Archive for January, 2008

TViX Media Hub – Love it or Hate it?

January 28th, 2008 No Comments

Over at Crunch Gear and Crave, they’re showing off a new product called the TVix media hub. It looks cool–somewhat like a coffeemaker–tvix.JPGbut it connects to your TV (via HDMI or other connections) and lets you access your media from your PC. Apparently, it can play 1080p movies, DVDs, music, photos and movies on a built-in hard drive.  It can also be used as a DVR by connecting a tuner adapter, sold separately.

Not a bad idea, but there are lots of other products like it. But is it really worth $520? Who would want to buy this except media geeks and early adopters?

Sure it looks cool and I’d love to play with it, but do I really need it? Check out the manufacturer’s page here for more info.

[Via NewEgg]

[tags] TVix, media hub, DViCO, media extender, DVR, PVR [/tags]

Posted in Administration

Super Bowl Driving HDTV Sales

January 28th, 2008 No Comments

It happens every year. Consumer buy big screen TVs in time for the Super Bowl. They are also well-known for returning TVs right after the Super Bowl is over.

The Consumer Electronics Association said that Super Bowl XLII is expected to drive sales of approximately 2.4 million HDTVs, according to a survey they conducted. The organization says that the Super Bowl has already generated $2.2 billion in HDTV sales this year alone.

In fact, Fox News was saying that people may buy flat-screen TVs now that the stimulus package is going through Congress right now. They pointed out that taxpayers will get back about $1,200, which is enough for a good-sized flat screen HDTV set.

Additionally, Super Bowl viewers are likely to go on the Internet after the game. The survey found that 57% of HDTV owners will go online after the game to view memorable moments or television commercials.

Posted in HD Tags: , , , ,

DVR Market Growing Worldwide

January 28th, 2008 No Comments

According to In-Stat, the DVR market is growing by leaps and bounds worldwide. They estimate that DVR unit shipments will reach 31.6 million by 2011 worldwide, up from 19.5 million in 2007.

In-Stat also says that TiVo is the top DVR company as measured by total subscribers. The next top providers are EchoStar, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and BSkyB.

Apparently, lots of growth is happening in Europe and Asia. I think most of those are happening from IPTV deployments, since most IPTV services have DVR functionality and IPTV is
growing rapidly in Asia and Europe. As more companies around the world turn to IPTV, DVR usage and deployment will grow–both are intertwined.

Just to clarify, IPTV is commonly defined as broadcast TV delivered via broadband over a closed network, like phone lines (DSL) or fiber to the home. IPTV hasn’t made a big dent here in the U.S. since cable and satellite are the biggest TV providers. But AT&T’s U-Verse and Verizon’s FiOS TV are finally seeing subscribers in the hundreds of thousands here in the U.S. And those numbers will continue to grow. And many of those people will be using DVRs.

[Via In-Stat Press Release.]

[tags] DVR, In-Stat, IPTV, U-verse, FiOS TV, Verizon, AT&T, digital video recorder, research, analysis [/tags]

Posted in Tivo, research

hotel

January 27th, 2008 No Comments



hotel

Originally uploaded by jalvear


Posted in Administration

california street

January 27th, 2008 No Comments



california street

Originally uploaded by jalvear


Posted in Administration

lady on street

January 27th, 2008 No Comments



lady on street

Originally uploaded by jalvear


Posted in Administration

Driving

January 27th, 2008 No Comments



Driving

Originally uploaded by jalvear


Posted in Administration

Modern marvels

January 27th, 2008 No Comments



Modern marvels

Originally uploaded by jalvear


Posted in Administration

LA Times Talks to Tivo CEO

January 23rd, 2008 No Comments

The L.A. Times has an interview with Tom Togers, the CEO of Tivo. They discuss how Tivo has been evolving into a media/advertiser-friendly company and the future of Tivo. Here are some interesting highlights:

What’s TiVo’s ultimate goal?

What we’re aiming to do is build a dream that going back 20 years ago people in cable and television have been talking about — being able to get anything you want, when you want to see it on your television set. Now, there’s a lot of complications to that. There are different video formats. Some things on TV are sent directly to TiVo. Other things we have to grab off the Internet. Other things involve rights deals with studios. There have been many efforts to persuade people to connect their TVs to the Internet. Most have failed. Is this something people want to do?

People have said to us, “Well, OK, the content is distributed by broadband, but how are you going to get people to connect their broadband wires to their television sets? It’s an unnatural act. People are just not going to do that.” We said that’s just not the case. We have 800,000 TiVo users who have already directly connected their broadband through TiVo to their television sets.

When asked why you want the Internet on your TV, Rogers said that Tivo is working to move just being a recording only device, into something that opens up the “infinite choice in video”.  Plus, he answered the question about whether Tivo would merge or be acquired by another company by saying “…there seems to be just an awful lot of upside to drive as an independent company.”
[tags] Tivo, interview, LA Times, DVR, Amazon, RealNetworks [/tags]

Posted in Tivo

Video Downloads Growing to 2.4 Billion in 2012

January 18th, 2008 No Comments

Now that Apple has announced that it is renting movies off iTunes and improved Apple TV, it looks like the rental/download market is getting ready to blow up. According to analyst firm ABI research, video downloads will grow from 215 million in 2008 to over 2.4 billion in 2012. About half of all downloads will be for online movie rentals.

Today, the online movie rental business is slow-going. There’s Amazon Unbox, NetFlix Watch Now, iTunes and a few other scattered video download businesses. Additionally, competition will come physical rentals like NetFlix and Blockbuster, as well as cable and satellite companie. So the competition will be fierce and now everyone’s trying to get a piece of the pie now before a clear video download winner emerges.

Additionally no one is sure what the business model will be: subscription, rent-to-own, rent. And what kinds of restrictions should be set on downloadable movies, such as copying to DVDs or portable media players.

[ABI Press release]

[tags] movie rentals, online movies, iTunes, Apple, Apple TV, video downloads, online movie rentals, Internet video [/tags]

Posted in Apple
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