http://www.pvrwire.com PVR Wire http://www.pvrwire.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.pvrwire.com en-us Copyright 2008 Blogsmith, LLC. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/oms-gx300-the-4-995-vista-media-center-pc/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/oms-gx300-the-4-995-vista-media-center-pc/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/oms-gx300-the-4-995-vista-media-center-pc/#commentsFiled under: General, HDTV, News, Media Center Edition, Reviews

Check out the Vista-ready OMS-GX300 Media Center from Okoro Media Systems. This beast of a media center will set you back $4,995 but includes some mouth watering specs:

• A silver and sleek SilverStone LC18 case which comes with a little 7" Touch Screen display featuring a 15:9 wide display with HDTV transcoder for 720p
• Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 quad-core processor
• 2GB of Crucial's Ballistix memory
• Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card
• 1TB of hard drive space (2x 500GB) - can be upgraded to 2TB.
• 16x Dual-Layer +-RW DVD Writer
• Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX PCIE 768MB HDTV & HDCP
• Saber 2020 TV Tuners with hardware MPEG-2 encoder.
• PCI Over-The-Air HDTV Tuner
• Optional USB HDTV Tuner
• Microsoft Media Center Remote Control w/ IR Blaster
• Snapstream Firefly Remote Control

You may be thinking this is a little over the top for a Media Center PC unless you want to do gaming. But as CrunchGear points out, a great feature of Vista is that it works seamlessly with the Xbox 360 controller making living room gaming from the couch much more appealing.

Full OMS-GX300 specs and features here.

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]]>mceOkoroOMS-GX300vistaChris Tew2007-01-31T09:16:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/tivx-5010-p-hd-tv-recorder-odd-shaped-diskless-media-streamin/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/tivx-5010-p-hd-tv-recorder-odd-shaped-diskless-media-streamin/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/tivx-5010-p-hd-tv-recorder-odd-shaped-diskless-media-streamin/#commentsFiled under: General, HDTV, News, Reviews, Home Networking, Streaming

The new TiVX 5010-P HD TV recorder is one unique and sleek PVR from DViCO. To start off this futuristic grey cylinder does not contain an internal hard drive but requires you to add your own external one via a USB port.

I actually quite like the option of being able to add my own external hard drives as it makes for easy upgrades. But wait there's more; this HD TV recorder is more than just a weird looking PVR, it's also a media extender.

It can record videos in 1920 x 1080 resolution and stream files to and from a PC in a variety of video formats including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, (VOB, ISO and IFO), AVI, TP, WMV9. It can also send pictures and movies around the house too.

Other features include:

• An Electronic Program Guide to use on your TV
• ATSC hi-def television tuner
• DVI, component, S-Video and composite video outs
• 2x USB 2.0 ports for adding external disk drives
• A third USB port for other storage devices (e.g digital camera, MP3 player)
• fixed 10/100Mbps Ethernet or 802.11b/g WiFi
  

It is currently being launched in Korea and will cost $352. There is no word on releases in other territories, but hopefully there will be.

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]]>DViCOHD TVHdTvTiVX 5010-PTivx5010-pChris Tew2007-01-31T08:08:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/oqo-and-a-usb-tuner-a-portable-hd-digital-video-recorder/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/oqo-and-a-usb-tuner-a-portable-hd-digital-video-recorder/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/oqo-and-a-usb-tuner-a-portable-hd-digital-video-recorder/#commentsFiled under: HDTV, News, Microsoft, Media Center Edition, Mobile

OQO, a company that specializes in ultra-mobile personal computing, announced the Model 02 at this year's Consumer Electronics Show.

The Model 02 is an extremely powerful portable mini PC that has the ability to run Windows Vista Ultimate. Kevin Groppe of FloppyHead pointed out that if it can run Windows Vista Ultimate (which comes with MCE) it must therefore be a mini Media Center PC.

Further more the Model 02 comes with USB support so could get hooked up with a USB Digital Tuner turning the Model 02 into a portable mini PVR. Also the Model 02 has a HDMI output so could be hooked up to any HD TV.

Whether this little PC could stand up to the heavy requirements of PVR recording and playing HD content is yet to be seen. But it would damn cool if it could!

[Via Digg]

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]]>floppyheadhdmceminimodel 02Model02oqopcportableusbvistaChris Tew2007-01-30T16:57:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/sti7200-world-s-first-dual-hdtv-decoder-chip/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/sti7200-world-s-first-dual-hdtv-decoder-chip/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/sti7200-world-s-first-dual-hdtv-decoder-chip/#commentsFiled under: General, HDTV, News

STMicroelectronics has announced its Dual HD Chip, the STi7200. This is the worlds first Dual HDTV Decoder Chip to be manufactured in 65nm Technology which means it can offer lower power consumption and competitive pricing.

The STi7200 chip supports HD inputs from HD DVD and Blu-ray formats, as well as high-definition satellite and cable TV standards. The chip is designed to be used in set top boxes, PVRs, and DVD electronics.

It will basically allow you to watch HD material on two TV sets, one channel in high definition and the other downscaled on-chip to standard definition. This means you can have a single HD PVR for two TVs.

The STi7200 Dual HD chip will be available to consumer electronics manufacturers and priced at $30 in high volume.

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]]>hdSTi7200STMicroelectronicsChris Tew2007-01-30T10:20:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/26/mac-hd-dvr-on-usb-miglia-tvmini-hd/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/26/mac-hd-dvr-on-usb-miglia-tvmini-hd/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/26/mac-hd-dvr-on-usb-miglia-tvmini-hd/#commentsFiled under: HDTV, News, Apple

The Miglia TVMini HD+ is the successor to the Miglia TVMini HD offering 10-bit video and stereo sound and the ability to tune into unencrypted digital cable, analog cable and over-the-air signals. As the name suggest it also supports HDTV.

The Miglia TVMini is of course designed for the Mac and connects via a USB 2.0 port. It will be shipped with the EyeTV 2 PVR software and remote control so you can expect full PVR features.

It is available to preorder now for $218.

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]]>hdmacmigliatv tunerTvTunerChris Tew2007-01-26T16:33:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/25/time-warner-out-of-hd-pvrs/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/25/time-warner-out-of-hd-pvrs/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/25/time-warner-out-of-hd-pvrs/#commentsFiled under: General, Cable TV, HDTV, News

According to a NewsChannel 9 story posted yesterday Time Warner is out of HD PVR boxes for its customers due to an overwhelming number of requests, according to the company. Well either that or Time Warner just didn't organise getting enough of them.

Time Warner has stated that new boxes will arrive within two or three weeks. In the meantime Time Warner subscribers can pick up regular HD set top boxes, get on a waiting list for the HD PVR, and get one as soon as it's available.

[Via All PVR]

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]]>hdpvrtime warnerTimeWarnerChris Tew2007-01-25T13:09:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/25/compro-u2700-hybrid-hdtv-tuner-gets-vista-certified/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/25/compro-u2700-hybrid-hdtv-tuner-gets-vista-certified/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/25/compro-u2700-hybrid-hdtv-tuner-gets-vista-certified/#commentsFiled under: General, HDTV, News

You may not have heard of Compro, a company that creates PC graphics and multimedia products, but you might be interested in its new HDTV USB Tuner.

The U2700 hybrid DVB-T tuner brings OTA (Over the Air) High Definition and Standard Definition channels reception to your TV (NTSC/SECAM/PAL) and features full PVR functionality including time shifting and scheduling capabilities.

It connects via USB 2.0 and has the odd ability to let you watch five digital 1080i streams at once, providing four of those are already recorded and you have a beefy 3GHz processor. Not quite sure why you'd want to do this, but it's there if you need it.

The PVR interface is from the ComproDTV 3 / Ulead software and works with the included IR remote. The device is also Windows Vista certified which is always handy.

No details on price or when the U2700 tuner will launch. More specs are on the Compro website.

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]]>comprohdtvtuneru2700usbChris Tew2007-01-25T10:08:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/24/record-tv-from-your-cable-box-to-your-pc-even-in-hd/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/24/record-tv-from-your-cable-box-to-your-pc-even-in-hd/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/24/record-tv-from-your-cable-box-to-your-pc-even-in-hd/#commentsFiled under: Cable TV, Hacks, HDTV, Tips, DIY

If you want to record television shows directly onto your PC from cable it is possible for a number of channels. The FCC requires that all cable boxes have a firewire port allowing you to connect your PC and Cable Box together.

Unfortunately it's not as simple as connecting your PC and Cable Box with a firewire cable (pictured right) and starting to record. You'll need to install various software and drivers first.

Also it is unlikely that you will be able to record any premium channels as they will be encrypted. All regular broadcast channels must however be open, if they are not get on the phone to your cable operator and tell them to sort it out.

Uber Lounge has the full steps for recording cable TV in both SD and HD to your PC.

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]]>cablehdtvpcrecordChris Tew2007-01-24T13:22:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/23/hava-gold-hd-entry-level-high-definition-slingbox-competitor-rel/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/23/hava-gold-hd-entry-level-high-definition-slingbox-competitor-rel/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/23/hava-gold-hd-entry-level-high-definition-slingbox-competitor-rel/#commentsFiled under: General, HDTV, News, Software, Home Networking, Streaming

The HAVA Gold HD has been launched today at the highly respectable price of $129. For this small price you can turn a regular Windows PC into a PVR and also stream MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video to multiple PCs on your home network, and also over the internet, just like a Slingbox.

Additionally when used with Windows Media Center (both XP and the soon to be released Vista MCE) it opens up the option of using the HAVA Gold as a TV Tuner appearing on the PC as an installed TV Tuner card.

The HAVA Gold HD will connect to any TV source such as Cable, Satellite, DVD, TiVo or a Camcorder allowing you to spread your TV to any PC over your home network or the internet.

Unlike the higher end HAVA Wireless HD model it does not come with built-in wireless features and fewer I/O options.

I have to say as an entry level Slingbox device I like the specs and I like the price.

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]]>gldhavehdslingboxChris Tew2007-01-23T22:09:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/18/pimped-out-john-the-ultimate-entertainment-center-for-your-pott/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/18/pimped-out-john-the-ultimate-entertainment-center-for-your-pott/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/18/pimped-out-john-the-ultimate-entertainment-center-for-your-pott/#commentsFiled under: HDTV, News, DVD

If you'd rather watch TV in the bathroom than read the paper, you might as well go all out, right?

Roto Rooter is sponsoring a contest for a "Pimped out John." The winner will get a flat screen HDTV, laptop computer, an iPod with a dock, a TiVo, an Xbox 360, and a DVD player, portable fridge, and other components to make sure you never have to leave your favorite room in the house. Oh yeah, and there's a Kohler toilet thrown in for good measure.

The contest begins January 24th, it's not clear at this point what you have to do to win, but Roto Rooter is encouraging people to sign up for the company's newsletter "to be reminded when the sweepstakes begins."

[via CE Pro]

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]]>pimppimp my toiletpimped out johnPimpedOutJohnPimpMyToiletroto rooterRotoRooterBrad Linder2007-01-18T07:43:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/16/sony-s-vaio-vgx-tp1dt-htpc-sleek-and-compact/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/16/sony-s-vaio-vgx-tp1dt-htpc-sleek-and-compact/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/16/sony-s-vaio-vgx-tp1dt-htpc-sleek-and-compact/#commentsFiled under: HDTV, News, Sony

With the highly anticipated Apple TV being a bit of a let down, there is still plenty of room left in the PVR market for a nice sleek looking device. And although I am far from a Sony fanboy, I do have to say that their VAIO VGX-TP1DT does look pretty damn nice.

The unit is made up of what can only be described as cylinders - the top unit is the actual PC while the bottom unit is the digital tuner. It's an interesting concept, especially if Sony decides to start releasing peripherals in the same form factor (maybe something like external hard drives or a Blu-ray drive).

The VAIO VGX-TP1DT can stream hi-def broadcasts over Ethernet or WiFi for both viewing and recording at up to 1080i. As far as specs go, the PC runs Windows Vista Home Premium with a 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo and sports 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, a DVD drive and a terrestrial tuner. It also has HDMI, analog RGB and optical digital outputs.

The system is expected to go on sale in Japan at some point soon for about $1661 USD. Although it is quite a bit more expensive than the Apple TV, it is still sleek looking and it can be used to record TV out of the box.

Via Engadget

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]]>hdtvpvrsonyMatt Crape2007-01-16T09:52:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/16/joost-the-new-name-for-the-venice-project/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/16/joost-the-new-name-for-the-venice-project/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/16/joost-the-new-name-for-the-venice-project/#commentsFiled under: HDTV, News, Software, Streaming, IPTV

News broke late yesterday and I have just received an email from The Venice Project team that it has now been renamed to the much more catchy name: Joost. Here's what the email from Fredrik de Wahl of Joost said:

"While we're still in beta, we hope that Joost will become synonymous with the best of TV and the best of the Web.

We're working on putting more content on the platform and creating more and more applications and functionality. For those of you who've already been on the client, you can expect to see some of these updates in the 0.8 release - which is not far away at all.

Now that we're Joost, we're going to be sending out many more beta invitations. I know some of you have been waiting quite some time for your invitation and I appreciate your patience. We've been somewhat conservative about expanding our beta - but that's going to change pretty rapidly now. So please keep a lookout for your invitation if you haven't gotten one already. And when you do receive it - please tell us what you think."

Along with the launch of the new name has come the brand new Joost website.

Looking at the screenshots of Joost in action its easy to see how it could be ported over to a PVR or set top box to bring high quality internet TV into the living room.

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]]>Chris Tew2007-01-16T03:14:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/15/recording-cable-hd-tv-on-a-mac/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/15/recording-cable-hd-tv-on-a-mac/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/15/recording-cable-hd-tv-on-a-mac/#commentsFiled under: Hacks, HDTV, Apple

Had you been holding out hope that Apple would include PVR functions in the AppleTV? Well it turns out, you don't need no stinking AppleTV to transfer (some) HD content straight from your cable box to your Mac.

The whole setup is a bit clunky, as you have to hook up your cable box to your Mac using a firewire cord, assuming your cable box has a firewire port. And then once you capture the content on your Mac, it turns out that many programs will be unviewable, due to encryption.

That said, if you've got some free time on your hands and want to see how many of your cable channels are unencrypted, have at it. Motivated has a complete set of instructions, or if you want to be lazy, you can check out iRecord, which does most of the work for you.

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]]>high definitionHighDefinitionirecordmacBrad Linder2007-01-15T15:15:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/15/first-hd-dvd-rips-starting-to-show-up-online/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/15/first-hd-dvd-rips-starting-to-show-up-online/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/15/first-hd-dvd-rips-starting-to-show-up-online/#commentsFiled under: Hacks, HDTV, News

You know all that controversy over whether BackupHDDVD actually did anything, like you know, rip encrypted HD DVD movies? Well, it looks like it works, because at least one HD DVD rip appears to have shown up on BitTorrent trackers.

The HD DVD version of Serenity is apparently a 19.6GB file in EVO format, that can be played using programs like PowerDVD and WinDVD with HD DVD playback.

Of course, at 19.6GB, it will take a pretty long time to download this movie on most internet connections. It would probably be worth spending the $20 to pick this title up on Amazon.

I'm actually much more impressed that the appearance of Serenity online would seem to indicate that the HD DVD encryption scheme actually has been cracked, and users who want to make backups of videos they've purchased for home use may be able to use software to do so.

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]]>backuphddvdhd dvdHdDvdserenityBrad Linder2007-01-15T12:08:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/15/hd-dvds-cracked/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/15/hd-dvds-cracked/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/15/hd-dvds-cracked/#commentsFiled under: Hacks, HDTV, News, DVD

Earlier this month I reported that HD DVDs had been sort of cracked. By "sort of cracked" I mean you could backup/copy a HD DVD providing you had access to the hard-coded "Volume Unique Keys", but how you would get hold of these keys was pretty much unknown.

However, now members of the Doom9 forum have tracked down the elusive key in memory and have already started leaking keys for a few HD titles including Serenity, King Kong and 12 Monkeys.

The cracking battle is not over yet due to a little part of the HD DVD protection system called Key Revocation. Key revocation procedures ensure that devices manufactured by any vendors who violate the license agreement could be relatively easily blocked from receiving HD data.

At this point it's not very clear what this will mean in reality and how it will effect HD DVD players and their users, some playback issues with the ripped HD movies have already been reported.

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]]>backupcopycrackhd dvdHdDvdprotectionChris Tew2007-01-15T05:54:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/14/apple-tv-a-load-of-hype-for-nothing/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/14/apple-tv-a-load-of-hype-for-nothing/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/14/apple-tv-a-load-of-hype-for-nothing/#commentsFiled under: General, HDTV, News, Apple, Reviews, Home Networking, Downloads, Streaming, IPTV

There was a lot of hype that the codenamed Apple iTV (now named the Apple TV) would revolutionize the TV industry and make Apple a mainstream competitor in living room entertainment.

What came out of Macworld was not the impressive revolutionary device that was expected. Rather all that came out was an inferior media extender that allowed you to watch iTunes videos on your TV.

If all Apple set out to do was let you watch iTunes video on your TV then it has succeeded in doing that, but that's neither revolutionary nor impressive, but it will keep the hardcore Apple fans happy.

The Specs and features:

• HDMI, USB, Ethernet
• 40 GB Hard Disk
• 802.11 b, g, n wireless networking (AirPort)
• Works with Apple Remote
• 720p HD (H.264 Playback)
• No video/audio cable included
• Supported video codecs
  o H.264
  + Baseline profile LC (640x480x30 p)
  + Baseline profile (320x240x30 p)
  + Main profile (1280x720x24 p)
  o MPEG-4 simple profile (640x480x30 p)
  o does not support DivX, XviD or WMV.
• Supported audio codecs: AAC (16-320 kbps), MP3 (16-320 kbps VBR), Apple Lossless, AIFF and WAV
• Supported image formats: JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF and PNG
• Auto-sync content from your PC
• Stream content (wirelessly) from up to 5 computers
• Take's 10 most recent unwatched movies and automatically stream in the background to Apple TV and be stored on the hard drive.
• Theatrical trailers streaming from Apple.com
• Costs $299 - will be released in February

Other media extenders are much better

Take a look at the NetGear EVA700 to see what a decent media extender can do. Many existing Apple TV alternatives already out-compete the Apple TV in functionality.

That's not even mentioning the new media extenders in the pipeline including the NetGear EVA800, the Xbox 360 IPTV and the MediaGate media extenders.

What's the deal with the hard drive?

It appears that Apple will sync your iTunes playlists with the Apple TV hard drive much like it does with your iPod. I guess the reason for streaming from the Apple TV rather than directly from a PC/Mac is because it means you can still watch the videos if your TV/Mac is off. This is one feature which I think Apple has got right.

PVR Functionality

Many people beleived that because the Apple TV had a hard drive it would also have PVR functionality. It was even suggested that Apple would be partnering or acquiring TiVo.

I've said before that Apple would never partner with or aquire TiVo, nor would it include PVR functionality in the iTV, although with such a high demand for PVR functionality on the Apple TV I did begin to wonder. But despite a huge demand for PVR functionality on the Apple TV, Apple hasn't delivered it.

But Apple's mission has never been to give the consumer what they want unless it encourages them to buy from the iTunes store. That is unless Apple really had to implement something to keep customers happy, such as MP3 support on the iPod.

However, with EyeTV you can get some form of PVR functionality in the respect you can watch TV recordings from your Mac on your TV, but that's about as far as it goes.

What can I do with the Apple TV?

• Do all of my videos have to be played from iTunes on my PC Mac?

Yes, the Apple TV syncs up with your iTunes playlist much like with your iPod.

• Am I restricted to the video formats that I can watch?

Yes, the Apple TV is very restricted only supporting .264 and MPEG-4. It does not support Xvid, DivX or WMV. In my opinion this is extremely restrictive meaning you'll need to do a lot of converting of video to watch everything through your Apple TV device.

The Xbox 360 is also is restricted to WMV but you can use something like TVersity to convert video on the fly. Maybe some similar third party app will be made for the Apple TV.

• Am I restricted to watching stuff downloaded from iTunes, or can I watch any videos I've downloaded?

Really the Apple TV is designed for letting you watch video that you have downloaded from the iTunes store. You can add other plain Quicktime movies into your iTunes library though but this is still very limited.

You can use a third party program such as Movie2iTunes to add other video to your iTunes library, depending on the file format some of these videos could be played through the Apple TV.

• Can I rip DVDs (which I own) and watch them on it?

Yes you can provided you convert them to a format compatible with the Apple TV.

How easy is it to watch TV:

• According to the Apple TV website:
  1. Download movies, TV shows and more from iTunes.
  2. Sync wirelessly from your Mac or PC.
  3. Watch everything on your widescreen TV.
  

• Lets compare this to a TiVo
  1. Turn on TV and play recorded programs straight away
  

• Let's compare this to the Xbox 360 with the Xbox live video marketplace
  1. Download movie from Xbox Live marketplace
  2. Play on your TV
  

You can see from this that the Apple TV is the most complicated way to watch TV. Couldn't Apple have removed the need for a Mac or PC entirely and allowed the Apple TV to interact with iTunes directly? All this synching from PC/Mac to Apple TV is just an extra complication that will confuse the less techie mainstream consumer.

What other people say:

"For $100 more you could pick up an Xbox 360 with TV and Movie downloads direct to the console, no PC required. Oh yeah, you can do a bunch of other stuff too. The second issue I have is that Apple continues to lock us into their ecosystem - A model that has worked well for them with audio, but may not be as successful with video in the era of YouTube and DivX: The iTV has limited multimedia format support compared to products such as Netgear's new Digital Entertainer HD."
Dave Zatz

"This thing sucks, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a Media Center user. It just doesn't do much of anything that can't already be done with other products that have been out for years! Why cache on the HDD? Is your network not fast enough with 802.11n to get that done? No PVR functionality. Tops out at 720p.

Other than Mac support, I don't think this offers anything new. Sure, it's really the first device to play video purchased from iTunes, but that's about it."
Chris Lanier

To Sum Up

The Apple TV is not a great product, but if you desperately want to hook up the iTunes movie store and your Mac with your TV then the Apple TV is the way to go. But if you want a more universal solution then the Xbox 360 or one of the many Apple TV alternatives will serve you better.

But there is one reason why the Apple TV will at least be partially successful. Apple really knows how to market a product.

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]]>appleapple itvapple tvAppleItvAppleTvmedia extendersMediaExtendersxbox 360Xbox360Chris Tew2007-01-14T16:02:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/12/directv-not-looking-after-its-customers-directivo-problems-fau/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/12/directv-not-looking-after-its-customers-directivo-problems-fau/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/12/directv-not-looking-after-its-customers-directivo-problems-fau/#commentsFiled under: General, HDTV, News, Satellite TV, DirectTV, Home Networking

Despite some good news and announcements coming out of DirecTV CES camp this week including 100 new HD channels, the possibility of cheaper PVRs due to improved satellite receiver chips, and an interesting but confusing OnDemand service that could be a Slingbox idea or some pseudo IPTV VoD service, DirecTV is still getting a sharp stick in the belly over the issues with its PVRs and HD service.

Faulty HR20 HD PVRs

There's the ongoing issue of the faulty HR20 DirecTV Plus HD PVR which is reportedly plagued with problems. While not everyone is getting the problems a huge chunk of people are and DirecTV seem to be nothing about it.
Tom Starner of HDTV Magazine goes into detail about these HR20 issues (nice work Tom!) and the conclusion is "there's little doubt a significant number of subscribers will hit the boiling point (of course, some already have) if the HR20 isn't fixed real soon."

DirecTiVo users

Since DirecTV decided to use NDS to make its PVRs and dropped TiVo, many DirecTV subscribers really began to miss the more reliable and functional DirecTiVo.

TiVo was dropped because NewsCorp's Rupert Murdoch, who owned a substantial chunk of DirecTV, also had a stake in NDS so decided to let NDS manufacturer the DirecTV PVRs from then on. Now NewsCorp has traded its share of DirecTV to Liberty Media to regain 16.3% of its own shares.

But even DirecTV users are not left out of the DirecTV's bullets of bad customer service. A post over on TiVo Lovers explains how DirecTV has "deliberately crippled" the feature set on DirecTiVo units.

DirecTV has disabled features such as Music, Photos, HME, and online scheduling which normally work on regular TiVos and can be re-enabled on DirecTiVos through hacks.

HR20 Home Networking Issues

It doesn't stop there. The HR20 has a network port allowing you to connect it to your home network. However DirecTV has only recently enabled home networking for just Intel Viiv PCs, announcing it at this weeks CES. Unfortunately they are leaving everyone other PC owner out of the loop.

This is partly to do with the benefits of the Intel technology making DirecTV PVRs the first digital set-top box with integrated digital media adapter (DMA) functionality verified to work with Intel Viivtechnology. But I'm not sure why DirecTV felt it necessary to leave out every other PC user.

Inferior HD Quality - "HD Lite"

While DirecTV promises to increase its lineup of channels it is still receiving plenty of complaints about an inferior HD service which has been nicknamed HD Lite.

Ben Drawbaugh of our sister site EngadgetHD questioned Rômulo Pontual, the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of DirecTV, about the whole HD Lite issue (nice work Ben).

To sum up Rômulo Pontual denied that the DirecTV HD service was reduced and that when you compare screens side by side and look at the quality DirecTV HD is the same and denied that the lower bitrate and lower resolution of DirecTV HD was an issue.

This doesn't change the fact that many DirecTV HD subscribers feel that it is not true HD quality and that they can visually tell the difference, or the fact that DirecTV still has a pending court case from an unhappy subscriber over the issue.

To Sum Up

With all these issues I'm surprised DirecTV is continuing to increase its subscriber base. Maybe the company should focus a little less on advertising for new customers and make the ones it has now a lot happier. After all research shows it's a lot more expensive to gain a new customer, than keep an old one.

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]]>directivodirectvhdlitehr20hr20-700Chris Tew2007-01-12T12:03:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/12/cablecards-come-to-vista-with-lots-of-restrictions-and-drm/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/12/cablecards-come-to-vista-with-lots-of-restrictions-and-drm/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/12/cablecards-come-to-vista-with-lots-of-restrictions-and-drm/#commentsFiled under: Cable TV, HDTV, News, Microsoft, Media Center Edition

As expected CableCard support will be available on Windows Vista Media Centers when Microsoft releases Vista later this month bringing HD video recording to MCE. Unfortunately anything to do with CableCards is going to come with a nice selection of restrictions thanks to CableLabs.

Only certified manufacturers will be able to create media center PCs with CableCard support and any video that comes through the CableCard will be heavily protected and armed with DRM.

The video will be decrypted from cable and then re-encrypted in the tuner with Microsoft DRM. The video will then travel through a USB port to the media center, even if the Tuner is an internal PCI card.

All files stored on the hard drive will be encrypted and don't expect much copying or placeshifting to happen. No copying is permitted and while streaming media to Vista Media Extenders is allowed through a home network, copying media to a Zune or other portable media device is not permitted.

It looks like Vista media centers have it just as bad as the TiVo Series 3. Thanks CableLabs.

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]]>cablecardscablelabsdrmmcevistaChris Tew2007-01-12T07:25:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/10/new-s1-media-home-theatre-pcs/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/10/new-s1-media-home-theatre-pcs/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/10/new-s1-media-home-theatre-pcs/#commentsFiled under: General, HDTV, News, Media Center Edition

S1 Media has released its S1Digital Media Center Platinum Edition Home Theatre PC (HTPC) that features the new Intel Core 2 Duo chips which will cost $2999 and will be available in silver and black.

The main features include 2GB RAM, 320GB hard drive, DVD+DL drive, 1 x HDTV tuner and 1 x internal 802.11b/g WiFi, a memory card reader that reads 42 type of cards and of course PVR functionality.

You can upgrade to 1TB of storage for $369 and add in another HDTV tuner for $99 at the cost of losing WiFi connectivity.

S1 Media will also introduce 2 new Vista Media Center PCs: Firstly a high end Server Model with 3U rack mount media server with HD-DVD playback and multiple HDTV tuners and secondly the new S1Digital "FX Model" Media Center which is apparently absolutely silent and passively cooled, will include up to 1TB of storage and have optional HD-DVD and Blu-ray drives.

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]]>s1 digitals1 mediaS1DigitalS1MediaChris Tew2007-01-10T15:54:00+00:00http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/10/directv-ondemand-slingbox-service-for-directv-in-disguise/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/10/directv-ondemand-slingbox-service-for-directv-in-disguise/http://www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/10/directv-ondemand-slingbox-service-for-directv-in-disguise/#commentsFiled under: General, HDTV, News, DirectTV, Home Networking, Streaming

DirecTV has already announced a new line-up of 100 HD channels at CES this week and now it has jumped in with the announcement of its new Video-on-Demand (VOD) service which is cleverly called DirecTV OnDemand.

DirecTV said it will start beta-testing DirecTV OnDemand in the first quarter and hopefully release the service by the middle of this year. Vice president of entertainment at DirecTV, Eric Shanks, said that the new OnDemand service had been enabled by DirecTVs new HD PVRs, so will undoubtedly contain HD programming.

This does not sound like your regular video-on-demand service but is something a little different. The press release was a little fuzzy with the details of the service which talks about bringing DirecTV outside the home through home networking and presumably the internet.

Apparently a new program guide has been created for DirecTV OnDemand and the video can be accessed in a number of ways including via satellite or a broadband connection. All of this strongly hints at a Slingbox type service for DirecTV subscribers.

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]]>directvhdtvslingboxslingingstreamChris Tew2007-01-10T15:22:00+00:00