Slashdot Mirror
SBC Builds A TiVo Rival
ChipGuy writes "With all the hoopla around Tivo To Go, SBC Communications has launched its own PVR-plus-set-top box which integrates SBC DSL with its satellite service. From the looks of it, this could be the trend where phone operators offer their one set-top box/ home media servers. This is not good news for TiVo or Microsoft which harbors living room ambitions. 2Wire might be the dark horse in set-top box sweepstakes."
When I moved we received something similar to this. We have the satellite TV with DVR as well as what appears to be plain DSL. Haven't thrown much at the DVR other than some Nova. The search functions took a little getting used to be the quality seemed well enough. Said it holds 100 hours but I haven't had time to take a closer peek to see more specs on it.
( o ) one could say I'm rather baked
I use to work for SBC back in the day, untill i got fired for hacking the phones and rerouting all my calls back to the call center. When i worked there the mentality was always One stop shopping, They want you to pay them for all services including but limited to..Phone, Cable TV service, Internet, Cell phone, Phone Equipment, Long Distance, web hosting, this would all come on one bill that could be paid monthly to SBC, This is their vision and route they are taking.
Bringing your mosaic ideas to life. Mosaiclegs
Ucentric has also been quietly trudging away in this space from the old DEC headquarters in Maynard, MA. (http://www.ucentric.com)
They did trials of their product with Comcast and AT&T (before it was bought by Comcast), and now have a rollout with Voom (the also-ran HD sat company).
It's a good, stable, platform, but never seems to get any press (or customers). Linux based (Debian) with some fancy bits globbed on.
The real sweet spot is in their thin clients and distribution technologies. Imagine having ALL of your PVR's content available simultaneously from every TV (or PC) in the house, from a client a little bigger than a pack of smokes. And, you don't need to run a bunch of Cat5 to get the signal to the other TV's, an old piece of coax will do just fine.
-This sig intentionally left blank
the automated commercial skip (thats not available on new models)? or the 30 second skip? you can program your tivo remote to do 30 second skip, just go into now playing, start something playing, then hit select, play, select, 3, 0, select, you should hear some bong noises, then the skip button the remote will skip 30 seconds instead of skipping to the end.