To: BillyG who wrote (49665 ) 7/15/2000 1:56:48 PM From: John Rieman Respond to of 50808 PVRs..........................................itvnews.com PVR is everywhere The personal video recorder developed by TiVO and Replay Networks and sold by Sony and Philips has been a considerable success, and looks to be a technology that will boost the fortunes of consumer electronics companies, and broadcasters trying to sell advanced television services. Other companies are getting in on the act too: Thomson Multimedia, Megabyte Networks and Seagate, the hard disk maker, have filed patents on a new personal video recorder (PVR) that learns what you watch and records programmes that match your preferences. The broadcasters include programme information in the broadcast that is used by the machine. Microsoft's WebTV service also supports PVRs made by a variety of companies, for customers on Echostar's direct satellite broadcasting. In Europe we cannot use the US standard NTSC machines for recording analogue television, but UK subscribers to BSkyB's digital satellite service may soon get PVRs produced by PACE and NDS, under the name XTV. As hard disk recording technology gets cheaper, and capacity gets higher (IBM announced 75Mbyte disks March 15th) this technology will become a standard option on from most vendors. While the US gets excited about TiVo and Replay's versions of personal television, they do suffer some problems, as itvnews has pointed out in the past. Far from being a conventional consumer video recorder, the designers have tried to build in extra Internet age money making devices. An owner of a PVR pays (TiVO, not Replay) to subscribe to a programme guide that is used to set the recording times on the device, in return the broadcaster or service provider gets details of what the subscriber is watching, valuable information they can sell on and use to help broadcasters target advertising. This scheme is one of the ways that broadcasters and advertisers believe that they can actually benefit from the technology, as they fight against the power to skip ads that this box gives viewers. As a commercial model it mirrors other products that make more money on the content use than the hardware – games machines, Internet connections, subscription TV etc – which enables the supplier to subsidise the box. However since PVR companies only give the end user advertising, a rather less compelling product, the model may not stand up to competition sell the box outright. Technically a return path and subscription service is unnecessary, and it will not be long before consumers can buy non-subscription boxes. Electronic programme information is available freely on digital TV as a basic service and it is on the Internet. Another option is to turn your computer into a PVR, and one company, MGI software, is offering the technology to do just this, called Pure DIVA. Advent, a PC maker, is bringing out two models that include this technology the Advent 8737 and 8810. Their new machines feature extra large hard disks, up to 40 Gb, a television tuner, and the software from Pure DIVA software to perform PVR functions. The owners of hard disk manufactures such as Seagate who recently went private in a $20bn deal, must be rubbing their hands in delight at the thought of a massive new market for their product. Readers should check out the comments from customers of Amazon.com on what they think of living with the PVR for more hands on view. Commercial web sites for PVR: WWW.sel.sony.com www.mitsubishi-tv.com www.buyphilips.comwebtv.net webtv.net An On-line guide to PVRs can ve found at www.iwantptv.com