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Pioneer To Release TiVo/DVD Burner Combo

Posted by simoniker on from the geek-toys-get-cooler dept.

TK-421 writes "According to an official Pioneer press release, 'Pioneer is revolutionizing home video recording with the introduction of the world's first DVD recorders featuring the TiVo service. These new recorders offer consumers the control provided by the easy-to-use TiVo service integrated with advanced DVD recording for the option of short-term storage on a hard drive or long-term archival of broadcast programming on DVD-R/RW discs.'" The options include both 80 and 120GB models, starting at a not-inexpensive $1199, and there's more information via a CNET News article.

7 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. How long till... by Basje · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... someone sues them for copyright infringement. The voting boot is open.
    But please be quick: you can only vote while no litigation has been announced.

    --
    the pun is mightier than the sword
  2. Everything comes up short... by evilviper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why can't anyone make what consumers want?

    Tivo would be great if it didn't require on-going charges (and doesn't allow anyone to screw around with the installed software).

    Throwing a DVD burner into the mix is a great step-up, but only if there is some way to edit the program before burning it... I don't want to have a copy for 50 years on DVD that starts with the end of the program before it, has commercial breaks in the middle, etc. It wouldn't take much work to give editing functionality (even if edited content must be burned to DVD and can't be watched from the hard drive, I can live with that.)

    So, when are we going to see some such system? Or are we going to have to wait until someone releases a distro that does all this on PC hardware?

    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    1. Re:Everything comes up short... by Babbster · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Throwing a DVD burner into the mix is a great step-up, but only if there is some way to edit the program before burning it... I don't want to have a copy for 50 years on DVD that starts with the end of the program before it, has commercial breaks in the middle, etc. It wouldn't take much work to give editing functionality (even if edited content must be burned to DVD and can't be watched from the hard drive, I can live with that.)

      Part of the reason that PVRs like Tivo and ReplayTV still exist (though Replay has been sued, encouraging them to remove some features) is that they DON'T edit the originally broadcasted content. Providing easy-to-use editing features in a box like this - particularly in reference to commercials - will ensure litigation and will make it more likely that said litigation will be successful.

      This is of even greater concern to content producers since more and more television shows are being released in pre-recorded DVD sets and being able to easily make commercial-free DVDs of TV shows at home would cut into that market.

  3. MPAA? by FryGuy1013 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Didn't one of the PVR's remove a feature to share recordings between networked PVR's for fear of MPAA lawsuits? This isn't even restricted to the same kind of machines. Now you can record movies off of showtime/hbo automatically and burn them to dvd. I wonder what MPAA will do about this.

    Now if they added commercial skipping and the ability to burn commercial skipped shows to dvd, that would be really pushing things. Hopefully my homebrew PVR box will have a DVD burner soon, and it will be able to do this.

    --
    bananas like monkeys.
  4. Re:hm by drix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Pull your head out of your grammatical ass, it captures a subtle shade of meaning that "expensive" doesn't. The rules they taught you in 7th grade english are breakable, sometimes to great effect.

    --

    I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
  5. Hmm by pokka · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It sounds like a good idea, but most TiVo users who wanted to have more space or convert their collection to DVD have already figured out how to do so with minimal investment (TiVoNet, DVD-R, hard drive) -- much less than the price of this new TiVo.

    Another reason I wouldn't buy one is that I know the HDTV-based models are due out sometime in the near future, so investing $1,200 in something that will be obsolete in 1-2 years seems like a bad idea.

    Still, it's nice for brand new users who have never owned a PVR and don't know how to use telnet.

  6. Re:Why is Tivo still a set top box? by Osty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd have thought that by now people would have started building the thing into the actual sets.

    That's an easy one. People are far more likely to buy a $400 set top box than a $2000 TV. As well, people are more likely to agree to pay a subscription fee for a cheaper piece of hardware. If you put this into their TV set and then tell them they have to pay extra to get full functionality, they'll look at you funny and then call you an idiot if you think they're going to buy a $2000 TV that requires them to keep on paying. Finally, a STB is portable. If I want to have the Tivo in my bedroom on the small TV, but move it to the big TV in the entertainment room when I want to watch certain recorded shows, I can. If it's built into my TV in the entertainment room, I can't watch it in the bedroom, and vice versa (yeah, you can solve that with a networking solution, but then that requires another box, or another TV set with more built-in functionality, for more money).


    Could TiVO partner with a TV manufacturer to build the functionality into a model line? Sure. Should they? Probably. Will they? Probably not.