I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot about this in the coming days: TiVo has settled their lawsuit with DISH for $500,000,000. This should end years and years of litigation between the companies. Here’s TiVo Inc.’s press release about the settlement:
They do note that this will not only give them a cash infusion, but also reduce a big expense in the costs of litigation. Hopefully, their focus will remain on producing great products.
As we get near the summer TV doldrums, you might want to think about loading up your TiVo with first runs of shows you don’t otherwise watch. TiVo has some ideas for you here:
Not sure you’ll want to watch the Royal Wedding over the summer, but having it there never hurts.
No, no, we don’t have the new DirecTV TiVo that both companies have been promising for more than two years now. But we do have the old one, the DirecTV HR10-250.
The DirecTV HR10-250 was, when it was initially released, the first HD TiVo, and pretty much the first HD DVR on any platform. It’s a great unit, and it works perfectly with OTA (over the air) antenna signals for pretty much the best quality HD broadcast streams available.
The big issue with the HR10-250 is that it can only decode MPEG2 channels from a DirecTV dish. So, while it will get almost all standard definition channels that DirecTV supplies, it won’t get any HD signals from DirecTV. They’ve migrated their HD channels to the MPEG4 format, and this unit just can’t read those.
But the DirecTV HR10-250 TiVo can receive, in HD, OTA signals, the signals that your local broadcaster sends out. Because the FCC gave local broadcasters so much bandwidth, these companies barely compress their signal at all (much less than DirecTV) and this results in the best quality HD broadcast available. We routinely compared recordings from OTA and DirecTV back when this unit could get DirecTV HD, and the OTA was always vastly superior.
So the HR10-250 can get HD from local broadcasters, and standard def local and premium channels from DirecTV. And, best of all, it’s a TiVo. That combination works for many people (myself included) and, until (or “if”) the new, promised unit ships, this is the best mix of interface and programming.
We now have a page dedicated to purchasing this unit from us, refurbished. See our DirecTV HD TiVo page for more info.
Here’s a disturbing tweet from @DIRECTV:
“Details are still being determined, launch maybe in late 2011. DIRECTV.com or TiVO.com for up-to-date info.”
See it on their Twitter page.
I’m certainly hoping this is just some uninformed rep over there, but this is their official feed. It’s the first time frame I’ve seen beyond the “early 2011” promises that are rapidly proving to be mistaken.
Amazon announced their Prime streaming option, which has been rumored about for a while. Basically, if you have a $79 Amazon Prime
Amazon Video On Demand
See the starred note here:
It says “Prime instant videos are not currently available on TiVo devices.”
Sad to hear it – we’re hoping that the word “currently” was placed there very carefully.