http://www.www.pvrwire.com PVR Wire http://www.www.pvrwire.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.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.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/tivo-vs-echostar-continues/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/tivo-vs-echostar-continues/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/tivo-vs-echostar-continues/#commentsFiled under: News, Dish Network, TiVo, Lawsuit

You may be aware that TiVo sued Echostar over infringing patents relating to the technology behind its PVRs. TiVo won and the court ruled that TiVo would get $88 million in damages and also Echostar would have to stop selling and using infringing PVRs.

Bit it wasn't over and Echostar appealed and was awarded some breathing space for the time being and then later requested more time to get certain documents together. The case has now got progressively more complex but I've tried to make sense of it the best I can.

The U.S. District Court Judge Duffey is now getting very frustrated with Echostar for not getting these documents in on time. It's rare for a court to give a company an extended time for appeal and Echostar is really dragging its heals in the mud and as a result is rubbing the courts up the wrong way.

Judge Duffey has now ordered that Echostar must now get the documents together by February 15th.

If all this legal mumbo jumbo is leaving your head hurting let me just conclude that the outlook still looks good for TiVo and Echostar is in for a tough ride.

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]]>dishechostartivoChris Tew2007-01-31T16:21:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/a-dvr-in-a-motorcycle-helmet/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/a-dvr-in-a-motorcycle-helmet/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/a-dvr-in-a-motorcycle-helmet/#commentsFiled under: General, News

Whenever you think of a DVR you automatically think of a grey box sitting in your front room hooked up to your TV. But digital video recorders are aren't just restricted to the living room, for example those sturdy surveillance DVRs.

But according to All DVR News Fast Forward Video Inc, a company that specializes in DVR technology for broadcast, industrial video, presentation, and military applications, has announced its Outrider CF DVR.

This DVR fits into the helmet of a SuperCross racer and is used for used for on-body recording while fitted with a camera, and has been worn by Ryan Clark.

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]]>bikedvrmotorcycleChris Tew2007-01-31T14:30:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/series-3-prom-hack-not-for-the-non-techies/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/series-3-prom-hack-not-for-the-non-techies/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/series-3-prom-hack-not-for-the-non-techies/#commentsFiled under: Hacks, News, TiVo, DIY, TiVo Series 3

Engadget has discovered that the TiVo Series 3 has had the PROM chip hacked. If you're like me your probably thinking "what the hell is a PROM chip?"

Well PROM stands for Programmable Read Only Memory and the PROM chip is placed on the motherboard inside your TiVo and contains some pre-loaded basic intelligence. It is this intelligence that contains security to prevent your TiVo from being modified with third party software and hacks.

This PROM hack can be done in the following not-so-simple steps:

• De-solder the PROM chip from the TiVo motherboard
• If you haven't fried the chip continue...
• Extract the code from the Chip
• Edit the Hex
• Burn a new PROM
• Re-solder the new chip back to the motherboard
• Hope you haven't fried the chip

As you can see this is not exactly the easiest hack to do and it is only the first step. The next stage is developing individual hacks to alter the functionality of the TiVo, such as enabling TiVo2Go.

If you're technically minded enough and want to learn more then head over to the DealDatabase forums for more info.

[Via TiVo Lovers]

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]]>hackmotherboardpromtivoChris Tew2007-01-31T13:18:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/control-your-house-with-your-tivo-homeseer-tivo-hme-applicatio/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/control-your-house-with-your-tivo-homeseer-tivo-hme-applicatio/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/control-your-house-with-your-tivo-homeseer-tivo-hme-applicatio/#commentsFiled under: General, News, TiVo, DIY, Home Networking

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!

You may of heard of HomeSeer for Windows Media Center Edition which allowed you to control your house using a Media Center PC. Well the same thing has now arrived on TiVo making use of TiVo's HME development platform.

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.

[Via TiVo Lovers]

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]]>hmehomeseertivoChris Tew2007-01-31T12:18:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/tivo-taking-on-nielsen-with-new-ratings-statistics/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/tivo-taking-on-nielsen-with-new-ratings-statistics/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/tivo-taking-on-nielsen-with-new-ratings-statistics/#commentsFiled under: Advertising, News, TiVo

We already knew that TiVo was getting into the ratings business when it sold statistical data to Omnicom Media Group, and recently teamed up with IRI to offer even more advanced statistics on its customers viewing habits.

TiVo is now launching a service called StopWatch which offers data on the programming and viewing habits of TiVo customers, including that all important time shifted data. The time shifted data is what advertisers and TV networks are really concerned with at the moment.

TiVo has won one over on its leading ratings competitor Nielsen by offering second-by-second viewing data which Nielsen has refused to offer so far.

The advertising company Starcom is the first subscriber to TiVo's valuable data.

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]]>advertisingratingsstatisticsstopwatchtivoChris Tew2007-01-31T11:17:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/edit-recorded-tv-shows-in-vista-move-maker/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/edit-recorded-tv-shows-in-vista-move-maker/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/edit-recorded-tv-shows-in-vista-move-maker/#commentsFiled under: News, Software, Microsoft, Media Center Edition, DIY

Yesterday I mentioned Microsoft's propriety video format MS-DVR which is used for Windows Media Center recordings.

Previously you would need to convert the videos to a more standard format using something like DVRBox so you could edit them with ease. However Vista Movie Maker now comes with full support of MS-DVR files so editing out those adverts is now pretty easy.

And if you get stuck you can always ask for help in the Windows Movie Maker forums.

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]]>cista movie makerCistaMovieMakerms-dvrvistaChris Tew2007-01-31T10:17:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/oms-gx300-the-4-995-vista-media-center-pc/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/oms-gx300-the-4-995-vista-media-center-pc/http://www.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.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/tivx-5010-p-hd-tv-recorder-odd-shaped-diskless-media-streamin/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/tivx-5010-p-hd-tv-recorder-odd-shaped-diskless-media-streamin/http://www.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.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/hauppauge-tv-tuners-are-vista-ready/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/hauppauge-tv-tuners-are-vista-ready/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/31/hauppauge-tv-tuners-are-vista-ready/#commentsFiled under: News, Software, Microsoft, Media Center Edition

The Vista launch has come upon on us and so it's a busy time for a lot of PC related companies. One of which is Hauppauge which has announced that it has the widest range of Vista ready PC tuner cards available.

Hauppauge will now be offering the new Vista driver software with every Hauppauge product shipped from today. Existing customers can upgrade from the Hauppauge website.

If you are keen to read more about the Windows Vista launch then check out Engadget.

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]]>HauppaugevistaChris Tew2007-01-31T07:07:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/oqo-and-a-usb-tuner-a-portable-hd-digital-video-recorder/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/oqo-and-a-usb-tuner-a-portable-hd-digital-video-recorder/http://www.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.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/convert-your-dvr-ms-mce-recordings-to-xvid-x264-and-mpeg-4/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/convert-your-dvr-ms-mce-recordings-to-xvid-x264-and-mpeg-4/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/convert-your-dvr-ms-mce-recordings-to-xvid-x264-and-mpeg-4/#commentsFiled under: News, Software, Microsoft, Media Center Edition, DIY

DVR-MS is a proprietary Microsoft format that is used in Media Center Edition to record videos. Unfortunately this format can't be played on may other devices so you may want to be able to easily convert your DVR-MS video recordings to some other format..

DVRBox is free open source software that does just that converting your DVR-MS video files into other formats including Xvid and MPEG 4. Features include:

• Editing of DVR-MS videos
• Batch processing
• Automatic crop detection
• Scheduled compression
• Outputs to MPEG-4 including XviD, x264

In development is manual cropping, directory scanning, profilesand iPod Support.

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]]>dvr-msdvrboxmceMPEG-4x264XvidChris Tew2007-01-30T13:41:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/sagetv-announces-support-for-amd-live/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/sagetv-announces-support-for-amd-live/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/sagetv-announces-support-for-amd-live/#commentsFiled under: General, News, Software, SageTV

SageTV, the popular provider of PC PVR software, has announced support for AMD LIVE! Home Cinema And Home Media Server.

An AMD LIVE! PC is much like a Windows Media Center PC offering a complete solution for video, music and photo access through an easy to use interface. With SageTV an AMD LIVE! Home Cinema will also provide the popular complete PVR functionality from SageTV too.

Click here to learn more about AMD Live!

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]]>amd liveAmdLivesagetvChris Tew2007-01-30T11:57:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/sti7200-world-s-first-dual-hdtv-decoder-chip/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/sti7200-world-s-first-dual-hdtv-decoder-chip/http://www.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.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/trinion-l7-htpc-touts-integrated-touchscreen-lcd/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/trinion-l7-htpc-touts-integrated-touchscreen-lcd/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/30/trinion-l7-htpc-touts-integrated-touchscreen-lcd/#commentsFiled under: General, News, Microsoft, Media Center Edition, Reviews

The Trinion L7 is a well packed Home Theater PC (HTPC) with a nifty 800 x 480 resolution touch-screen LCD monitor that can be controlled by an IR remote. It features easy playback of DVDs, photos, TV episodes etc and can even launch games and office applications from the LCD screen itself.

Features of this sleek looking HTPC include:

• A silver chassis
• 1.66GHz Intel T5500 processor
• 1GB of DDR2 RAM
• 250GB hard drive
• 8-channel onboard audio
• Gigabit Ethernet
• Combo drive
• Windows XP Media Center Edition
• Front-panel flash card readers
• USB / FireWire connectors
• Audio in / out ports

The Trinion L7 should be available in South Korea sometime soon although no release details are available.

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]]>htpcmceTrinion L7TrinionL7Chris Tew2007-01-30T07:50:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/29/hd-dvd-hacker-interviewed/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/29/hd-dvd-hacker-interviewed/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/29/hd-dvd-hacker-interviewed/#commentsFiled under: Hacks, News, DVD

You've probably heard that the new HD-DVD format, which was reportedly un-crackable, has been hacked. Last week the anonymous hacker that goes by the name of muslix64 was interviewed by Slyck.com

This was an extremely interesting interview with muslix64 who sounded like a modest and intelligent character that was more interested in fair rights for the consumer than promoting piracy.

The reason that muslix64 started hacking the HD DVD protection was because he wasn't able to appropriately play back a HD DVD film that he purchased on a non-HDCP HD monitor.

Interestingly muslix64 also described that the hacking that DVD Jon did to crack the protection on DVDs some years ago, was actually technically more difficult than what he himself did with HD DVD.

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]]>hd dvdHdDvdinterviewmuslix64Chris Tew2007-01-29T14:33:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/29/anti-drm-group-defectivebydesign-taking-some-flak/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/29/anti-drm-group-defectivebydesign-taking-some-flak/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/29/anti-drm-group-defectivebydesign-taking-some-flak/#commentsFiled under: News, Microsoft

Anti DRM group DefectiveByDesign will be boycotting the Microsoft Vista Launch Events in NYC over all the DRM that will be in the soon-to-be released Vista.

It is true that Vista will be packed with plenty of DRM which is especially annoying for any Media Center Edition fans due to the many restrictions involved with streaming content around their house, placeshifting and making copies of PVR recorded media and paid content, just to name a few.

But DefectiveByDesign, as Chris Lanier has correctly pointed out, are targeting the wrong people. Microsoft is mostly using DRM because it has too in order to meet regulations and allow Vista to play DRM media files.

Bill Gates has said he is not a fan of DRM, but that's not to say Microsoft doesn't have its own flaws when it comes to DRM (Zune for example). However, the targets that DefectiveByDesign should really be concentrating on are such organizations like the RIAA, the MPAA and Apple with its Fairplay, rather than boycotting a Vista Launch event.

Simply attacking a company simply because it implements DRM in its products will just cause people to lose respect for DefectiveByDesign.

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]]>defective by designDefectiveByDesigndrmmicrosoftvistaChris Tew2007-01-29T07:59:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/29/announcements-from-nds/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/29/announcements-from-nds/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/29/announcements-from-nds/#commentsFiled under: General, News, Home Networking, Streaming, IPTV

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.

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]]>iptvndsp2ppeer to peerPeerToPeersharetvChris Tew2007-01-29T05:33:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/29/nets-demand-dvr-viewing-credit/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/29/nets-demand-dvr-viewing-credit/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/29/nets-demand-dvr-viewing-credit/#commentsFiled under: Advertising, News

The growth of PVRs has caused a stir with TV advertising since they were first launched. First of all advertisers and broadcasters instantly took a dislike to PVRs for their ad skipping features on time shifted content.

More recently however, TV Networks have began to realize that people watching time shifted content may still watch adverts, that fast forwarded adverts may still have an effect on viewers, and that in general time shifted viewing is still valuable to the advertiser and should be accounted for.

Now TV Networks are demanding that time shifted PVR viewing be taken into consideration when making advertising deals. This causes a bit of a problem since it is currently very difficult to judge how many people are watching time shifted content, and more importantly how many people watch the ads.

Nielsen Ratings, a company which provides statistical TV ratings has something in the works that will be ready in May to address time shifted content, but until then advertisers and TV networks will find it hard to reach agreements.

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]]>advertsnielsontime shfitedTimeShfitedtvChris Tew2007-01-29T05:32:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/27/xbox-360-hack-get-a-bigger-hard-drive-but-no-extra-space/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/27/xbox-360-hack-get-a-bigger-hard-drive-but-no-extra-space/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/27/xbox-360-hack-get-a-bigger-hard-drive-but-no-extra-space/#commentsFiled under: Hacks, News, Microsoft, DIY

It is now possible to hack your Xbox 360 so you can add a larger hard drive, but it's just a shame that your Xbox will still think it is a 20GB hard drive.

The hack is done using a DOS based program that currently only works with Western Digital BEVS hard drives.

Although you can't use the space of the larger hard drives it will allow you to save money by not buying the $100 Xbox 360 hard drive and getting a cheaper Western Digital 40GB hard drive for $60.

You can then lay in hope that Microsoft updates the Xbox 360 to look for larger hard drives or alternatively someone creates a hack to make the Xbox do it.

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]]>hackhard driveHardDrivexbox 360Xbox360Chris Tew2007-01-27T17:22:00+00:00http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/27/tivo-borrowing-money/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/27/tivo-borrowing-money/http://www.www.pvrwire.com/2007/01/27/tivo-borrowing-money/#commentsFiled under: News, TiVo

TiVo has provided itself with a loaded gun of cash just in case the company needs it. It has negotiated a $50 million line of credit with the CitiGroup Bank which will remain in effect for three years, until TiVo violates the agreement or chooses to end it.

This is happening not because TiVo is desperate for money, but more because they may feel a little uneasy about profitability in the near future so are giving themselves a failsafe just in case.

This has happened at the same time that TiVo has elected Jeffrey Hinson to the board of directors to help out with finances.

Davis Freeberg has had a look at all of this in more detail.

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]]>borrowcitigroupmoneytivoChris Tew2007-01-27T16:22:00+00:00