PVR Wire

I've said here on PVR Wire plenty of times before that I genuinely believe the 'media center' PC (or even Mac, for that matter) will slowly become the dominant source for media content in homes around the globe as technology improves.

Now, Pacific Media Associates, a company which specialises in large-screen display markets, has released findings from its annual North American Reseller Survey which suggest that the number of HDTVs and front projectors connected to Media Center PCs could triple from over the period 2005 to 2007.

Based on information gathered from dealers in the professional and consumer markets, results also indicate that consumers are happy to spend more money on a 42-inch LCD HDTV than for a 42-inch plasma HDTV.

You can find out more about the study at the PMA website.

Now there's a bold statement -- and I'm willing to throw my hat into the ring and back it up; as a PVR owner, I undoubtedly watch less television than in the days before I owned one. This isn't a bad thing. On the contrary; I now watch less crap, which is good.

And new research has emerged to prove my point: Mediamark Research has demonstrated in a new study that adults in PVR-enabled homes watch less television than those without a PVR, and they are 23 per cent less likely to be heavy television viewers versus the general population.

The study looked at the media consumption habits of 26,000 adults, 2,912 of whom owned a PVR, with research conducted from March 2005 through May 2006.

There's a whole bunch of other interesting data in the study worth looking at, but it won't make for good reading if you're an executive in a big TV network.

Overwhelmingly, voters in our recent poll on whether they plan to buy a dual-tuner TiVo -- the Series 2 DT -- said they had no plans to purchase one. By 68 percent, they said they were either content with their current TiVo or other PVR or simply weren't interested in a dual-tuner TiVo. Some of you hedged your bets, with 19 percent saying they "maybe" would buy a Series 2 DT. Only 12 percent said they were planning to buy TiVo's latest model.

Does this mean TiVo has a bomb on its hands? Maybe. Or maybe not. It could just mean that dual-tuner units aren't that big of a deal to most users, despite hype to the contrary. Or it could mean many TiVo and other PVR users are waiting for the Series 3, which will provide a dual tuner while also allowing you to record HDTV programming (yes, we know that we should have seen this about a year ago, but not much can be done about that). In any case, you have spoken. We should learn in TiVo's next quarterly financial report whether the dual-tuner unit is a success or not.

Today's the day that TiVo officially releases its Series 2 DT dual-tuner unit. Now you can record two bad shows simultaneously, instead of just one. Ain't technology great? It also means that TiVo is somewhat matching technological features head-to-head with many satellite and cable TV companies, although the company still doesn't have a dual-tuner HDTV unit.

Anyway, we want to know whether you're going to buy one of these new 80- or 180-hour dual-tuner TiVo's. Maybe you have a tax refund check burning a giant hole in your britches and this would be just the thing to patch things up. Or maybe you're like me and can't manage your money. In either case, TiVo is happy to take your cash. So . . . are you going to purchase one or more dual-tuner units? Please answer below in our official poll doodad. Look for a follow-up post soon revealing the poll results.

Will you buy a dual-tuner TiVo?
	Yes
	No
	Maybe

If you live in Canada, you'll be interested in Digital Home Canada's recent comparison study of HD PVRs, which spans a whopping four pages and puts four major HD recorders under the microscope, covering everything from capacity, to picture quality, ease-of-use and prices.

Units covered include the Star Choice PVR 350, the Bell ExpressVu 9200HD, the Motorola 6412 and the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD.

The article includes feedback from home users, pros and cons for each unit and conclusions on PVR use in Canada.

Plus, there's a bunch of links to good web forum sites where you can bug other users with questions about the services on offer before you take the plunge.

We're no stranger to the old "PVRs are killing advertising" debate here at PVR Wire, but the more we read, the more convinced we are that the advertising industry is slowly making its way to the edge of a very big cliff, with some serious decisions to be made about where to go when confronted with the precipice.

Verizon, Colgate, and Johnson & Johnson were among the companies surveyed in a recent poll conducted by Forrester Research and the Association of National Advertisers, about 70% of whom believe that PVRs and video-on-demand services will "reduce or destroy" the effectiveness of traditional TV ads.

Advertisers really are being forced to think of new and innovative ways to compel viewers to pay attention, and not just as a result of PVRs (please note: we don't count single-frame KFC ads with coupon numbers embedded in them as "innovative").

Out of the 234 PVR Wire readers who responded to our poll on how they were going to watch the Super Bowl, most were planning to watch it live rather than rely on their PVRs to isolate them from the commercials. Nearly 40 percent said they would watch the big game live, followed by 27 percent who were planning to delay their viewing by minutes.

Only 7 percent said they would delay their viewing for another day. But not everyone was going to watch the game: 26 percent said they had no plans to watch the Super Bowl this year. It looks like the Super Bowl may be one of those rare events where the networks can count on live eyeballs and a PVR audience that keeps the fast-fastforwarding to a minimum. The only other program that may attract similar loyalty is the Oscars.

TiVo was watching you Sunday night. The folks at the PVR company know exactly what commercials you watched again and again, and which football plays had you hitting the replay button.

Two Ameriquest commercials were highest on the top 10 list. A controversial touchdown call in the second quarter got nearly as much replay and rewind activity as the most popular commercials, which all had one thing in common: They used laughter to grab eyeballs.

Here's the list of commercials that made the top 10 list this year:

    1. Ameriquest, Friendly Skies
    2. Ameriquest, That Killed Him
    3. Budweiser, Streaking Sheep
    4. Fed Ex, Caveman
    5 . Michelob, Touch Football
    6. Bud Light, Hidden Bud Lights
    7. Sierra Mist, Kathy Griffin
    8 . Bud Light, Bear Attack
    9. Aleve, Leonard Nimoy
   10. Bud Light, Revolving Wall

If you're a PVR owner, you have many options when it comes to watching the Super Bowl this Sunday. You can watch it live, watch it delayed by a few minutes to avoid the commercials, or you can record it on Sunday and watch it anytime in the future. I'm a junkie, so I'll be watching it live and recording it so I can watch some or all of it again.

Tip: Set your PVR to record an extra hour or so of the game in case it goes long. You don't want to miss the final minutes of the game!

What about you? How are you going to watch the Super Bowl? Vote in our latest poll, below, and let us know.

How do you plan to watch the Super Bowl?
	Live
	Delayed by minutes on my PVR.
	Delayed by day(s) on my PVR.
	I don't plan to watch the Super Bowl.

We conducted a poll a few weeks ago on TiVo's relatively new overlap protection feature, but then I forgot to report the results. So here they are: 62 percent of the 132 voters like the new feature. Riding the fence, 19 percent said the feature could use some work. Only 4 percent of voters don't like overlap protection.  In fact, there were more people who didn't know about the feature or didn't have an opinion than there were those who didn't like the new function. Could it be that TiVo users are actually happy about something that TiVo did?

I've been using what I think is TiVo's new feature, overlap protection, which lets you record two shows even if one goes into the next program's recording time. This occurs on the networks during prime time, I'm told, when a show will end at 8:33 p.m. or so and the next one begins at 8:34 p.m. Before, you had to forfeit the ability to record the first or second program; you couldn't record both. Now, the overlap protection lets you chop off a bit from one of the programs so you at least can see most of the abbreviated program. (I hope that all makes sense.)

I don't watch much network TV, so I haven't encountered this. But I have had situations lately where I'm able to record the first hour of one two-hour show and the entire hour of the next program. For example, one football preview show goes from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. When I try to record another preview show that starts at noon, TiVo asks if I want to clip the first program after the first hour and record the second program in its entirety. It works great. I'm assuming this is the new overlap protection feature in action, even though I don't see it called that anywhere on the screen.

Anyhow, we'd like to know what you think of this new feature. So we're running a poll (we love polls). You should see it below. Just select your choice and click "Vote." If you want to see the results so far, you can click "View." We'll report the findings as soon as we feel enough people have voted to make them reliable and/or interesting.

What do you think of TiVo's new overlap protection feature?
	I like it.
	It could use some work.
	I don't like it.
	I didn't know about the feature.
	I don't know.

Early this month, we ran a poll asking whether you thought investing in TiVo stock was a smart idea. The results were overwhelming: you don't think it's a good investment. Fifty-five percent said they'll pass on buying the PVR company's shares, while 33 percent said they do think TiVo is a good investment. We had a total of 189 votes, with 12 percent of them saying they didn't know whether buying TiVo stock is a good idea.

Only time will tell who is right. But without an HDTV-enabled PVR soon, those 55 percent might be the smartest ones on Wall Street.

 
Despite a recent network TV study, which showed that commercial skipping was toward the bottom of consumers' reasons for using a PVR, ad skipping is right up there with time shifting, according to a new study from WPP Group's Mindshare.

In the study, which asked 1,200 consumers about their media habits, about 90 percent that owned a PVR said they used their boxes for time shifting, while nearly 80 percent said commercial skipping was their favorite feature.

About 66 percent said they watched more live than recorded programming, while 8 percent said they only watch recorded programs. That last factoid is good news for advertisers, it seems, if we assume that not all of those folks are getting up from their TV sets during commercial breaks. It sounds like many PVR users are sitting there watching the commercials during live events, which makes sports and similar programming more important.

Via AdWeek.

TiVo reported on Tuesday that it lost $14.2 million in the last quarter and expects to lose another $17 million to $22 million in the current quarter. Yet it also has high hopes for marketing to individual TiVo users and partnering with cable TV companies and others.

Given this, we'd like to know if you think TiVo makes for a good stock investment. Please answer in our poll, below. We'll report the results next week.

 
PVRs pose no threat/a threat to advertising, article #5.

The Age: Shift in time no real threat to advertisers.

Yet another pilot study in the U.S. has poured water on the fiery issue of PVRs causing the downfall of television advertising, this time from research group Arbitron, making use of "portable people meters" - devices worn or carried by individuals that record encoded "timestamp" signals from radio and TV broadcasters when a program is broadcast.

According to the Arbitron research, ad-skipping is nothing more than a "niche trend".