home theater systems now have a baseline configuration that makes it relatively easy to add streaming services via postpurchase firmware upgrades. At this point, adding content seems almost as simple as calling the content provider and having lawyers work up an agreement between the parties.

The problem is, those partners are not necessarily working together. The hardware providers want those streaming or download services to be exclusive to their boxes. The content providers want their entertainment to be made available on as many devices (STBs or otherwise) as possible. Those very different goals are causing set-top boxes to provide most, but not all, the services that consumers want.

The Moxi DVR and its new extender (right), the Moxi Mate.

(Credit: Digeo)

When we last heard from Digeo in April, the company was adding several digital media extras to its flagship Moxi DVR. Flash forward to August, and the company is back with more updates, the biggest of which is a new hardware announcement. The Moxi Mate is an "extender" that adds multiroom capability to any household with a Moxi DVR. The box is basically a thin client (no hard drive) that can access recorded content from the main Moxi, as well as all of the system's online and home networking digital extensions (Rhapsody, PC-based media streaming, PlayOn content such as Netflix and Hulu, and so forth).

Sounds great, but there are some caveats that prospective buyers should know. Most importantly: the Moxi Mate can't currently support the streaming of live TV--only programs that you've previously recorded on the main Moxi DVR. And while you could theoretically have several Moxi Mates in a household, Digeo currently supports only one of them streaming from the main Moxi at a time. (Of course, all of these issues could possibly be addressed in future firmware updates--but those are the product's initial notable limitations.) The other big deal: the Mate doesn't have a built-in Wi-Fi connection, so you'll need to supply an Ethernet network connection.

On the plus side: the video streaming is said to be nearly instantaneous, unlike TiVo's multiroom solution, which requires the video files to be copied to the hard drive in another room first prior to viewing. Also, the Moxi Mate will automatically resume paused programs. So, if you watch half of a movie on the main Moxi, you can retire to the bedroom and easily pick up where you left off on the Moxi Mate.

In addition to the Moxi Mate announcement, Digeo also rolled out new software to existing Moxi DVR owners that adds a variety of small upgrades. Among them:

We spend all episode answering your questions, from how to pick an iPhone, to how to blog on the go.

A federal court has awarded TiVo $103 million plus interest in its long-running patent dispute with EchoStar Communications and ordered EchoStar to disable infringing features found on its subscribers' digital video recorders.

U.S. District Judge David Folsom on Tuesday also found EchoStar, which is now part of Dish Network, in contempt of court for violating a permanent injunction by reprogramming millions of DVRs with a new "workaround."

"The harm caused to TiVo by EchoStar's contempt is substantial," Folsom wrote. "EchoStar has gained millions of customers since this court's injunction was issued, customers that are now potentially unreachable by TiVo."

Englewood, Colo.-based Dish, which has roughly 13.6 million subscribers, said in a statement it would appeal the contempt ruling and file a motion to stay an order that requires it to disable the disputed DVR features within 30 days.

"Our engineers spent close to a year designing around TiVo's patent and removed the very features that TiVo said infringed at trial," the company said. "Existing Dish Network customers with DVRs are not immediately impacted by these recent developments."

The Alviso, Calif.-based maker of set-top boxes applauded the decision.

"We are extremely gratified by the court's well reasoned and thorough decision, in which it rejected EchoStar's attempted workaround claim regarding the TiVo patent, found EchoStar to be in contempt of court, and ordered the permanent injunction fully enforced," TiVo said in a statement. "EchoStar may attempt to further delay this case but we are very pleased the court has made it clear that there are major ramifications for continued infringement."

In after-hours trading, shares of TiVo rose $2.53, or 36 percent, to $9.51, while shares of Dish fell $1.19, or 6.9 percent, to $16.05.

TiVo first sued EchoStar in 2004 for violating a patent on a "multimedia time-warping system," which involved recording a program on one channel while watching another.

A jury in 2006 found that Dish Network's DVRs infringed upon a patent held by TiVo and ordered it to pay TiVo $73.9 million in damages. A federal appeals court upheld the ruling in January 2008, as did a second U.S. appeals court in April 2008.