Despite Fits, False-Starts, DVRs Poised For Explosive Growth

[Chris Blount]

The technology wonks at IDC have released yet another study touting the increased adoption rates and massive growth potential of digital video recorders--and this time, they mean it.

Although the bullish projections for DVR adoption made in earlier reports were never realized, IDC senior research analyst Greg Ireland believes the device has finally reached a point where, in his words, "the stars are aligning." To that end, he predicts that as much as 30 percent of U.S. households will use DVRs by 2008.

Full Story (http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsID=244495)

[Bogy]

Cox Omaha is due to begin testing their DVRs soon, and the rollout should hit about the second half of the year. I can't wait. :D

[Cyclone]

This is going to shake up TV's advertisment based model something awful. I wonder how this is going to play out?

[Nick]

Yeah, well, I'm not impressed. It sounds like sales of these new-fangled PVR/DVR machines are takin' off like a dud bottle rocket. Only 30% market penetration by 2008 is lame.

I've had two PVRs for almost four years now. When is the average joe going to ketchup with me? By then I'll have twin-dual 900 GB S-DVRs wirelessly ported to the built-in flat-panel displays on the microwave, the fridge and the hyper-reflective nano-pixel invision displays invisibly integrated into all my bathroom mirrors.

[Bogy]

They aren't going to really take off until they are commonly available through people's local cable provider for a few dollars more a month. Yes, I know that they have been available through DBS for some time now, but we aren't talking about the kind of people who jump into new things, but the average Joe. The kind of guy who sticks with cable because its familiar, who doesn't want to add another monthly payment, but might be willing to add a few dollars to a monthly bill he already has. And it probably won't happen until he sees one in action at a friend or relative's house.

DVDs players exploded, but not until the price got down to around $100. Plus, they were familiar, in that they looked like CDs, but for the TV instead of music or the computer. Now, with DVD players hitting the under $40 mark, everyone can get one, even my mom (well, actually, I bought it for her, but she's already picking out DVD's she wants to get.)

[Slordak]

This is going to shake up TV's advertisment based model something awful. I wonder how this is going to play out?

But don't you think something's wrong when we're already paying for television channels and yet still have to watch advertisements? I.e. ESPN is charging some obscene rate for their crappy sports channels, and we're all paying it, and yet they still deluge us with commercials.

[Strong]

This is going to shake up TV's advertisment based model something awful. I wonder how this is going to play out?
In the most obtrusive ways. Prepare to see more obnoxious and obvious product placements during shows, etc. Also watch for more 'crawls' during shows and even those horrendous dynamic graphics (for lack of a better term) that explode on the screen right in the middle of a show! Eventually, TV watchers will long for the good old days of the 30 second commercials.

Thats why I pretty much gave up on TV, and in some cases even movies have become 2 hour long infomercials.

Its becoming torture to even listen to a baseball game on the radio. Announcers have mastered the art of plugging everything under the sun without even pausing for breath between pitches.

[Bogy]

Won't be long before we start having "popup" adds on tv. :(

[Mark Holtz]

It depends on how you look at things. You can take a look at the sales charts from Digital Bits (http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/cemadvdsales.html) and see that the monthly sales of DVDs players now are more than what was sold total in 1997 and, in some months, more than the entire year of 1998.

Part of the problem with VCRs in the past was that they were hard to program and set the time. Many people just gave up on the time-shifting idea and used the VCR as a way to play back movies. DVDs came along and we had a better way of viewing movies that was sharper and more compact. DVD takes off, and pre-recorded VHS are getting very hard to find.

Is the time shifting audience large enough? I can't think of doing without my DVR, but then I am using it to it's full potential, including recording old movies at 2 AM in the morning. Even though I'm almost have 243 hours of record time, it feels like I'm always near capacity. (Of course, with easter week next week, I can kick back and actually catch up on some back movies.)