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Time Warner to Allow Digital Recording

Posted by timothy on from the but-that's-stealing dept.

platypussrex writes "CNN is reporting that some Time Warner cable customers will be offered the ability to use digital recording. The article says they will not have a commercial zapping feature but even the use of digital recording seems a major turn-around from what the entertainment industry has been saying so far. I wonder if this will help TiVo and ReplyTV gain 'legitimacy'?"

3 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Good by foobar104 · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's no such thing as HD S-video. Your choices in HD video are component analog (YUV or RGB), DVI, or FireWire. Digital is superior, of course, but with consumer equipment it's really, really hard to tell the difference between digital and YUV component analog.

    S-video, or YC, isn't an option for HDTV signals.

  2. I will be at training session in a few days on it. by TibbonZero · · Score: 5, Informative

    I am a TW cable employee (don't throw anything I am just an intern), and will be attending a session (4 hours for some reason) on this really soon.
    I will say that they do know what the pricing is, and it will be rolled out in Greensboro, NC soon.
    In addition, in case anyone cares. The whole system runs off a full rack of about 10 Sun servers... I can find out more info on those if anyone wants...

    --
    Tibbon
    tibbon.com
  3. Re:Why not Tivo by JWhitlock · · Score: 5, Informative
    Why get this when you can just buy a Tivo system? Probably less cost in the long run, and a bigger HD...

    Well, for one thing, you get digital cable without the IR repeater that TiVo has to use. For my setup (digital cable + TiVo), the video signal goes through the digital decoder and then into TiVo. To change channels, the TiVo has little LEDs that you place over the remote sensor for the digital cable box. TiVo emulates the digital cable remote to change the channels, and is successful about 95% of the time. The rest of the time, TiVo almost changes the channel, and you get the wrong thing.

    There are ways to lessen the effect, such as building an IR cage around the IR repeater/IR receiver portion. There are other options, such as going satelite (TiVo's ReplayTV box is a satelite decoder as well, so it has no problem changing channels) or basic cable (TiVo works fine as a basic cable box). But, since digital cable decoding is non-standard, the only way is to get the cable provider to offer a PVR box.

    They probably won't go the TiVo route - TiVo would rather see a standard digital cable descrambler, usable in many cable systems, then one for each market. If a cable provider wants to make one for each market, TiVo will do it, but expect the cable provider to pay for the work needed to make the box. SonicBlue, who is behind the Time Warner box, is more willing to burnn their own money and work with the cable providers.

    The real solution is a single, HD-enable digital cable standard, so that any manufacturer can make a box that works on all the networks, including TiVo. I imagine the cable providers get a bit of revenue renting out the digital cable decoders, so I don't expect this any time soon. Also, I'll have to see the pricing details to determine whether Time Warner is serious about this as a mainstream product, or only selling it to the rich folks that might have gone the SonicBlue route anyway.