The Rocky TiVo-DirecTV Relationship

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."

Comments

cablecard

[alatesystems]

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.

Re:cablecard

[Sc00ter]

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 :(

Re:When will they

[Sc00ter]

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

Re:Times they are a changin...

[Sc00ter]

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?

TIVO access to DirecTV

[Digital Pizza]

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