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The Rocky TiVo-DirecTV Relationship

Posted by timothy on from the after-that-she-hardly-spoke-to-me dept.

Thomas Hawk writes "Phillip Swann's TV Predictions is out this morning alleging that before dumping their TiVo stock last year, Rupert Murdoch's DirecTV had made a pass at buying a controlling stake in TiVo. According to Swann, 'TiVo's top management did not like Murdoch's offer,' and Swann alleges that this is why you had a fallout between the two companies. As an interesting aside, Rob Pegoraro over at the Washington Post was out yesterday warning people to not buy an HDTV TiVo, as DirecTV will be changing their high-def signal later this year and that if you bought the HDTV TiVo that you might not be able to watch network TV in high def. As an owner of one of those expensive high-def DirecTV TiVos, I sure hope this isn't the case."

8 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. cablecard by alatesystems · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is why the CableCard is so important, so that multiple devices can operate like the company provided boxes. I have a cable company dvr, and it is really awesome, but if I wanted to use a brand name TiVo, I would be pissed at having to use IR blasters.

    As far as I know, there's no cablecard equivalent for satellite boxes, but there should be. Ahh, the incredible balance between freedom and regulation.

    1. Re:cablecard by Sc00ter · · Score: 3, Interesting
      In order for that to work then the signal would have to be the same, and it's not.

      I had a SA TiVo on cable for a while. I had the old style box with an IR Blaster and it worked fine, never missed a show or had any issues with it.

      Most digital cable boxes can be controled with the serial cable from the TiVo to increase speed and reliablility.

      The DirecTiVo units record the stream from the sats, so they are incompatible for that reason. But they give you PERFECT quality, something the SA TiVo's can't do.

      The signals will probably always be different between cable and sat, so I don't know what they could do. I see a future where cable companies use different encoding for their streams, making the cablecard worthless anyway :(

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  2. Re:When will they by Sc00ter · · Score: 4, Interesting
    DirecTV is coming out with their own DVR that will be some kind of home entertainment thing. You'll have one "master" system that will do all the recording and then other systems hooked up to other TVs that will get the information from the master system. It will also allow streaming from your computer for music and pictures.

    There is only two "formats" of TiVo for DirecTV, the normal ones that record the stream from the sat, and the new HDTV TiVo's that cost a grand. So I don't see why you would have to buy a new one every "6-8 months" as you suggest.

    If you call them now and inquire about a DVR they direct you to the new home entertainment unit that will be coming out soon

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  3. Re:Times they are a changin... by Sc00ter · · Score: 3, Interesting
    But the new sat is for spot beams (locals). So if you have the new DirecTV DVR (the multiroom one that is not released yet), you'll be able to get all the same programming you can get now.

    Can you record your OTA HD channels with the HDTiVo?

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  4. Re:Times they are a changin... by badfrog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Can you record your OTA HD channels with the HDTiVo?

    Yes.

  5. Re:TV? What is that? by Surt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    To control people's minds, of course. Who wouldn't want to own such a thing?

    --
    "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
  6. TIVO access to DirecTV by Digital+Pizza · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does the FCC's new CableCard requirement help with DirectTV access at all? And yeah, I do know it's CableCard, but still...

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  7. HD Tivo Info by adachan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I heard that the new Direct TV satellites are going to be using mpeg4 instead of mpeg2 for HD material. This seems to make sense as long as the bitrate is high enough. This will allow for more channels, however what this does is require everyone to buy a new box as far as I can tell. Without an update to decode mpeg4 the current boxes will not be able to interpret the data being transmitted to the dish.

    This is similar to a DVD player that can not read mpeg4 encoded DVDs I burn. I like to burn tv shows I record with my ATi all in wonder using divx and mp3 for video and audio. The resolution and sound are perfectly acceptable for television watching (I like A cook's tour alot) If I put these DVDs in my standard DVD player, they do not do anything. However, If I put them into a DVD player with the correct firmware which is capable of reading both the file structure and the file format then I can watch the programs I record. A standard DVD player or even recorder most likely will not understand the data and just report a disc error.

    What does this mean? I can record tv shows at about the same resolution as the original and downsample the audio to make a much smaller file. I can get many many hours (I think I am getting 6-8 at acceptable resolution on my 51 Inch HDTV) of television on one dvd in the same space that mpeg2 video with dolby digital can only get around 2 hours.

    The question that I have is what bitrate will DirectTV be sending the data? Many of the PBS channels I can recieve OTA are clearly at 1080i resolution but the bitrate is significantly reduced yeilding a somewhat pixelated looking picture. I am worried that we are going to be getting jipped on the bitrate side of things becasue people only seem to care about resolution these days. Does anyone know what the answer to this is?