921 vs HD Tivo [Archive]

cws80us

01-07-03, 09:45 PM

With rumors flying about an HDTV Tivo being announced at CES, the race is now on to see who will be first to market with a PVR capable of recording HDTV. I'm sure Charlie and company are really sweating bullets now. They announced their product over a year ago and still haven't set a release date. It would be really embarrassing for the competition to get a comparable product to mark first now, after they've had over a year head start. The fact of the matter is the Tivo has probably had their product in development just as long as E* has. They are just smart enough to wait until it is very close to being ready before making an announcement. Where as E* routinely announces their products before they're even on the drawing board.

E* is now likely to rush the 921 to market whether it's ready or not just to beat the competition. This will make those early adopters even more brave than usual.

ATTENTION CHARLIE!!!

Your crappy R&D department is destroying your company. Start outsourcing some of your development before it's too late. While DirecTV has a plethora of stable and feature rich receivers on the market from multiple vendors (Sony, RCA, etc.). Your in house shop struggles to get even a single stable model released. The more the technology advances, the further and further you are getting behind the curve.

toddjb

01-08-03, 06:55 AM

Well, I don't think its so much a crappy R&D department...but they're making the mistake Apple computer made....

If Dish is the only company that develops Dish compatible hardware there is only so much one company can do. If they will freely contract out or let other companies produce PVRs they will have more products in the market to support their service.

(I know there does seem to be the occasional VCR w/ built in tuner, but it seems to be minor and I know few who have one...still, it seems like Dish may produce the hardware that goes in these units)

-todd

Bob Haller

01-08-03, 10:36 AM

Any liks to the HD D tivo?

E really should dp something. Whatr features do you want should be asked before it on the drawing board. Not AFTER its production.

sampatterson

01-08-03, 12:13 PM

I thought that JVC was doing alot of work on the 921, not just being a "2nd" manufacturer of the completed box?

Halfsek

01-08-03, 06:56 PM

Originally posted by toddjb
Well, I don't think its so much a crappy R&D department...but they're making the mistake Apple computer made....

If Dish is the only company that develops Dish compatible hardware there is only so much one company can do. If they will freely contract out or let other companies produce PVRs they will have more products in the market to support their service.

-todd

At the same time though, it could be argued that Apple computers tend to be more reliable due to the fact that only one company messes with the interior of it.

My main question is that with my old stand alone Tivo, there was a definite picture degredation. Will that happen with a stand alone HD Tivo?

I would gladly pay $10.00 a month for a Dish Tivo (Dishvo?). Let Dish do their little Satellite thing and let Tivo do their DVR thing. Tivo already has a huge head start working with TV networks and they already announced something about being able to network with PC's and Mac's.

I obviously have no idea how licensing works, but I think $10.00-$15.00/ month for a dual tuner Tivo/ Dish unit would be reasonable; especially since the interface for Tivo is so much better (although some of Dish's stuff is cool) and mainly that the Tivo has name based recording allowing it to adjust to fluctuating schedules.

cws80us

01-09-03, 07:50 AM

Here's a link:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=205656

Curtis0620

01-09-03, 07:58 AM

Or better yet:

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/4907154.htm

James_F

01-09-03, 08:21 AM

Originally posted by Halfsek
My main question is that with my old stand alone Tivo, there was a definite picture degredation. Will that happen with a stand alone HD Tivo?
DirecTiVos don't have a problem with picture degredation. That only occurs on SA Tivos because they have to convert the signal. DirecTiVos just record the MPEG stream right off the sat so the picture quality is equal to the quality of the stream.

James_F

01-09-03, 08:23 AM

Apple, TiVo and Brother adopt Rendezvous which would allow Macintosh users to send their photos or MP3s out of iTunes to their tivo or brother printer over wired or wireless networks.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=SVBIZINK2.story&STORY=/www/story/01-07-2003/0001867535&EDATE=TUE+Jan+07+2003,+02:06+PM

DarrellP

01-09-03, 01:49 PM

You can bet your rosie red behind that D* has been developing this probably as long as E* has the 921. My best guess is that since the copy protection crap with HD has just been finalized, the equipment can be finished to include the final specs.

thescrub

01-09-03, 06:56 PM

I only recently re-subscribed to E* when they add my locals. While I would prefer the integration of Tivo in the DirectTV products it was the fact that they had decided only to offer support for the DVI interface. E* and the 921 will support 1394 (firewire) and quite possibly HAVI. While the 1394 interface also has copy protections it falls across more consumer friendly boundaries. If E* backs out of the 1394 interface that alone will push me back to cable as the newly signed agreement requires that cable companies provide STB’s that support 1394 and DTCP to customers that request them by Dec 2003. DVI is a loser for the end user.

raj2001

01-10-03, 09:08 AM

Originally posted by DarrellP
You can bet your rosie red behind that D* has been developing this probably as long as E* has the 921.

I'd bet that too. TiVo is notorious for keeping things under wraps until the last minute. I think in a previous CES they had shown a HDTivo in operation though, but I am not sure.

goblin

01-10-03, 09:40 AM

Then again, the fact that E* just won an award for the 921 could have pushed Tivo to make an early announcement in an attempt to blunt E*'s good fortune -- and give those DirecTV subscribers, who'd jump ship for an HD PVR, a reason to stick around.

cnsf

01-10-03, 10:32 AM

raj2001

01-10-03, 10:39 AM

Originally posted by goblin
Then again, the fact that E* just won an award for the 921 could have pushed Tivo to make an early announcement in an attempt to blunt E*'s good fortune -- and give those DirecTV subscribers, who'd jump ship for an HD PVR, a reason to stick around.

The opposite could also be true - i.e. I am thinking Charlie announced the 921 and TU-9000 well in advance of its actual release in the hope that D* subs would jump ship just to get a HD PVR. Now that TiVo has called Charlie's bluff, the HDTV PVR market should get interesting now.

It could have also been that Charlie announced the 921 and TU-9000 to reduce the E* PVR enabled sub churn and to get people to stick with E* as the "innovative company".

But I am almost certain that TiVo did demonstrate a HDTV unit at a CES show in the past, so this is probably nothing new. And with the FCC pushing HDTV I wouldn't see a reason why TiVo and DirecTV won't want to thow its hat into the ring.

cws80us

01-10-03, 02:00 PM

Originally posted by thescrub
I only recently re-subscribed to E* when they add my locals. While I would prefer the integration of Tivo in the DirectTV products it was the fact that they had decided only to offer support for the DVI interface. E* and the 921 will support 1394 (firewire) and quite possibly HAVI. While the 1394 interface also has copy protections it falls across more consumer friendly boundaries. If E* backs out of the 1394 interface that alone will push me back to cable as the newly signed agreement requires that cable companies provide STB?s that support 1394 and DTCP to customers that request them by Dec 2003. DVI is a loser for the end user.

The 1394 (firewire) interface on the 921 is only for archiving to tape, not for connecting an HD monitor. It only supports DVI and component connections to HD monitors.