MPEG4 HD DVR and Home Media Center news:

[Scott Greczkowski]

I believe he means that only 1 receiver will need a phoneline. The rest of the receivers in the house will communicate with each other via the powerlines. Only 1 receiver will call in.

This is what Dish Network is trying to get working with their new DishComm product built into the 942.

 

[KSbugeater]

1) Having users send cards in periodically (unreliable and expensive)
2) A broadband connection
3) A modem
4) A sat uplink

Or, they take away ordering by remote?
Or, the DIRECTV guy comes to "read your meter"?
Or, they have wireless (cellular) built in? (get ready for lead shielding)

What if your locals come from 72.5 and not spotbeam???

I don't get how they can make this work. If you're watching the locals, how can they distinguish from people in market as opposed to out of market? I suppose if it does have wireless, they can tell what tower the call went through with the carrier's help...

 

[peterl1365]

Also the HMC and HD DVR products are for two different market segments. Either way both the HD DVR and the HMC will be offered as a rental as the primary point of sale and both boxes will support multiroom viewing (the HD DVR box will support this after the HMC is released) and as such they are designed to be used differently.

Can you elaborate on the MRV for the HD boxes? Is this because the HMC will not be able to stream to HD clients, as has been rumored elsewhere (by Dan Collins)? Would the SD DVR's ever get MRV?

 

[twodutys]

I'm also curious about HD on the HMC. I read somewhere that the later boxes would be able to stream HD. Just not the 1st generation.

 

[Tonedeaf]

This link below mentions the no phone line aswell, but no indication of how it would be done.

LINK

 

[GeorgeLV]

The receiver could just generate a code and your amount due that you enter on your billing statement. If DirecTV doesn't get it after 90 days or so they deactivate PPV on your access card until you send it in. Almost all receivers should be able to be upgraded to do this and no magic is required.

 

[agregjones]

HMC/DVR Differences?

If the HMC and HD DVR are geared towards different market segments, can someone elaborate on the differences?

 

[jdk]

They just seem to be talking about removing the "phone line requirement for all boxes". There's two issues the phoneline is supposed to address today:

1. PPV orders
2. Multiple receivers in same location

Ignoring the PPV issue for a second, and focusing on the multiple-receiver issue, what LonghornXP is saying can work out (up to a point). Using the new, nifty steerable spot beams from the Spaceway satellites, DirecTV could instruct all your receivers to look for a signal at midnight tonight. Then at midnight, the spaceway satellite sends the required signal through a spotbeam only to your metro area. Your receivers get the signal (as well as your neighbors who are "borrowing" a receiver from you), but Aunt Jane (who's also "borrowing" a receiver from you) two states away doesn't get the signal, so her receiver shuts down.

Now as for PPVs - there must be some sort of two way communication, so DirecTV will will probably disable remote PPV ordering without a phone connection ("just use our convenient web or phone-ordering system"), and/or they'll institute some sore of broadband connection. I'd bet its just the former - there's a whole host of issues of getting broadband connections up and running: cat5 to the receiver or wireless (another extra can of worms), DHCP, routers, "DirecTV broke my internet connection"...

So my prediction is that the whole "we're removing the phone line requirement", as far as joe-consumer is concerned, is simply an offical option to choose to NOT plug in a phone line, at the cost of PPV-remote ordering. As for the those interested in DirecTV internals, the account stacker or out-of-market viewer, this also means they're going to use the satellites to try and passively counter this.

 

[peterl1365]

jdk,

Your theory sounds very reasonable to me. Sounds like it should work too.

I think it's also possible that the HMC and HD DVR will have the option to phone home via a TCP/IP connection (whether broadband or dial-up), thereby eliminating the need for a phone line. After all, most of the people who object to the phone line requirement will probably have an internet connection. They will just have to upgrade to the HMC.

Others, like myself, can just plug the phone line into the receiver periodically to upload billing information. I don't object to the phone line requirement, it's just that I don't have a phone jack anywhere close to my TV's, ant I don't want to deal with trying running any unsightly wires. I prefer to order my PPV's online anyway, so that we can watch them on any TV.

 

[RicS]

Anyone know the schedule for reruns? I was moving and missed Season 9 from Ex Deaus Machina on. Pretty much missed all of SCI FI Friday in Sept as I was living in a hotel until our house was finished and looking for when they will rerun (inc Atlantis and BG)

 

[herdfan]

LonghornXP - I am concerned that you are being fed mole-bait.

Very real possibility. He posts too much stuff they really don't want out in the public realm. Easiest way to find out how is to provide small bit of incorrect info to suspected people.

As for the back channels. It would be very easy to do to verify a basic physical location. Each location is covered by specific spots and it would be easy for each spot to send out a test signal every night. If a receiver in location did not get the signals it was expecting based on location, it shuts down. Very simple to implement, but I have to wonder why. Revenue from illegal paying subs in the Carribbean and Canada doesn't hurt anything. In fact it helps keep costs down.

This system won't tell D* that J6P has 4 receivers on his account, but 2 of them are located at his brother's across town.

 

[raymo721]

Very real possibility. He posts too much stuff they really don't want out in the public realm. Easiest way to find out how is to provide small bit of incorrect info to suspected people.


Exactly how you uncover a double agent! Herdfan are you sure you don't work for the CIA? I think Longhorns Bro works for D* and thats his source. He let it slip a few months ago and I called him on it and he never replied, but so what! So far a good amount of what he's told us has come true! Oh, and BTW, I "herd" that the 1st generation HMC has only 1 HD output.--Ray

 

[lurch]

Are you guys trying to get longhorn to stop posting all this info,cuz it really sounds like it.I for one love reading his posts,and if i were him,getting all this criticizm,i probobly wouldnt post as much!

 

[imported_Crystal Pepsi Ball]

It would be nice not to need the phone line connected to receivers. With almost everyone going cell phones or broadband and away from landlines, I am suprised that this hasn't happened sooner.

 

[LonghornXP]

Both the HMC and HD DVR products will have the ability to share shows in HDTV in another room. The HMC just won't have the HD client boxes at first but will have them within a few months. They also plan at some point to offer multiroom viewing on just the current NDS SD DVR boxes. Right now their main focus is on taking care of this for HD customers first before SD customers. Right now HD customers are at about three times as much risk than an SD customers. So they are three times more likely to lose an HD customer today than an SD customer. What is worse is that these HD customers have a bill that is about 30 bucks a month more on average and these customers are more likely to purchase a sports package and/or PPV movies. That is quite a bit to lose if I might say.

Now the spotbeam idea is something that can be done without anything but just a computer todo the work. It doesn't require an employee at all and is all automated. Now onto the PPV side of things I'll answer below.

You fail to understand the difference between a computer "reading" information from an access card and that access card "sending" information. As you all have guessed by now they don't have a way for the boxes to talk back with D*. Now D* has spent quite a bit of time adding read support to their software. Today they can send a signal to add and remove data from that access card. So with that said they will now have the ability to read what data is stored on that card. Now I don't quite know how they will be doing this but it can be done because to put simply I've seen it in action. Now seeing it in action still doesn't give me the specific information about how it works in the background.

Now I've always said that I could care less what others think of me and that doesn't change. I don't expect anyone to believe me if they don't want to. As with many things you will find out soon enough if I was wrong or right and I can say I've been burned badly more than enough times that is for sure.

Now that somebody else posted even before I posted the information on AVS that makes me a little more at ease that this information is correct. Now some of the specific details I was given might be wrong because its easy to write everything done with some tidbits incorrect but thats life isn't it.

I post what I post solely for the purpose to give us fellow nuts as much information about what our providers will be doing for us in the future or on the other end what they won't do for us valued customers. I say what I'm told and I don't care if I get burned. People are still upset with me because of my bad news at the end of 2004 when I said no new HD channels or very little would be added until close to Christmas of 2005. Well as you know they had a contract for ESPN 2 HD in place before the first quarter ended but we all know when it was added do we. We also know that not much has been added after that either.

 

[hdtvtechno]

Sorry if its been posted before, but is the Home Media Center, an HD or SD box only ?

Meaning can it decode HD ?

thanks

 

[Tonedeaf]

HMC will be an HD system, of course able to do SD also.

 

[k2ue]

Very real possibility. He posts too much stuff they really don't want out in the public realm. Easiest way to find out how is to provide small bit of incorrect info to suspected people.

As for the back channels. It would be very easy to do to verify a basic physical location. Each location is covered by specific spots and it would be easy for each spot to send out a test signal every night. If a receiver in location did not get the signals it was expecting based on location, it shuts down. Very simple to implement, but I have to wonder why. Revenue from illegal paying subs in the Carribbean and Canada doesn't hurt anything. In fact it helps keep costs down.

This system won't tell D* that J6P has 4 receivers on his account, but 2 of them are located at his brother's across town.

This means that if you shut off or unplug a receiver it is permanently disconnected -- sounds like a customer relations disaster -- I doubt they'll do something like that. . .

 

[LonghornXP]

This means that if you shut off or unplug a receiver it is permanently disconnected -- sounds like a customer relations disaster -- I doubt they'll do something like that. . .

This won't be checked every month but once every three months. If you have a box disconnected for three months once you connect it you might have to make a call to get it going again at which time they will send the code via spotbeam and send another conus signal to verify that your in the area to get that code. That is the breaks and with that said if your going to disconnect a box or unplug it for a while just log into the website and remove the box from your account until you plug it back in again. Once you add the box back on your account it does the test on its own nearly right away and that would cover you for the next three months.

 

[Heinrich]

Are these units operating with the Tivo software? After living with a plain jane Comcast DVR I will not be interested with anything that is non-TIVO - and apparently Comcast will have an HD Tivo next year.