DVRs: Tune In, Turn On, Uplink and Network

by Edward B. Driscoll, Jr.
Summer/Fall 2003

If you thought the digital video recorder (DVR) that mates a hard drive with a TV tuner was sophisticated now, then watch out: it's about to get a whole new set of smarts.

TiVo, SONICblue (the maker of ReplayTV), and several consumer electronics manufacturers are about to combine the DVR with several functions that, until recently, were only available on a computer.

"The convergence point of the digital home is around the network, not around any independent device," according to Ted Malone, TiVo's director of product and service marketing. "So in order to share media within the home, you need to be a good citizen on the home network." Which means that TiVo and ReplayTV will be working closer than ever with the PC.

"The PC is the best place to rip and burn and mix, and reduce redeye and crop and rotate, and all that stuff," Malone adds. "When you're done, go over to your TiVo, and that's where you can view your photos, share them with your family, kick back and listen to favorite playlists.

Aimed at Home Networks
In the past year, both TiVo and ReplayTV have added Ethernet connectivity. SONICblue installed an Ethernet jack into their ReplayTV in 2001 and TiVo made a big splash at CES 2003 with the introduction of a USB adapter that gets its box on the network.

Why the focus on networking? Because there's a good chance that if you own a DVR, you already have a network in your home. Malone says, "Through our research, we found that over 50 percent of our customers already have a home network." For those that don't, an 802.11b wireless network is particularly easy to setup, and both TiVo and Replay units work with this wireless technology.

The Meta-PVR
By the fall of 2003, both Replay and TiVo-equipped DVRs will have features that essentially turn a house full of DVRs into one giant super-DVR, seamlessly sharing their content, and working with each other to program multiple shows simultaneously. Richard Bullwinkle, senior product manager in SONICblue's connected home group says "You can sit in your living room and try to schedule Survivor, for example, and the box will come back and say, 'I can't get Survivor, because I'm already recording Friends at that same time, but would you like me to record it in your bedroom?', which is really cool."

Indeed it is. So is another function that both platforms promise to have by the fall of 2003: the ability to pause a show on one DVR, and resume watching in another room. "For example," Bullwinkle says, "if you're sitting in your living room, and you watch the first half of West Wing, but you're tired and you want to watch the rest in bed, you can hit pause, turn off your TV, go into the bedroom, turn on the TV there, select West Wing from the guide, it will ask, 'Would you like to resume where you left off?'

Both platforms will also allow for sharing of MP3 music and JPG pictures. Most current ReplayTVs already let you copy and store those types of media files, but an upgrade planned for this year will support streaming digital content from a PC. This is potentially scary news for companies that are currently selling expensive stand-alone, audio-only digital receivers.

Weigh the Differences Carefully
The two platforms differ is the ability to share content and the ability to skip commercials. For over a year now, SONICblue has allowed ReplayTV owners to exchange shows with each other. It is apparently a little used feature, since the huge video files are cumbersome and take many hours to transfer, even over fast broadband networks. ReplayTV's automatic commercial skipping feature has also caused SONICblue a variety of legal headaches. TiVo, which is taking a more cautious approach to expanding their capabilities, lacks those particular features.

Ultimately, which model to chose from depends on a family's individual needs. It's a choice that needs to be made carefully, since TiVo and ReplayTV can't share programs with each other. Both technology providers are hoping that once you buy one of their boxes, you'll buy more, and connect them in a network. With that in mind, let's take a look at what some of the choices are.

ReplayTV 5000 Series
SONICblue's ReplayTV 5000 series has models beginning at a $300 retail price, with a $9.95 monthly service fee or a one-time service activation fee of $250.

$300 snags the 5040 model, which comes equipped with a hard drive capable of recording of up to 40 hours of programming. The 5080, which, as its name suggests, can record up to 80 hours, retails for $100 more. Another hundred dollars brings home the 5160 model, which can record (surprise!) up to a whopping 160 hours.

All of these units can work with either a broadband connection or an analog phone line, but as you may have guessed, a broadband connection and Ethernet is necessary to take full advantage of the program sharing features.

Panasonic's Swiss Army Knife
One of the most sophisticated new DVRs is Panasonic's DMR-HS2, which functions as a hard disk-based DVR and has a built-in DVD burner. Besides playing DVDs and audio CDs, the unit functions much like a TiVo or ReplayTV with the fabulous addition of the DVD burner, which can save your recorded programs to optical media for posterity. It retails for $1,000.

Interestingly, the DMR-HS2 is one of the few DVRs not powered by ReplayTV or TiVo. Instead, the DMR-HS2 uses the older VCR Plus+ programming system, which lacks interactive onscreen program guides. Panasonic also has two less expensive models without hard disks that, surprisingly, don't seem to sacrifice any functions. It looks like Panasonic might just be on the leading edge of a wave of new DVD burner DVR products.

Dish Goes High-Def
Then there are the DirecTV and Dish Networks satellites, which are beaming content to a DVR near you. Dish Network's DVRs use a proprietary technology and they have at least one cutting edge box, the DishDVR 921 satellite TV receiver, which, at the moment, is unique in its ability to record both standard and high definition programming. Dish currently has five HDTV channels: CBS-HD, HBO-HD, Showtime-HD, Discovery-HD and Dish-On-Demand pay-per-view HD movies, along with a 24-hour HDTV demonstration channel.

The DishDVR 921 uses a massive hard disk drive to record any combination of up to 40 hours of high-definition programming or up to 250 hours of standard definition television programming.

Like several other satellite-based DVRs, it includes the ability to record two programs at the same time while watching a third pre-recorded program. Dish plans to announce details of the price and availability later this year, but it is likely to be a bargain, since Dish makes money by selling its programming services.

DirecTV Adds Custom Programming
In contrast, DirecTV's DVRs are built around the TiVo platform, and, while DirecTV's DVRs can support all of the features that TiVo has planned for this year, don't expect to see them show up on the satellite boxes at the same time as they do on their standalone counterparts.

"What we're going to do is to kind of let TiVo, in the standalone world, be the lead blocker on this new stuff," Brad Beale, DirecTV's senior vice president of product development and advanced services, says. "What we want to do is to let them put it out there, and see what resonates, and what doesn't. So if they have features and services that are a hit and it looks like they will be attractive and can be easily technically implemented, we'll go ahead and roll those things out as well.

In the meantime, Beale says that DirecTV is focusing on specialized content for their DVR owners, including exclusive movies and narrowcasting specialized programs aimed at a much more limited audience than most network channels, such as a channel devoted to wedding planning or specific breeds of animals. "You could imagine putting that up onto the satellite, in the middle of the night, and, as a DirecTV DVR subscriber, you can say, 'I'm interested in these particular genres of content', and it would automatically record that stuff for you."

Link it Up
Whether the programming that you happen to watch is over the air or transported from space, the clear trend over the next year is to connect it all together. From photos and music, to HD satellite and DVD, television has not seen a revolution like this since the burying of the first cable back in the last century.