Now this is cool! Control electronic devices in your house from the comfort of your couch using a TiVo remote control. That means you can now annoy other family members by turning off their lights from the comfort of your couch!
Once you have Homeseer installed there seems to be no limit on what devices can be controlled. If its got a button, a setting, a switch or anything like that then its likely that you could control it from your TiVo.
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.
NDS is the company that is majority owned by NewsCorp and previously replaced TiVo to create the DirecTV PVRs. While these PVRs have not had the best of times, NDS has today announced some very innovative IPTV products.
The first is what NDS call the "Distributed DVR" which allows users to use hard drives from anywhere on a home network instead of being restricted to a hard drive on a single PVR. This itself is brilliant and will give users a lot more freedom when it comes to storing content.
The second is ShareTV where users can share content stored on their PVRS with other subscribers over a P2P network making the world's first Peer to Peer PVR (from what I'm aware of).
It sounds like the recordings will be protected by DRM and only available to other subscribers to the IPTV service, but it does sound like you will be able to download TV shows that you haven't even recorded.
This effectively allows you to get huge libraries of videos and TV shows, which you can then store anywhere on your home network. I very much like the sound of this.
I wonder if this will end up being rolled out as a DirecTV service given the close ties NDS has with DirecTV already.
A few days ago I posted a video of the Apple TV in action and you could see the menu on the TV set, and it did look pretty good and easy to use.
Now here is another video giving you a full tour of the AppleTV interface and once again I'm impressed and didn't expect anything less from Apple.
But I just can't understand why Apple hasn't allowed you to cut out the PC entirely on this one. Getting a new video or music involves going to the PC first and then downloading the video off the net through iTunes.
Why not just let you access iTunes directly through your TV and download the videos you want from there, and then synch everything you download back onto your PC for permanent storage.
I was a bit disappointed with the Apple TV to say the least but I have to say it was nice to see RocketBoom being shown on a full screen TV set via the Apple TV, although the Apple TV is of course one of the many products that can do this.
The video below shows the Apple TV in action and it looks and smells all Apple-ey. It's small, looks good next to your TV set, and has a friendly user interface that my girlfriend could even figure out.
It was of course expected that Apple would deliver a user friendly, fashionable device, but its just a shame the Apple TV is all about getting you to buy from the iTunes store, while also lacking many much needed features that can be found elsewhere.
I don't think Apple will be threatening TiVo and the Cable companies just yet.
Announced at the TiVo Community forum was a neat piece of Windows software called TiVo.net that allows you to use your TiVo as a media extender so you can play a variety of video formats from your PC.
A list of video formats and codecs that TiVo.net supports can be found here. The software works by converting the video on the fly to MPEG2 TiVo compatable video that can then whizz across your home network to your TV screen, via your TiVo.
TiVo.net is an open source project so others can get involved. It's early days for the software and if you experience any bugs it would be worth pointing them out to the developer.
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.
Not so long ago I expressed my views that the Apple TV was an extremely disappointing device which brought us nothing that we couldn't really do already using non-Apple alternatives and did not innovate in any way.
At the point of writing the article I felt pretty confident that the Apple TV is not going to have major penetration into the living room with only true Apple enthusiasts taking it on board.
The San Francisco Chronicle also supports this argument by raising the point that people's living rooms are already over-packed with consumer electronics and adding another one just isn't appealing not to mention the number of established companies that Apple is competing with here.
Its my personal belief that an Apple TV type product will only really hit mainstream when it becomes integrated into a PVR, or with a games console, like has already been done with the successful Xbox 360.
Want to run MythTV but don't have the energy to install Linux? I can't help you with that, but if you've already got a MythTV system up and running and you'd like to be able to watch recordings on your Windows machine, you're in luck.
MythTV Player is a PC-based program that lets you watch videos stored on your MythTV backend box. It's not a full frontend, but simply a way to access your recordings. There's support for MythTV bookmarks, skipping commercials, and you can delete recordings using the player.
MythTV versions 0.18 to 0.20.1 are currently supported.
Mark Cuban poses an interesting question: Why are companies like Apple and Microsoft working so hard to give you a way to move video from your PC to your TV screen? Why not just make the video available on your existing set top box or PVR?
Basically, he argues that cable or satellite services could transfer video feeds directly to your PVR and you could peruse video clips from content producers like CBS or from frat boys running around like idiots. No computer needed. Your PVR is already designed to let you easily sift through a large amount of video content to find what you're looking for, all from the comfort of your couch.
The problem is, you'll never be able to store the same quantity of video content on your PVR hard drive that you can access by visiting sites like YouTube. Nor, I suspect, would you want to. The beauty of internet video is that it's there waiting for you if you want it, and it's not taking up space that you'd rather use for other things, like say, choosing your own television programs to record.
While I agree with Cuban that you could easily access internet video with a PVR, I think the way to do that is to connect more PVRs to the internet. Throw a web browser on there. You can already access online video using PC-based personal video recorders like Windows Media Center (with Yougle), or SageTV (which can access Google Video). Why not add the same functionality to set top boxes, which are basically stripped down computers these days anyway.
Or you could always buy an Apple TV or Xbox 360 to stick next to your TiVo so that you can record shows to watch on one box, and flip a switch to use another box that will let you watch programs recorded on your third box, the PC in the other room. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
Good news if you're a user of the Linux-based commercial desktop operating system Linspire or Freespie; SageTV has released SageTV Media Center Version 6 all for you.
I've neve used SageTV myself, but I understand it's pretty nifty.
Get yourself along to the one-click download and installation location at www.linspire.com/sagetv if you want to get your hands on a copy right away for $99.95.
We've mentioned TiVoServer here before on PVR Wire, but we've never really gone into any great depth as to its functions, foibles and fun-filled features.
However, Dan Farber and Larry Dignan (also featuring David Berlind!) of ZDNet have taken a stab at this technology for your Mac, Linux box or PC which allows you to share TiVo content with other TiVos around your house.
Of course, there's a few issues over DRM (which can obviously be worked around), but this sort of open-source software could spell the beginning of the end of the locked-down tyrants behind iTunes (and TiVo), who don't really want you to do anything with your own content, except pay them to watch it.
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.
Still bummed that Steve Jobs didn't deign to throw a TV tuner and PVR software into the Apple TV? Well, Elgato wants you to know that you can still use their EyeTV products to make your Mac into a PVR.
According to Elgato's FAQ, EyeTV can export recordings in Apple TV-friendly formats like H.264 or MPEG-4, which it already does if you export shows to iTuens for transfer to an iPod. Now, the list of recordings in iTunes will be available to Apple TV. It looks like EyeTV's MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 recordings are not Apple TV-compatible, meaning you'll always need to do some file conversion before watching your videos, although the process can be automated.
EyeTV exports programs at 640 x 480 and 320 x 240 resolutions, but Elgato says it's looking into enabling 720p recordings, since the Apple TV will support HD.
So for the price of an Apple TV and an EyeTV tuner, you've got yourself a Mac-based PVR, as long as you don't need to watch TV live. Granted, you'd still have that PVR without the Apple TV, but now you can easily display your recordings on your television set in the living room, no matter where in the house your computer is.
Now this is cool! Control electronic devices in your house from the comfort of your couch using a TiVo remote control. That means you can now annoy other family members by turning off their lights from the comfort of your couch!
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. 
NDS is the company that is majority owned by NewsCorp and previously replaced TiVo to create the DirecTV PVRs. While these PVRs have not had the best of times, NDS has today announced some very innovative IPTV products.
I was a bit 
Mark Cuban
