Official reports VOOM may be prepared to release their DVR in as little as 60 days to cash in on holiday market.

Source?

Why, official, of course. :rolleyes:

Where's a moderator when you need one?

Crazy Lou the barber told me the same thing as he trimmed my cowlick down to a nub. He said "look to the east, the DVR is coming"... must be freaking true.

Where's a moderator when you need one?
We don't need a moderator, we need a link to a published source. ;)

We don't need a moderator, we need a link to a published source. ;)

He doesn't have one else he would have posted it already.
Thread should be closed else this will spawn other new threads with fabricated news stories.

No offense to 1080i but you only have 5 posts.. I want to hear it from someone who has posted things that did happen like new channels, updates for the stb and so forth.. But I will say just reading it gets the old heart thumping.. Cya Slick

Don't jump all over 1080i. If he has some good information, he will explain to us how he knows this.

The source is in Rainbow. Be patient.

We don't need a moderator, we need a link to a published source. ;)
Unless the moderator is Scott Greczkowski. His sources are 100% reliable. Remember when he published rumors about the NBC-HD for the Olympics, USA Network, Florida Sport Net and more recently the Sci-Fi.
Scott, any "rumors" on the DVR???

i tend to believe 1080i, but if 720p gave such news i would be skeptical.

i tend to believe 1080i, but if 720p gave such news i would be skeptical.
ROFL. :haha

anyone prepared to shell out what? 1000.00 bucks? for an HD DVR for a company that may not be here in a year?

Ilya and I shall find out Tommorow as we will be meeting with VOOM. :D

Well I hope he is right and I am wrong because then everyone is happy :-) that and I want to get my name on the list ASAP.. I hate not be able to record anything right now and since I am sticking with Voom till the end I need all the new stuff that they come out with.. Cya Slick

anyone prepared to shell out what? 1000.00 bucks? for an HD DVR for a company that may not be here in a year?
Nothing to worry. Worst case scenario: E* buys V* and send us a new E* sticker to affix on top of the existing DVR V* logo :D

This is what I've been waiting for and is great news! But I would only lease it- 1k is way too much for any DVR.

I would buy it if I can get at least 50% back in free programming (let's say 6 mos of free VaVaVoom). Otherwise, I'll wait for a lease option.

I have no big info but what 1080i posted has its basis so hang on. I give a lot of credit to 1080i for posting this.

P.S. I am sticking this one... and see what happens.

Can someone give Vurbano some happy pills or something? DVR in November sounds great!

D* got to vurbano, he's being mox filtered so all we get now is his negative comments.

anyone prepared to shell out what? 1000.00 bucks? for an HD DVR for a company that may not be here in a year?


OMG VOOM is coming out with a hd dvr??!?

damn i need to sign up back again.

just kiddin! :D :D :D

Ilya and I shall find out Tommorow as we will be meeting with VOOM. :D

Awesome. Hopefully they'll offer info on their pricing plans for it as well. Rental? Sale? DVR? OH MY! :)

:) I sure hope they have a lease option... I will not purchase one. I've been holding out to see what Voom is going to do. If it's purchase only I'm going to build a pc based HD-DVR.

Voom is all about renting equipment. I'm sure the DVR will follow the same principle. The questions is will they make the monthly rental so ridiculously high that we beg them to buy it?
Right now to add Voom to one TV is $15. I'd imagine when the DVR is released to add a Thin Client would cost more than a standard box so say $25/TV. That can get very expensive.

But I'm paying for Dish and Voom right now so I'd still probably end up saving money regardless :)

They have to have a lease option, or a rent to own option. That's a must.

The only other alternative would be to give a huge subsidy with a 1 year contract to cut the overall price in half. If VOOM would just tell us what their plans are for the Regional Sports Networks (especially Comcast Sports Chicago), I'd feel 100% happy about staying with them now.

Official reports VOOM may be prepared to release their DVR in as little as 60 days to cash in on holiday market.


You cash in on selling, not in renting,you are outputting more cash in making the units when new subs cost are too high as it is($600.00)

I think if Voom offers their DVR for $600 with their current unknown future no one would buy it. If they offer a lease option at a reasonable price ($5-$15 over the usual rental price of $10, + $5 per whole house unit for the additional TV's) they'll have no problems getting orders and getting new customers.

As far as Chicago fans, e-mail Voom daily, get on their case.. I doubt though that they will solve this problem immediately as they are still trying to get Fox Cleveland and Cinci off the ground.

You cash in on selling, not in renting,you are outputting more cash in making the units when new subs cost are too high as it is($600.00)

You can make that up if the DVR lease deal comes with a 1-2 year commitment.

Nothing to worry. Worst case scenario: E* buys V* and send us a new E* sticker to affix on top of the existing DVR V* logo :D
You know, Walter, you are not too far off the mark. When I was talking to an HD engineer at Dish, he told me they helped Voom get off the ground with some technical advice and he is sure hoping that E* or D* picks up Voom soon. :yes

I mean if VOOM gets absorbed by E* or D*, I'll deal with it. I would be a lot happier at D*, but as long as we got to keep our hardware or got our hardware replaced with new stuff it wouldn't be that bad.

i tend to believe 1080i, but if 720p gave such news i would be skeptical.
1080p would be even more accurate.

1080p would be even more accurate.


His opinions are more expensive though, and few would listen.

But 480P could give a enhanced view of this.

as long as 540p doesn't show up and everyone stops to point and laugh.

:) I sure hope they have a lease option... I will not purchase one. I've been holding out to see what Voom is going to do. If it's purchase only I'm going to build a pc based HD-DVR.

I would've already done this if I could find a PC capture card that works with the Voom receiver (DVI or component input). All that I've seen for PC only work with an OTA antenna.

I would've already done this if I could find a PC capture card that works with the Voom receiver (DVI or component input). All that I've seen for PC only work with an OTA antenna.


Exactly! I haven't found a Component video capture card or for that matter any HD capture card under $2000! I too would have a HTPC DVR but I can not find a good way to get the signal (in HD) from the Voom STB to the computer. I would love to capture using Windows Media 9 encoder ( a free download to boot! ) and then playback from DVI out on the computer. As cheap as 100gb+ hard drives have become you could record just about as much content as you would want.

If anyone has any information about a HD capture card (no, not the OTA HD tuner cards, those are not usable in this case) please post it up!

I would've already done this if I could find a PC capture card that works with the Voom receiver (DVI or component input). All that I've seen for PC only work with an OTA antenna.
It would need to be component, since the STB DVI output has HDCP (content protection).

Ilya and I shall find out Tommorow as we will be meeting with VOOM. :D


OK Scott, the day is over. How did the meeting with Voom go and what is "The Word"? ;)

Exactly! I haven't found a Component video capture card or for that matter any HD capture card under $2000! I too would have a HTPC DVR but I can not find a good way to get the signal (in HD) from the Voom STB to the computer. I would love to capture using Windows Media 9 encoder ( a free download to boot! ) and then playback from DVI out on the computer. As cheap as 100gb+ hard drives have become you could record just about as much content as you would want.

If anyone has any information about a HD capture card (no, not the OTA HD tuner cards, those are not usable in this case) please post it up!

Well I guess I get to answer my own post, I found this:

http://www.pluggedin.tv/sweetspot/

Looks pretty cool and costs about $270 usd (the company appears to be in Britain).

Better grab one before Hollywood bans them.

Of course now that I have read more about it I'm confused as to whether or not it does true HD. It keeps talking about its component inputs and their superior quality but it never says the key words; High Definition.

It's only 480i SD. I'd role my own too if I could find a HD component capture card.

Specs listed on web site:

PAL B, G, D, H, I and N, combination
PAL N, PAL M, NTSC M, NTSC-Japan,
NTSC 4.43 and SECAM
480i, 576i
Composite Video
S-Video
Component Video YPbPr
RGB (Composite Sync)
RGB (Sync on Green

Opp's I mean Roll....

Ilya and I shall find out Tommorow as we will be meeting with VOOM. :D
When is this meeting? Has it happened yet?

Exactly! I haven't found a Component video capture card or for that matter any HD capture card under $2000! I too would have a HTPC DVR but I can not find a good way to get the signal (in HD) from the Voom STB to the computer.

Do you know of a $2000 card that can capture HD? Somebody else once told me there was a card available and even used that same number, $2000, but when I asked about it they didn't tell me what it was. Where did you see it? I still probably wouldn't buy one, but I would be tempted.......

I built a HD capture PC that only works on cable or OTA, it is really useless for Voom unless Svideo quality satisfies you. Right now it just sits under my TV doing pretty much nothing. But it is nice to have a portable DTV tuner/recorder PC like that. Total cost was around $500.

THANKS!
--Dan

Do you know of a $2000 card that can capture HD? Somebody else once told me there was a card available and even used that same number, $2000, but when I asked about it they didn't tell me what it was. Where did you see it? I still probably wouldn't buy one, but I would be tempted.......

The ones that I ran across were for mostly video editing and used an SDI connection. A quick google search brought me here:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=NavBar&A=search&Q=&ci=6702

All of those solutions are cost prohibitive (at least for what I would want to pay to have an HDHTPC).

Still, one can dream.....

Enough with the 2 grand vid cards... where's our secret spies with the down low dirty info? I hope they took all the Voom execs out for a night of liquor, darts, and dirty jokes, so they can loosen up and gives us dates... maybe Scott G. can even plant a hypnotic suggestion regarding PQ.

You forgot strip bars!

Only Strip Bars in HD... I don't think any exist right now...Bacardi 151 and coke though is a HD drink.

It costs $6k plus to build a PC that could capture HD off component, and it records in 600gb/hour or so chunks that then have to be re-encoded. And no, I am not kidding. I need solid PVR evidence.

I'm giving Voom about another two weeks to announce the release of the DVR (any release this year will do!). The good news for you guys is that I can almost guarantee that the day after I drop Voom they will release the DVR to all existing customers and new and returning customers will have to sign up for a 2-year waiting list.

I'm giving Voom about another two weeks to announce the release of the DVR (any release this year will do!). The good news for you guys is that I can almost guarantee that the day after I drop Voom they will release the DVR to all existing customers and new and returning customers will have to sign up for a 2-year waiting list.

Yeah well that's Voom's only hook, if you drop and come back it will cost you more $$$, you also will be last on the waiting list.. be patient. :smug

Yeah well that's Voom's only hook, if you drop and come back it will cost you more $$$, you also will be last on the waiting list.. be patient. :smug

I am being patient. That's why I'm giving them two more weeks! They don't need to release it in two weeks. Just some kind of official announcement about when it will be coming.

Oh, I see, we'd all like that, but if they did and there is a problem, the "Voom is lying" comments will never stop.

At least we'd have a new lie to talk about ;).

Sorry, just had to say it.

Uhhmm...is this what everyone is talking about?

"Press Release:

OpenTV and Ucentric to Show Whole Home Entertainment Solution

Joint approach to be featured at IBC2004
Ucentric also featuring whole home showcase with Samsung

Chicago, Ill. - Sept. 6, 2004 – OpenTV (Nasdaq: OPTV), one of the world's leading interactive television companies and Ucentric Systems, a leading provider of home media networking software, are teaming up to demonstrate whole home entertainment offerings to OpenTV's customers worldwide. The two companies are nearing completion of their first joint deployment with Cablevision's VOOM, an HDTV DBS operator in North America. The integrated solution for VOOM will include ITV from OpenTV and Ucentric's Whole Home DVR, Whole Home Music and Whole Home Photo applications.

Ucentric's software manages an IP-based digital home media networ k that runs over existing phone, cable or power lines in the home. The joint demonstration with OpenTV and Ucentric software will utilize very low cost IP media clients to enable the complete set of ITV, DVR and digital media and communications services to all connected locations in the home. OpenTV and Ucentric will feature the multi-room entertainment experience in the OpenTV booth (#1.121) at the 2004 International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam, September 10-14.

"As an industry matures the focus often shifts from basic market penetration to increased Average Revenue Per Unit (ARPU). Media home networking provides the most affordable way to enable additional outlets for revenues to flow from ITV and other operator services," said Michael Collette, Ucentric chief executive officer. "It is clear now that consumers are willing to pay for DVR services. Those who have DVR want DVR functionality on all the TVs in the home. OpenTV has been a pioneer and leader in bringing compelling interactive TV services to viewers worldwide and with our IP-based solution we are providing one of the most advanced and cost efficient whole home experiences available on the market today."

Ucentric will also showcase a demo with Samsung (booth #3.311) at IBC2004. The company will demonstrate multi-TV networking capability using a Samsung media center and Ucentric's Whole Home DVR, Whole Home Music and Whole Home Photo applications.

Ucentric's Whole-Home DVR application creates a single recording library, shared among multiple television sets that allows users to independently record, pause, play, rewind and fast forward live or recorded programming from any TV in the network. Additional applications available from Ucentric include Whole-Home Music and Whole-Home Photo applications that allow users to access, share, and transfer their complete digital music and photo collections to any connected device in the home.

Ucentric works with leading players in the cable, telecommunications and digital home industries. In addition to VOOM, Samsung and OpenTV, the company has announced a vendor relationship with Motorola to bring home entertainment solutions to the market. Ucentric also has trialed Multi-TV DVR and Whole-Home Music with Comcast and Samsung.

About Ucentric Systems
Ucentric is a leading provider of home media networking software for the new digital home. Its patented technology enables the secure, high quality digital distribution of HD and SD video signals from broadcast, satellite or cable sources to all connected rooms in the home, over low-cost, in-home wired or wireless networks. Ucentric's embedded software platform provides CE manufacturers and operators maximum integration and branding flexibility for enabling multi-TV DVR, whole-home music and other networking applications for advanced set-top boxes, home media servers and entertainment PCs.

Ucentric is a member of the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) and the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) Forum and actively supports CableLab's Open Cable initiative. Based in Maynard, Massachusetts, Ucentric is backed by Polaris Venture Partners. For more information, please visit www.ucentric.com."

Exactly! I haven't found a Component video capture card or for that matter any HD capture card under $2000! I too would have a HTPC DVR but I can not find a good way to get the signal (in HD) from the Voom STB to the computer. I would love to capture using Windows Media 9 encoder ( a free download to boot! ) and then playback from DVI out on the computer. As cheap as 100gb+ hard drives have become you could record just about as much content as you would want.

If anyone has any information about a HD capture card (no, not the OTA HD tuner cards, those are not usable in this case) please post it up!

1. There are HD capture cards under $2000 - but all SDI only. I'm using Blackmagic's Decklink HD - I paid $995, now it's only $595:

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/site/pics/DeckLinkHD.jpg

If you don't have SPDIF in your machine already, you can get it as well with Decklink HD Plus for $995.

2. You'll need an AJA HD10A converter- $2000:

http://aja.com/images/picofHD10A.jpg

3. You have to maintain very high writing speed consistently, up to as high as ~140MB/s (say uncompressed 1080 8bit), so you'd need as much as 7 pcs of 10K or 5pcs of 15K SCSI drives striped. Faster costs more, especially when it comes to large drives - and this REALLY comes to large drives: I captured morethan an hourand it was well over half terabytes...
So better to count with seven times 146GB 10K which goes around $400/ea on eBay - approx. $3000 total.

4. You'll need a pretty good machine: at least one PCI-X 133Mhz slot in your machine, SCSI160-rated controller etc.

Roughly $8-10K. You can lower it if you don't maintain the high quality but currently no capture card with HW VM9 encoding - so if you want to save on the SCSI bandwidth needs, you need to lower your PQ.

But wait - then why did you spent already thousands? ;) :)

But wait - then why did you spent already thousands? ;) :)

Ha, wow. That is so much money. I guess I should stop dreaming and just be patient and wait for the DVR. Thanks for the info though, it really is more involved than I had original anticipated.

One thing comes to mind though, if the DVR is going to (most likely, this is speculation) have just IDE drive(s) how can they get away with HD recording? Does the HD from the sat get re-compressed for storage on the hard drive? I need to see if there is more information on the ucentric website and read more about HD data rates.

Oh well, maybe an HDHTPC some day.....

the difference is the Voom DVR doesn't have to encode HD on the fly. Instead it just stored the already encoded incoming data stream, which is far more cost effective than trying to record raw HD data.

The sat DVR's are reading the compressed MPEG stream, thus they don't need the mega horsepower of an analog stream.

Ah, that makes sense. That is actually a really efficient use of CPU cycles (letting all of the encoding occur at the head end and just storing at the DVR) and I guess reduces the necessary horsepower in the DVR.

It's already compressed.

It's already compressed.

Yes but it becomes uncompressed when you capture from the analog component output.

How can a failing company possibly release this?

How can a failing company possibly release this?

WTF? :confused:

Ahh, I got it... psst, troll...

I have a feeling scott and Iyala found something out but are unable to release it LOL. Otherwise they would have responded by now with a "Don't know" or a "Here's the date" :p

Sorry...

I "don't know" and "don't have a date" :D

Ah!!!! YOU KNOW!!!! Can't you just PM us?

Actually I don't know. Sorry wish I did. My wife really wants the whole house unit.

Hellow everybody
Who can introduce some other forum about DVR or capture cards to me,I really need it!Thanks very much in advanced

HTPC'c (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=26)
HD Recording (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=5&forumid=42)

1080i,

Your credibility is on the line.... 1 last day to save face (or this thread should be closed!)

I think he meant Nov 2004, not Nov 4th.

I think he meant Nov 2004, not Nov 4th.

Here's what the VOOM FAQ says as to when and what sort of DVR they will provide:


We are actively working on our HD-DVR and plan to make it available in 2005. With the introduction of the VOOM HD-DVR, you will be able to watch and record both standard definition and high definition programming sent through the VOOM satellite. The VOOM HD-DVR also has multiple tuners, allowing you to record two shows while you're watching a third!


If you already have TiVo or another commercially available DVR, you can use it to record your favorite VOOM programming. However, these DVRs can record and display information only in standard definition.

Finally Voom admits it. DVR in 2005.
They should had come clean in February instead of saying this summer. If they said 2005 then it was ready in August no one would be upset. Oh well, I can't afford to have Dish and Voom for much longer, I thought the DVR would be out by now. I can make it until the end of the year but come January it's going to be a hard decision. Good news if I do leave Voom, when the DVR really does come out next Fall I can get the new customer price :)
But hey maybe 1080i knows something that no one else here or the person doing Voom's FAQ knows and in the next 3 weeks we'll see something. Time will tell....

Voom's website still has the press release from January 2004, and it says the Whole House solution will be ready this summer, which is now several months ago. This is also in the FAQ section. So it looks like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, but both of the hands are actively involved in self gratification.

Typical. They have strung us along on quite a few things for so long now. And come January they are raising prices. Voom is going to lose a lot more customers come Jan 2005.

Did you also notice the DVR does NOT allow recording OTA programming?

It is satellite-delivered programs, which means ALL the local channels/netowrks cannot be recorded!

That is crap!

Did you also notice the DVR does NOT allow recording OTA programming?Not true. This has been discussed in other threads. The DVR will record OTA!

Not true. This has been discussed in other threads. The DVR will record OTA!


Here is from the press release:
Quote:
We are actively working on our HD-DVR and plan to make it available in 2005. With the introduction of the VOOM HD-DVR, you will be able to watch and record both standard definition and high definition programming sent through the VOOM satellite. The VOOM HD-DVR also has multiple tuners, allowing you to record two shows while you're watching a third!


See, it SAYS 'programming sent through the VOOM Satellite'

This is the latest press release.

What is the truth?

It will record both satellite and OTA by Wilt....

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=34040

I guess we have to wait and be patient, allot of Voomers want the DVR now can we all wait a couple of more months until the DVR comes out. :D

:no

I guess we have to wait and be patient, allot of Voomers want the DVR now can we all wait a couple of more months until the DVR comes out. :D
SonicRob, since you are new here, I will forgive you for this slip of the tongue. Anything new coming out with Voom is in two weeks. ;)

Official reports VOOM may be prepared to release their DVR in as little as 60 days to cash in on holiday market.BUNK.

It even says on its web site"With the introduction of our HD-DVR in 2005, you'll be able to watch and record any channel, whenever you want, in both standard and high definition."

It just ain't happening yet.

So when is this thread going to be "officially closed"???
Nov 30th at Midnite?

I sure hope 1080i makes a return appearance with a December fabricated thread since this one turned out to be so popular in the number of views.

I did some looking around the Ucentric web site and noticed they have these job openings:

Senior Software Engineer - Linux Drivers
http://ucentric.com/index.php?employment/jobs/25

Senior Software Engineer - Java Services
http://ucentric.com/index.php?employment/jobs/24

Senior Software Engineer - Multimedia Streaming
http://ucentric.com/index.php?employment/jobs/26

Just looking at the description of these job openings it looks like they have a long way to go to finalize their whole home solution. I think the Linux Drivers job will have to be filled before the DVR is out, as far as I can tell. Just my guess from experience and looking at these job descriptions.

I did some looking around the Ucentric web site and noticed they have these job openings:

Senior Software Engineer - Linux Drivers
http://ucentric.com/index.php?employment/jobs/25

Senior Software Engineer - Java Services
http://ucentric.com/index.php?employment/jobs/24

Senior Software Engineer - Multimedia Streaming
http://ucentric.com/index.php?employment/jobs/26

Just looking at the description of these job openings it looks like they have a long way to go to finalize their whole home solution. I think the Linux Drivers job will have to be filled before the DVR is out, as far as I can tell. Just my guess from experience and looking at these job descriptions.
The fact that they're posting those opening only mean that they're growing. Don't assume that they don't have people on board with such expertise.

Yeah, but if they just "growing" then that means the DVR software is ready. If the DVR software is ready, then the VOOM HD-DVR is ready. If the HD-DVR is ready, then I'd be a 100% happy VOOMer--but I ain't :(

My guess is that demo they did earlier this year was a cobbled together simulation (vaporware) and they don't have the team together yet to get the real SW done. If this wasn't the case they'd have the boxes out by now. How long did it take DirectTV to test out their HD Tivo before selling it to customers? Nevertheless, I'll give them to March 2005 before I dump them. By then DirectTV will have a lot more HD channels at a reasonable price, I guess.


The fact that they're posting those opening only mean that they're growing. Don't assume that they don't have people on board with such expertise.

It only took Dish what? 3 years to get out the 921 that was riddled like Swiss cheese with bugs? IIRC, they even yanked it off the market after it's initial release to fix the software.

I'll give them to March 2005 before I dump them. By then DirectTV will have a lot more HD channels at a reasonable price, I guess.
I would say that the probability of VOOM launching the DVR by 3/2005 is greater than the probability of DirectTV adding more HD channels by the same date :D

6 hours till "Thread Closing Time" unless VOOM performs a miracle.