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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (7751)	7/26/2000 4:30:54 AM
From: DukeCrow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Okay, now I see. We're not just talking about PPV and VoD, are we? We're also talking (probably primarily talking) about regualr programming. But then what "about" the PPV and VoD features with play back that the stb's will support? Yes, the device from Dish and WebTV (it's the DishPlayer series of receivers) will record any satellite programming, even PPV. I am not sure if the DirecTiVo box will allow PPV recording or not, although I would assume it would just to stay competitive. The DishPlayer will not record off-the-air programming, however, since it does not include an MPEG2 encoder as the TiVo and ReplayTV do (of course, TiVo and Replay can't record a pure digital stream either because they don't have the proper inputs). Will we have multiple devices/appliances capable of doing the same thing cluttering up the living room or den? The computer room? Or, wherever? This is an interesting question. Of course, right now we'll have one of these in every room that needs it. In the future, one could imagine a home having a central video/multimedia server which handles all these tasks with the video being served over HPNA 3.0 (100Mbps). You're already seeing this type of thing happening with MP3 audio. S3's Rio division has an audio receiver which streams audio stored on your PC through HPNA 2.0 to your stereo system. Heck, the PC itself with the proper program could even be called upon to take up some of this slack, couldn't it? Right now, it is fairly simple to turn your computer into a digital VCR. However, the hardware and software needed to pause live TV is much more expensive than a TiVo or Replay box. Note that pausing live TV requires the hardware to both record the live stream to the harddrive while also reading the recently recorded video stream at the same time. A digital VCR functionality is simple to do because it only requires the recording of the stream for later playback. Ali