Great news from a press release I received today:
EL SEGUNDO and ALVISO, Calif., Sept. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
DIRECTV, Inc. (Nasdaq: DTV), the nation's leading satellite television service provider, and TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVR), announced today that they have extended their current agreement, which includes the development, marketing and distribution of a new HD DIRECTV DVR featuring the TiVo(R) service, as well as the extension of mutual intellectual property arrangements.
Under the terms of the non-exclusive arrangement, DIRECTV and TiVo will work together to develop a version of the TiVo(R) service for DIRECTV's broadband-enabled HD DVR platform. The product will support the latest TiVo and DIRECTV features and services, including TiVo's Universal Swivel Search and TiVo KidZone. TiVo will develop the new HD DVR for an expected launch in the second half of 2009.
I had a TiVo HD DVR (the Hughes HR10-250) that worked with DirecTV's original HD channel lineup, but when DirecTV adopted the new H.264 technology to provide more channels, the HR10-250 became effectively obsolete.
I've previously explained why I've been so disappointed with the replacement DirecTV HR21-700 DVR and, more generally, with the way DirecTV pushed this product on its customers without offering the superior alternative of a true TiVo DVR.
As I mentioned in my HR21-700 review, I suspect that one of the reasons that DirecTV's DVRs are somewhat feature-deficient compared with TiVo DVRs is that TiVo, as a pioneer in the development of DVR technology, owns... Read more
There's a good piece by Saul Hansell over on The New York Times' "Bits" blog.
Hansell describes how Comcast is being criticized for low picture quality on certain broadcasts. That's interesting, especially in light of the contention between Comcast and DirecTV on this very issue, but it isn't the most important point in Hansell's post.
Hansell goes on to give a reasonable explanation of the basic issues involved, and mentions the likely future of cable TV: digital video distributed over Internet-like network switches. Instead of always sending every TV channel to every house, a switched system sends only the data for the channels that are being watched. (While it's fair to say that the capacity of such a system has no arbitrary limits, it isn't "infinite" as Hansell said.)
But there is a big practical difference between a system with hundreds of channels and one with, at least potentially, millions. With switched video, every channel is "on demand"--and anything that customers demand can be made available. Imagine YouTube in true HD, for example. That's impossible today, but with switched video, it's merely expensive. :-)
I wrote about switched-video technology back in 2001 in my column for Electronic Business magazine, and honestly I thought this technology would be in use by now, at least in test markets.
Verizon's Fios service has most of the necessary characteristics, but even Fios carries video in pretty much the same way copper-based cable systems do, except using an optical carrier over fiber. (Wikipedia has a decent explanation here.)
Well, there's no hurry. We'll get there eventually.
- prev
- 1
- next
