avediswolf said:
Tivo does the same thing with DTV signals. Raw digital stream an d has done it for years!
TiVo seeks halt to EchoStar’s digital video-recording business
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Tivo does the same thing with DTV signals. Raw digital stream an d has done it for years!
urnote96 said:
In Comcast's case they have already signed a deal with TiVo. TiVo is working on a software load for the Comcast/Mororola PVR. Don't know if we'll ever see it, or if it'll cost extra.
But, presumably, the deal includes a no-sue clause (only ready Comcast would bother).
dwcobb said:
Yeah, well... we saw how concerned the judge on the 11th Federal Circuit Court feels about consumers...... Screw them! My junket "Fact finding" mission that the NAB "sponsored" is coming up......
abricko said:
do you mean SA or directivos? I've had SD directivo boxes for 3 years and most recently a few HD tivos. Except for a yellow star on my main menu (leading me to more stuff if, and only if i choose), there is no overt advertising at all. Unless you count the 'rare' thumbs up to record on a commercial but most of us SKIP commercials and never even see it I bet.
now maybe SA units are worse? Which would be a shame because they pay more than me.
TiVo must be smelling blood. They're going in for the kill to be acquired or get licensing fees from E*.
Tivo seems awful full of themselves, "If E* didn't provide this service, these customers would be Tivo subscribers" YEA RIGHT There's a reason Tivo is failing, their boxes are SLOW AS HELL and the service is overpriced. I wish Tivo would quit whining and filing lawsuits and compete in the marketplace, which they obviously can't since no one wants their product.
SummitAdvantageRetailer said:
I wouldn't pay Tivo a nickel, if I was Charlie I'd keep them in court so long they run out of $$ for spite.
Jeff_R said:
Yes, but I stipulated "that could be used with Dish."
Many of us (including me) are under contract with Dish for fixed terms of service. The D* receiver is not a feasible alterntaive for anyone in my situation.
Notice that the DVR fee went up to $6 after Tivo took Dish to court. Must be our price for court costs.
E* is Tivo's cash cow. With Tivo announcing a $10M loss in the last quarter, they need to find money somewhere. They haven't been able to make a profit selling their own boxes and services. So getting a piece of Echostar is their best hope of getting out of the red.
If you can't survive in the marketplace, try to get the courts to give you money instead. A tried and true practice of companies with weak product offerings.....
It's a Hail Mary play, you either get royalty checks for doing nothing, or you hasten your demise by devoting your resources to legal fees instead of R & D.
It's a Hail Mary play, you either get royalty checks for doing nothing, or you hasten your demise by devoting your resources to legal fees instead of R & D.
Now for those who might know folks on Cablevision they are getting sued too.. Man its like a big snowball rolling down the hill that keeps getting bigger. They go after Satellite companys now cable is next.
Cablevision sued over planned digital service
Thu May 25, 2006 3:08 AM BST
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Four Hollywood studios and the three major television networks filed a copyright suit on Wednesday seeking to prevent Cablevision Systems Corp. from launching an "on-demand" service that aims to replace the living room digital video recorder.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, says Cablevision would run afoul of copyright law with its plan to allow subscribers to store and play back TV programs through computer servers controlled by the cable TV operator.
By contrast, conventional digital video recorder (DVR) devices sold by such companies as TiVo Inc. let viewers store programs on individual hard drives built into their own home set-top boxes.
Individual consumers have long been free to record TV shows, movies and music for personal use. But Cablevision's so-called Network DVR service has raised objections from some content providers who say it puts control over their material into the hands of another company that has not paid for or licensed it.
"Cablevision is actually copying, storing and retransmitting it," said Kori Bernard, a spokeswoman for studio industry group the Motion Picture Association of America. "A commercial entity can't establish a for-profit, on-demand service without authorization from copyright owners whose content is used on that service," she said.
Existing video-on-demand services offered by rival Comcast Corp. or satellite TV provider DirecTV Group Inc. allow customers, at their leisure, to watch specific shows licensed from TV networks and studios, as do Internet download sites such as Apple Computer's iTunes store.
Cablevision executives insist their proposed service would function more like TiVo because it enables individual subscribers, not the cable operator, to choose which programs to record and play back, with a technology that is cheaper than conventional DVRs.
And even though the material they copy is stored on a server located at Cablevision's facilities, each customer has a dedicated electronic space for the content they record, the company has said
This lawsuit is without merit, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of Cablevision's remote-storage DVR and ignores the enormous benefit and well-established right of viewers to time-shift television programming," the Bethpage, New York-based company said in a statement. "We hope and expect the court will allow our customer-friendly technological approach to move forward."
The nation's sixth-largest cable operator serving about 3 million subscribers in the New York metropolitan area, has set no timetable for the roll-out of its service, nor has it detailed any plans for pricing.
The debate over Cablevision's plan is being closely watched by the cable industry, including the top two U.S. providers, Comcast and Time Warner Inc.
Earlier controversy centered on Time Warner's Maestro service, which proposed to let viewers order up just about any show that had been previously broadcast as the programs would have automatically been stored on its network without any prompting by viewers.
That plan angered content providers, and Maestro was never launched. Instead, Time Warner reworked the idea into a service it calls Start Over, which lets viewers who miss parts of a live program to start from the beginning of the show is still in progress.
The lawsuit was brought by News Corp. Ltd.'s 20th Century Fox, General Electric Co.'s Universal Studios, Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, the Walt Disney Co. and three major networks -- CBS Corp., Disney-owned ABC and NBC, also a unit of GE.
Cablevision sued over planned digital service
Thu May 25, 2006 3:08 AM BST
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Four Hollywood studios and the three major television networks filed a copyright suit on Wednesday seeking to prevent Cablevision Systems Corp. from launching an "on-demand" service that aims to replace the living room digital video recorder.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, says Cablevision would run afoul of copyright law with its plan to allow subscribers to store and play back TV programs through computer servers controlled by the cable TV operator.
By contrast, conventional digital video recorder (DVR) devices sold by such companies as TiVo Inc. let viewers store programs on individual hard drives built into their own home set-top boxes.
Individual consumers have long been free to record TV shows, movies and music for personal use. But Cablevision's so-called Network DVR service has raised objections from some content providers who say it puts control over their material into the hands of another company that has not paid for or licensed it.
"Cablevision is actually copying, storing and retransmitting it," said Kori Bernard, a spokeswoman for studio industry group the Motion Picture Association of America. "A commercial entity can't establish a for-profit, on-demand service without authorization from copyright owners whose content is used on that service," she said.
Existing video-on-demand services offered by rival Comcast Corp. or satellite TV provider DirecTV Group Inc. allow customers, at their leisure, to watch specific shows licensed from TV networks and studios, as do Internet download sites such as Apple Computer's iTunes store.
Cablevision executives insist their proposed service would function more like TiVo because it enables individual subscribers, not the cable operator, to choose which programs to record and play back, with a technology that is cheaper than conventional DVRs.
And even though the material they copy is stored on a server located at Cablevision's facilities, each customer has a dedicated electronic space for the content they record, the company has said
This lawsuit is without merit, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of Cablevision's remote-storage DVR and ignores the enormous benefit and well-established right of viewers to time-shift television programming," the Bethpage, New York-based company said in a statement. "We hope and expect the court will allow our customer-friendly technological approach to move forward."
The nation's sixth-largest cable operator serving about 3 million subscribers in the New York metropolitan area, has set no timetable for the roll-out of its service, nor has it detailed any plans for pricing.
The debate over Cablevision's plan is being closely watched by the cable industry, including the top two U.S. providers, Comcast and Time Warner Inc.
Earlier controversy centered on Time Warner's Maestro service, which proposed to let viewers order up just about any show that had been previously broadcast as the programs would have automatically been stored on its network without any prompting by viewers.
That plan angered content providers, and Maestro was never launched. Instead, Time Warner reworked the idea into a service it calls Start Over, which lets viewers who miss parts of a live program to start from the beginning of the show is still in progress.
The lawsuit was brought by News Corp. Ltd.'s 20th Century Fox, General Electric Co.'s Universal Studios, Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, the Walt Disney Co. and three major networks -- CBS Corp., Disney-owned ABC and NBC, also a unit of GE.
I'm undecided about Cablevision's new central server DVR technology. Is it fair us or is it fair abuse? Hmmm. If you think about it, individuals now have less control over their ability to make illegal copies of copyrighted material. I'm not sure why the MPAA would be so upset...just seems like a ploy to get into Cablevision's back pocket to share in the money they will be saving by deploying this new technology.
http://www.fool.com/news/mft/2006/mft06052521.htm?source=eptyholnk303100&logvisit=y&npu=y&bounce=y
TiVo Changes the Channel
By Anders Bylund
May 25, 2006
In Wednesday night's earnings report and the following conference call, TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO) decided to fast-forward reality a bit and give us a glimpse of its plans for the future. There's no better time to look forward than when your recent past is full of good news, and I can see why management is excited about its market opportunities right about now.
Over the last three months, TiVo has launched new, more user-friendly hardware, renewed a fraying relationship with longtime partner DirecTV (NYSE: DTV), and won a significant court battle in its patent-infringement war against EchoStar (Nasdaq: DISH).
Revenues were up 20% year over year -- on increased subscription and licensing revenues, not expensive hardware sales. The $56.5 million in net sales handily beat analyst expectations of about $50.6 million, and the net loss of $0.13 per diluted share wasn't as bad as the negative-$0.19-per-share forecast.
Litigation costs associated with the EchoStar lawsuit factor into these numbers, but they were not broken out separately, making it a bit harder to get a fair picture of the quarter. Depending on the outcome of the lengthy and far-from-concluded appeals process, some or all of that burden may be reimbursed in the end.
But let's go back to the future. In light of the promising court results, the company can now get excited about TiVo knockoffs from competing manufacturers like Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO). You see, if lawsuits force rival DVR makers to pay homage to TiVo's patents, every wannabe TiVo box could be upgraded with Tivo-provided software, belatedly making it into the Real Thing.
It's a beautiful plan. Someone else gets to worry about manufacturing and the thin-to-negative margins of selling hardware, while customers still get the full TiVo experience and the company itself rakes in patent-backed licensing revenue. Customer acquisition costs fall through the floor, margins go through the roof, and both revenue and profits should grow in between.
Look for TiVo to forge new partnerships across the television market as it tries to make this vision a reality. Negotiations are already under way with Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), and if the big dog pays up for the licenses, the other puppies may have to follow suit. Software sales are such a comfortable way to make a living -- and a profit.
TiVo Changes the Channel
By Anders Bylund
May 25, 2006
In Wednesday night's earnings report and the following conference call, TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO) decided to fast-forward reality a bit and give us a glimpse of its plans for the future. There's no better time to look forward than when your recent past is full of good news, and I can see why management is excited about its market opportunities right about now.
Over the last three months, TiVo has launched new, more user-friendly hardware, renewed a fraying relationship with longtime partner DirecTV (NYSE: DTV), and won a significant court battle in its patent-infringement war against EchoStar (Nasdaq: DISH).
Revenues were up 20% year over year -- on increased subscription and licensing revenues, not expensive hardware sales. The $56.5 million in net sales handily beat analyst expectations of about $50.6 million, and the net loss of $0.13 per diluted share wasn't as bad as the negative-$0.19-per-share forecast.
Litigation costs associated with the EchoStar lawsuit factor into these numbers, but they were not broken out separately, making it a bit harder to get a fair picture of the quarter. Depending on the outcome of the lengthy and far-from-concluded appeals process, some or all of that burden may be reimbursed in the end.
But let's go back to the future. In light of the promising court results, the company can now get excited about TiVo knockoffs from competing manufacturers like Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO). You see, if lawsuits force rival DVR makers to pay homage to TiVo's patents, every wannabe TiVo box could be upgraded with Tivo-provided software, belatedly making it into the Real Thing.
It's a beautiful plan. Someone else gets to worry about manufacturing and the thin-to-negative margins of selling hardware, while customers still get the full TiVo experience and the company itself rakes in patent-backed licensing revenue. Customer acquisition costs fall through the floor, margins go through the roof, and both revenue and profits should grow in between.
Look for TiVo to forge new partnerships across the television market as it tries to make this vision a reality. Negotiations are already under way with Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), and if the big dog pays up for the licenses, the other puppies may have to follow suit. Software sales are such a comfortable way to make a living -- and a profit.
They can have my Dish DVR when they pry it from my cold dead hands.
I would rather pay Dish and get out of my contract than be stuck with a piece of Tivo garbage.
I would rather pay Dish and get out of my contract than be stuck with a piece of Tivo garbage.
I think Polaroid should sue anyone that makes a camera where the pictures can be printed at home.
Geez. Recording to a hard disk is such a novel idea! Good grief!
Geez. Recording to a hard disk is such a novel idea! Good grief!
dwcobb said:
I agree with you in the practical sense. However, in a court of law and legal filings, for these purposes, TiVo absolutely has a product available to do what you want to do. It's irrelevant, legally speaking, that it doesn't work with Dish Network.
Practically speaking, none of us have any other option if we wish to remain an E* sub, however they can prove that they have a product that does record HDTV.
