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To: Stoctrash who wrote (49517)	6/14/2000 10:01:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

No codec in this box.............................. e-town.com WEBTV CHANGES NAME, ADDS FEATURES Three CE heavyweights seek bigger piece of PVR pie 6/12/2000 By Ethan McCarty NEW YORK, NY, June 13, 2000 -- Microsoft, DirecTV and Thomson Multimedia have jointly introduced the first set-top box to combine DBS (digital broadcast service), Microsoft's new UltimateTV Internet access, and hard drive video recording in a single device. The triumvirate of CE industry giants unveiled the new product at a press conference held yesterday in New York City's Rainbow Room. RCA electronics will make both models of the box, the DS4290RE and the DWD490RE, available to consumers "in time for the 2000 holiday shopping season," according to the announcement. The DS4290RE comes equipped with the receiver, an 18-inch satellite dish and a universal remote control. Front panel view of prototype DS4290RE receiver Back panel view of prototype DS4290RE receiver. Actual model will ship without serial cable connection. The packaged dish has dual LNBs (low noise blockers), allowing it to receive two signals simultaneously. The receiver takes advantage of the dual LNBs to display PIP (picture-in-picture) on any TV, record two programs simultaneously or record one program while displaying another. The DWD490RE comes without a dish, to accommodate consumers who already have one installed. More video at higher quality. Though the actual size of the hard drive has not been disclosed, the new receiver is said to store up to 30 hours of programming without adding any internal compression. The manufacturers claim that the video will be of higher quality than that displayed by other Personal Video Recorders (PVRs), because the only video compression used is added by the multi-million-dollar systems at the satellite up-link facilities. Compression added by the less expensive components used in consumer-level equipment is said to produce a lower-quality image. Along with video recording, the receiver has host of programming features, including a 14-day program guide, parental filters and configurable search functions. Like all other PVRs, RCAs allows the user to rewind live TV, pause for bathroom breaks and skip through commercials. High speed connection ... er, sort of. While the 200 channels of audio and video content are beamed from DirecTV to the DS4290RE via what amounts to a high-bandwidth digital connection, the device still sports an internal 56 kbps modem to access Microsoft's new online interactive TV service, UltimateTV. The service differs from WebTV in that it will be geared towards users seeking an interactive television experience, rather than a basic Internet service provider. Like WebTV, however, the new service comes with email capabilities, and can be expanded with the same wireless infrared keyboard. Even though the DS4290RE can function as a satellite receiver without the UltimateTV services enabled, the PVR capabilities are crippled unless users send a monthly check to Microsoft. Pricing for the packaged service, including DirecTV subscription fees and UltimateTV Internet access, has not yet been determined. The rear panel of the device has dual USB connections to allow the later addition of an external hard drive, printer, a DSL modem or some other USB peripheral. But DTV fans will be disappointed to learn that the DS4290RE is not DTV compatible, and that the USB connections are disabled from outputting video. However, it will still be possible to archive video by connecting to rear-panel analog outputs for audioand video signals. Though the PVRcategory is only a year old, the functionality has shot through the roof -- and there's nothing to stop the feature list from growing. The DS4290RE can download software updates that may one day add functions like MP3 playback, video editing or the ability to export files to portable digital players. And competitors ReplayTV and TiVo have hardly been standing still. Both have announced service or feature upgrades recently in an effort to gain a competitive edge in what is starting to look like a high growth area of consumer electronics.