To All: In BW On-Line; Does this technology sound familiar? I think the Wavemeter does a better job though. When will they ever learn!
PS Thanks Wahoograd for the reply.
BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : JANUARY 25, 1999 ISSUE //PERSONAL BUSINESS//
A 'Pause' Button for Tube Junkies
You arrive home too late for the start of a whodunit on TV, so you
spend the rest of the hour trying to catch up with the plot. Or maybe
you were watching at the beginning, but just as a key scene was about
to confirm your suspicions about the culprit, the phone rang and
pulled you away.
Tube junkies no longer have to contend with these irritants, thanks to
new technology that caused a splash at January's Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In March, Replay Networks and TiVo
each plan to introduce set-top boxes that will let you rewind or pause a TV program even as it is being broadcast. Satellite subscribers who
buy EchoStar's new $500 Model 7100 receiver will also be able to
pause a telecast for up to 30 minutes. So when that ill-timed phone call interrupts the action, you'll hit a button and later resume watching from where you left off.
PERSONAL CHANNELS. These devices have disk drives like
the ones inside your PC. Incoming TV signals are compressed,
recorded onto the hard drive, then decompressed in a split second. In
fact, you can replay the start of a show at the same time the device is recording its conclusion.
Replay and TiVo also aim to personalize TV viewing so you can find
the programs you want to see and watch them at your leisure. For
example, Replay lets you set up customized channels. You could
create an X-Files channel by having Replay's search software scan a
database to find and automatically record each episode of the series.
Similarly, if you can't get enough of Tom Cruise, the system can find
all the movies or talk shows featuring the actor, and then record them. The device updates channel guide information by phoning a server in the middle of the night. To avoid running out of storage space, you
can tell the device to replace older shows as new ones are aired.
TiVo functions in much the same fashion, with some differences. Just
as Amazon.com makes recommendations to its Web site customers
based on their previous orders, TiVo guesses at what you might like to
watch, based on your viewing habits. So if you like ER, TiVo might
recommend Marcus Welby, M.D. reruns. On the TiVo remote control
are thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons so you can tell the service of
your preferences. TiVo says it will not reveal your name in sharing
such data with marketers.
The technology has limits. Without a splitter, you can't record one
channel while watching another, like you can using a VCR. Viewers
who like to record for posterity will still want to tape programs on
their VCRs to avoid overloading the hard drive. Fortunately, the TiVo
and Replay boxes have a port that lets you transfer contents of the hard drive to tape. As PC owners know, hard drives can crash. If that
happens with either of these devices while they're covered by their
one-year warranties, the companies will replace the broken hard drive.
The services aren't cheap. A Replay box with 10 hours of storage will
set you back $699. Models with 14 and 28 hours of storage will cost
$999 and $1,499, respectively. But Replay doesn't charge a monthly
fee for access to its database. TiVo gives you 10 hours of storage and
is expected to go for around $500--models with greater storage
capacity will cost more. But you'll have to pay about $10 a month for
data. You'll eventually be able to buy Philips Electronics TV sets with a TiVo storage device and DirecTV satellite receiver built in. Now, let's see: Should you start with Friends, Frasier, or the football game?
By Edward C. Baig |
