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.
GameVideos has an excellent interview on video (see below) with the two Microsoft execs Chris Satchell and Albert Penello, talking about IPTV on the Xbox360.
The Xbox 360 IPTV service is not going to be something like getting YouTube videos on your PC but a service that is more familiar to the cable and satellite TV services that we have now.
Sarchell and Penello talk about downloadable movies, the Xbox 360's channel guide and even the use of the Xbox 360 as a PVR (gotta love that one!). Although not confirmed directly the interview hints that a larger hard drive will also be offered to cater for the PVR functionality.
A company going by the name of AHT International has an upcoming product called the Nuvio One which puts an interesting spin on the way we use IPTV. It won't ship with a hard drive, which means that you can only initially watch streaming content, but there is room for an internal SATA drive or an external USB drive.
Basically the Nuvio One is a set top box designed to stream video via the internet to your TV. What makes it interesting though is that aside from just downloading content to be streamed, it also uses the Tribler P2P network to get content which can also be accessed via your PC.
Between the IPTV channels and the P2P network, that makes a lot of content available. At the moment the set top boxes are not available, but you can download the current beta release and try it out on your PC.
The details of the planned set top boxes are a little spotty, but they will apparently have an embedded RISC CPU with integrated I/O and video decoder functions, 64 MB of RAM, 64MB video, video resolution of up to 1920x1080, and it will support HDMI, S/PDIF, Ethernet, and USB 2.0. For a more complete set of specs, you can check out the Nuvio One product page.
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.
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.
In Paul Thurrott's latest Windows Weekly podcast, he talks about a pre-CES briefing he had with some Microsoft bigwigs. And apparently they told him that Microsoft will indeed be updating the Xbox 360 by the end of the year, adding a larger hard drive, and some new hardware to take enable IPTV.
At CES, it was starting to look like Microsoft was going to add IPTV to existing Xobox 360 units without the need to upgrade any hardware. But that would essentially leave current users with a PVR that only has a 20GB hard drive. And that's just silly.
The big question is whether the IPTV functions will only work on new-model Xbox 360s, or if Microsoft will offer upgrades for existing users. I'm gonna bet on the latter, as Microsoft has already shown they're willing to sell add-ons, such as the external HD-DVD drive. [via EngadgetHD]
TiVo has announced it will be adding two more web TV channels/Vodcasts to its TiVoCast lineup available on Series 2 TiVo's (and hopefully the Series 3 soon too).
The two new channels that have been added are LX.tv and Golfspan, both of which use the Brightcove internet video system to deliver video on the internet. TiVo teamed up with Brightcove to offer web TV in May last year.
Brightcove actually has hundreds of TV channels using the Brightcove system so I wonder what makes LX.tv and Golfspan so special that they are included on TiVoCast. It would be interesting to know what gets a Brightcove Web TV channel onto TiVo.
The Engadget crew gets all the fun. Today, they've published detailed photo galleries and descriptions of their up-close experiences with some of the hottest new PVR and multimedia technology on display at CES.
Vista Media Center Extender
The Xbox 360 will likely be the only device capable of acting as a media extender for Vista at launch. But hey, plenty of people have Xbox 360s, right? Engadget's got a whole photo gallery showing off the media extender interface, and it looks like pretty much anything you can do on your media center PC you can do with the extender.
On this special CES edition of the PVR Wire Podcast we take a look at some of the highlights of CES, from the Xbox 360 new IPTV functions to TiVoToGo for Mac and the TiVo partnership with Comcast.
A few more details popped up on Engadget about the Microsoft Xbox 360 IPTV service early this morning over on Engadget. The Xbox 360 IPTV service will bring live streaming broadcasts, and allow you to play games while recording TV complimenting the Xbox Live video download service.
The new details state that the partner in the US will be AT&T which is rolling out its new fiber optic Project Lightspeed network which will cater for the high bandwidth of HDTV over an internet connection.
In fact there will be enough bandwidth for two simultaneous HD channels and so the Xbox TV service will require special QoS features that can handle IPTV traffic.
Due to the high bandwidth requirements its very likely we won't be seeing Xbox IPTV in too many places across the world and I think that the UK and most of Europe will be left out of this for some time.
Wavexpress unveiled a new version of TVTonic at CES earlier today which is designed to fully take advantage of Windows Vista. This new version can be accessed through the Online Media section of Windows Media Center, which means that using it just got easier.
Just to bring everyone up to speed, TVTonic is an application that can integrate into Windows Media Center to allow you to watch IPTV 'channels'. For more info, you can check out our MCE Spotlight post on it.
There are a few new and notable changes with this release, first of which is its integration into Windows Media Center via the Windows Media Center Presentation Layer, which means a nice sleek interface. Other notable features include integration with the Xbox 360, ability to play cached and streamed content, and support for HD feeds.
The best news about this new release is that this invaluable plugin is still free to users. If you are interested in trying it out, you can check out www.tvtonic.com.
The service will include live streaming broadcasts, and let play a game while recording a program in the background. Of course you'll get all the usual goodies like an on-screen program guide and the ability to pause, rewind, and fast forward through recordings.
There are no details yet on pricing and whether you'll need to install a larger hard drive on your Xbox 360 for the service to work, although I'd imagine that you'd really want more than 20GB.
Series3 TiVo in the living room for recording hi-def television programs, check. Slingbox for streaming those programs over the internet and viewing on a PC, Mac, or Windows mobile device, check. Way to stream your video to another TV? Until now, only if you've got that TV hooked up to a computer.
But Dave Zatz has uncovered a new device from Sling Media, the SlingCatcher. This will be the first box from Sling that lets you receive broadcasts, rather than record them. That means if you've got a Slingbox hooked up to your home entertainment center in the living room, you can pick up a remote control in the bedroom or your grandma's house, point it at the SlingCatcher, and tune in to programming from your home system.
In some ways, this is like having a whole-house PVR. In some ways, it's even better. Only got one cable box/satellite receiver from your television service provider? Now you can access the same channels in any room in the house that has a SlingCatcher.
There's also a plan to launch a client for your PC that will stream media from your computer to the TV, making the SlingCatcher the latest in a long line of potential Apple iTV competitors.
The new box is expect to hit shelves later this year for about $200.
According to Gizmodo the Mercury News has leaked plans on the Xbox 360 that should not have been released until the CES 2007 consumer electronics showcase next week.
It has already been previously announced that there will be new Xbox 360s that will feature a 120GB hard drive and HDMI ports. Obviously such a hard drive needs to get put to good use and the Xbox 360 will also be used as an IPTV PVR.
Microsoft already has solid experience in providing IPTV middleware and software, as well as launching the Xbox Live Marketplace to sell video download rentals successfully.
Now Microsoft can really pitch its tent in the living room with the Xbox 360 kicking ass as a central entertainment device that lets you play quality games, acts as a media extender, has video on demand, broadcast IPTV shows, and boasts PVR functionality.
I'm pretty sure everyone is not going to wake up on New Years day and start thinking why the hell do I pay nearly $100 a month for my Cable and TiVo and decide to cancel their subscription realizing they have also over spent this Christmas.
However, I do think that people may start to see that there is a lot of free television on the internet and even some paid services that could replace TiVo and Cable altogether. Given that internet TV is continuing to enter the living room the need for cable or TiVo is slowly beginning to dwindle.
Of course for all those HD fans the internet is not going to match up for some years and cable and TiVo will keep their pride of place in the living room. But those people that value saving quite a bit of money and believe you don't need high quality to enjoy TV may opt out of their TiVo and cable subscriptions.
Without even touching on the pirated TV available there is an increasing amount of legitimate free content. There are many web TV stations on the internet, lots of video clips on sites like YouTube, and even the prospect of more familiar on demand content through The Venice Project.
In fact it is the the early beta reviews that I have read on The Venice Project here and here that makes me think people will start dropping cable for free TV. If the Venice Project can maintain minimal advertising, and grow a decent database of content people won't need Cable and because the content is on-demand they won't need a PVR either.
Even if the Venice Project doesn't have your favorite shows you could probably download them for about $1.99 an episode from iTunes, Amazon Unbox or Cinema Now and be able to keep them to watch whenever you want.
I do however doubt that the hardcore TV junkies would be fully satisfied by what's available on the internet and could run up huge bills at the iTunes movie store, but for the more passive TV viewer the internet could be a very cost effective alternative to cable and TiVo.
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.
GameVideos
According to 
I'm pretty sure everyone is not going to wake up on New Years day and start thinking why the hell do I pay nearly $100 a month for my Cable and TiVo and decide to cancel their subscription realizing they have also over spent this Christmas.
