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Interview with SONICblue's CEO
An anonymous reader writes "itvt.com has an interview with the current CEO of SONICblue Greg Ballard where he fields questions on subjects including: the future of the DVR, the current litigation with Hollywood and how he sees ReplayTV PVR stacking up against Tivo this upcoming holiday season."
Here in Canada (at least where I live), the only way to get PVR functionnality is to get the satellite dish with the high-end receiver with pvr integrated.
As far as I know, this is the only way to get at. At 600$ canadian (ok, so it's about 25$ US) it's quite pricey and I hate to encourage a monopoly.
Hopefully this stuff will have lower prices soon...
IP Therefore I am.
ReplayTV should be around a long time to come if they remember to refer to their lawyers. Its a sad state of affairs that it has to be like that, but thats the only way to keep from being shut down in that business.
"[itvt]: Will you be able to plug your portable device into the ReplayTV 4500 and record from there?"
4 7. html?country=cn
"Ballard: It's unclear if it will be for the 4500 or for future devices. It's all still up for debate."
Can anyone say the Archos Jukebox Multimedia? I'd like to see Replay interface with this little gadget.
http://www.archos.com/lang=en/products/prw_5003
Record one show on one channel while allowing me to watch another on another channel.
Sky+ does this, but I'd rather have a device that isn't quite so tightly tied to the broadcast organisation since I'd rather have someone a little more neutral making decisions about what it will and will not record. TiVO will allow me to watch a previously recorded show while recording, which is nice, but not what I want.
Information for future upgrades to newer formats is not available at this time. Please continue to check our website for further information.
Please note that almost all current Rio players support the WMA format, this codec that will provide digital quality sound at 64k encoding rates. The newest WMA codec WMA9 is by far the best audio compression codec in the world and is supported in all of our players that offer WMA support.
In the words of the Filthy Critic: "Hey, whore! How's the whoring?"
Emmett
My girlfriend and I each bought a Rio500 about 2 years ago. Both stopped working and were returned to the online store. She got a refund, but I had it replaced. I had to send it in twice within a year to have it repaired. Their customer service was no help - each time they made it a huge hassle to send it in. The second time they had it for 4 or 5 months before they returned it. I was browsing online forums during this time to try to find out what was wrong and found many people with the same problems/complaints.
Someone pointed me to this BBB link which basically says
Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau.Specifically, our records show a pattern of non-response to consumer complaints brought to its attention by the Bureau.
The BBB has two ratings: satisfactory and unsatisfactory, and it very difficult to receive the latter.
In the TiVo vs. Replay war, the one who will win will be the first one to get their boxes on all Wal-Mart shelves well before Christmas. That giant retailer could do more for either PVR company than any cable box deal this season.
We just got a replayTV 4500 and I love it. The commercial advance is pretty amazing, I've not seen it skip over programming yet, but it skips at least 75% of the commercials automatically and on some shows, it gets 'em all. It'll also allow you to record from DVD or VHS sources as well as saving recorded shows to a VCR. We bought it initially because they were out of TiVos at the store, but now I'm glad we did.
jim
I've wrestled with reality for 35 years and I'm happy to say, I finally won out - Elwood P. Dowd
1) Portable device to watch shows on, downloaded from the ReplayTV
2) "we'll use whatever DRM system [Hollywood] ultimately certify"
3) Heavily marketing the Commercial Skip this winter
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
I'm sorry, but I don't care how high-tech TV gets I still won't pay for it. I get a few channels by default with my cable modem. And I mean a few, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, UPN, WB, Discovery. I basically only watch the WB and FOX for the Simpsons and once in a while the Discovery channel just for those cool forensics shows. I guess I'm out of sync with the general public but IMHO TV programming by and large is worthless.
Go mods go, flaimbait, offtopic, troll.
sig
I haven't owned a DVR, but my wife and I were considering buying one. I noticed that there was a subscription fee for Tivo. What exactly is the subcription for? Why is it needed? And do the two companies (Tivo,Replay) charge about the same?
I think if TiVo did something crazy like - cut their prices in ... half? or one quarter off. Something drastic (either for the unit itself or the subscription price...or both!) They would attract a broader market who could actually afford the device. If they did something like this around the holiday season, TiVo could be the "big gift" this year.
~.Evanrude
Current ReplayTV boxes automagically skip the commercials--no button pressing is required.
Which is why ReplyTV is catching more flack from content providers, and Tivo is catching almost none.
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
Now that more and more channels are introducing a 'plus one hour' version, I.E. see the program that was on at 6 PM, at 7 PM, and now that there are so many repeats on TV, I think the need to record TV is quickly decreasing.
Nowadays, I think that films on TV are a waste of airtime, because you can just buy the films you want on the format of your choice, (for me, that would be Laserdisc, not DVD, but that's a different point).
Broadcast television should be reserved for things like news, sport, (which I don't have much interest in, but others do), documentaries, anime, etc, etc. Films, which you don't want to have commercials in, should be on sale as soon as they have finished in the cinema.
I am watching less and less TV these days, and I can't even remember the last time I recorded something, (over a month ago), and I don't mean record to keep, I mean I haven't timeshifted anything either - if I've had to go out, I've just thought, well, it's only a TV programme, who cares if I miss one episode? If I record it, unless I watch it within about 24 hours, somebody will have probably told me what is going to happen, and then it will be spoiled anyway.
Before home VCRs, when the only way to buy a film was to buy the 10-minute, silent, Super-8 version, there was a point to films on TV. Now that practically everybody has a VCR, what is the point? Eventually, solid state video recorderes will be cheaper than the VHS machines of today - just a box with an MPEG-4 decoder, and a USB-2 socket, that you plug a ROM chip in to - how much would that cost? Practically nothing. It could probably be made for $10, and sold for $20.
So, my idea is to stop showing films on TV, and use that bandwidth for more useful things - news, sport, local TV, local TV from other regions, etc, etc. It would help broadcasters, too, because they wouldn't have so many copyright issues to deal with - if they are producing their own content, they can do what they like with it.
Watch films in the cinema, where the quality is good - no matter how much you spend on home entertainment equipment, you will never be able to watch a film off-air at the same quality you can watch it in the cinema. Even HDTV is not close to 35mm film, (others may disagree on that point).
With no films being broadcast, it neatly solves the problem of home recording!
The standalone PVR could soon be a thing of the past.
TiVo and Replay are both trying with mixed results to enter the cable set top box market. The cable companies don't want to give another company revenue if they can keep it for themselves.
" Scientific Atlanta which makes the digital set top boxes for Time Warner cable and others has recently started shipping the Explorer 8000 which has PVR capabilities.
Among other things, it allows you to record two programs while watching a third from the hard disk.
The cable companies will much rather keep the $10-15 per month extra that they could charge for this box, rather than share it with Replay or TiVo. And the customer will not have to shell out $400-$500 upfront to get it. Look for the SciAtl box to gain significant marketshare as PVRs gain more household penetration.