Product Review: Media Server/Receiver

Product Review: Media Server/Receiver:

You may have seen many UPnP/DLNA Media Server popping up every day. It's hard to find out a comprehensive list, where you may choose one. I'm going to cover most the currently available Media Server in the market. This list will grow as more Media Server will be available in the future. So, please keep visiting this page for constant updates. Media Server can be either categorized as Software based or Hardware based. Software based Media Server can be run on PC mainly on win32, linux or Mac platform. And, hardware based Media Server may run on any NAS (Network Attached Storage) or any specific hardware for delivering media future PVR. Currently, there are more software based Media Server than hardware based, but I guess that will change soon.

Filed in: media

New Tivo Price Plans - No More Lifetime - TiVo Community

New Tivo Price Plans - No More Lifetime - TiVo Community:

New Bundled Offering, Flexible Pricing and Service Commitments Will Simplify Offering for Consumers

Mar 08, 2006 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVR), today announced new, simplified pricing plans that will make it easier for consumers to add TiVo to their home entertainment experience. For the first-time ever, through TiVo's direct sales channel, customers will be able to bundle together the purchase of their TiVo(R) 80-hour Series2(R) box and service at an all-in-one price, based on a one-, two-, or three-year commitment. There will be no separate price for the TiVo unit and TiVo(R) service. The specific bundle prices that will be available at www.tivo.com or by calling 1-877-BUY-TIVO are:

• The price for a TiVo box and a one-year service commitment is $19.95 a month or $224 prepaid
• The price for a TiVo box and a two-year service commitment is $18.95 a month or $369 prepaid
• The price for a TiVo box and a three-year service commitment is $16.95 a month or $469 prepaid

TiVo developed these new pricing plans after completing market research among new and existing TiVo subscribers and by conducting extensive testing of the pricing options with randomized group of consumers in the marketplace. The results of the research were overwhelmingly favorable to the bundling together of the TiVo unit and TiVo service. As is the case with subscribing to the TiVo service today, an early cancellation fee will apply if service is terminated prior to the end of the chosen period. In the case of prepaid subscriptions, no refund will be made upon early termination.

"Over the past several months, we have done extensive research on our pricing strategy and distribution model with a focus on finding the simplest and most efficient way to increase sales and drive penetration of the TiVo service among consumers," said Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo. "After extensive testing and evaluation of various pricing and packaging approaches, we will launch a subscription option that combines the sale of the TiVo service together with the TiVo box. This is great for TiVo subscribers who will now have the ability to get TiVo service with no upfront hardware costs."

As part of the announcement, TiVo is also announcing an update to its service-only options, providing consumers that purchase a TiVo unit at a retail outlet with the option to pre-pay for one-, two-, or three-years of TiVo service. The product lifetime service option will be eliminated next week. With the ability to pre-pay for TiVo service, TiVo is standing by its efforts to deliver choice to its customers and continuing to spread the "TiVo, TV Your Way" message.

"We are committed to providing our customers a great value for their dollar and enhancing our ability to add subscribers through more flexible pricing options," said Mr. Rogers.

The changes to the pricing structure and service-only options will launch next week. The changes will not affect TiVo's current base of subscriptions.

Filed in: tivo

TiVo Lovers - TiVo shows Series3 HDTV Cable Card unit at CES

TiVo Lovers - TiVo shows Series3 HDTV Cable Card unit at CES

The unit has two CableCARD slots on the back and it will support Multi-Stream (CableCARD 2.0) or Single-Stream (CableCARD 1.0) cards. If you have multi-stream then you only need one card, but as long as only single stream cards are available you can use two of them. Yes, the unit is dual-tuner - actually, like the HD DirecTiVo it can use any two of the tuners it has, and it has six. 2 cable tuners, 2 ATSC tuners, and 2 NTSC tuners. Yes, it supports digital and analog cable, digital ATSC OTA, and analog NTSC OTA.

The only inputs the unit has are a coax cable in and a coax antenna in. There are no RCA or S-Video inputs on this unit. For output it has HDMI, Component Video, S-Video, and Composite Video. It has optical digital audio out, as well as RCA stereo out. Like the Series2 units it has 2 USB ports, and it also has a 10/100baseT Ethernet jack built-in. The unit also still has the modem, which seems increasingly archaic. :-) Oh, yeah, I almost forgot - it also has an external SATA port. ;-)

TiVo Lovers - TiVo shows Series3 HDTV Cable Card unit at CES

TiVo Lovers - TiVo shows Series3 HDTV Cable Card unit at CES

The unit has two CableCARD slots on the back and it will support Multi-Stream (CableCARD 2.0) or Single-Stream (CableCARD 1.0) cards. If you have multi-stream then you only need one card, but as long as only single stream cards are available you can use two of them. Yes, the unit is dual-tuner - actually, like the HD DirecTiVo it can use any two of the tuners it has, and it has six. 2 cable tuners, 2 ATSC tuners, and 2 NTSC tuners. Yes, it supports digital and analog cable, digital ATSC OTA, and analog NTSC OTA.

The only inputs the unit has are a coax cable in and a coax antenna in. There are no RCA or S-Video inputs on this unit. For output it has HDMI, Component Video, S-Video, and Composite Video. It has optical digital audio out, as well as RCA stereo out. Like the Series2 units it has 2 USB ports, and it also has a 10/100baseT Ethernet jack built-in. The unit also still has the modem, which seems increasingly archaic. :-) Oh, yeah, I almost forgot - it also has an external SATA port. ;-)

TiVo Community - HDTV TiVo is on its way

Need more reasons to stay with TiVo - TiVo Community:

This is old news now, but it's hasn't made its rounds enough.

There's a dual tuner HD box coming next year that will work with both cable and ATSC.

Or, if you have Comcast cable, there's a version of TiVo coming that will work on the 6412 dual tuner HD cable platform.

Both are dual tuner HD, and both are planned to be out next year. Dan's right - CES is typically where you'd hear more info/details.

Cheers, Pony

Boing Boing: Promise TV -- PVR records a month's worth of shows from all channels

Boing Boing: Promise TV -- PVR records a month's worth of shows from all channels:

Of all the amazing and wonderful things I saw this weekend at London's OpenTech conference, none came close to the stupendous Promise TV box. This is a home-built personal video recorder made out of commodity PC components (primarily a LOT of high-capacity hard-drives).

What the Promise does is grab the entire broadcast TV multiplex -- all the channels being broadcast in the UK -- slices them up according to the free, over-the-air electronic programming guide, and stores an entire month's worth. Why program a TiVo to get certain shows for you when you can record every single show on the air, all at once, and then use recommendations, search, a grid, or any other means you care to name to figure out which of those thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of programming you want to watch.

The promise.tv team have produced a breadboard prototype and a single, product-like box that looks like the kind of thing you might stick under your TV. They've put up a placeholder site to collect email addresses of people who want to find out more when they do a more formal launch. I've just signed up -- I can't wait to see more of this. I'd buy one in a hot second. Link

Watch Your TiVo Program On Your Pocket PC

Pocket PC Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves:

Earlier this year, TiVo started rolling out their TiVoToGo feature which allows you to watch recorded programs on your Windows based PC. One of the TiVo Community members has posted some additional steps to get that TV show on your Pocket PC.

For this to work, you need a Series 2 TiVo box, a network (wired or wireless) and the the 7.1 software update. You can read more about the specifics here. Next, you'll need Dr. Divx, which is $29.99. Finally, you need BetaPlayer 0.5 to actually watch it on your Pocket PC.

For this to work, you need a Series 2 TiVo box, a network (wired or wireless) and the the 7.1 software update. You can read more about the specifics here. Next, you'll need Dr. Divx, which is $29.99. Finally, you need BetaPlayer 0.5 to actually watch it on your Pocket PC. ."

How does a 600GB Toshiba DVR, the RD-Z1 sound to you? - Engadget - www.engadget.com

How does a 600GB Toshiba DVR, the RD-Z1 sound to you? - Engadget - www.engadget.com
"What, a few hundred gigs of DVR space wasn’t enough? Oh yeah, you’re DVRing hi-def, sorry, peep Toshiba’s monster 600GB RD-Z1, a straight HDMI DVR with dual satellite tuners, integrated Ethernet, and an 8x DVD-R/5x DVD-RAM burner. Good god, the Japanese don’t mess around—too bad it’s about as likely to hit these shores as TiVo would be to release something that could even begin to compete."

One Canadian's Wireless Neighborhood Network Could Someday Serve Us All

PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column: "Like many of us, Andrew Greig put a WiFi access point in his house so he could share his broadband Internet connection. But like hardly any of us, Andrew uses his WiFi network for Internet, television, and telephone. He cancelled his telephone line and cable TV service. Then his neighbors dropped-by, saw what Andrew had done, and they cancelled their telephone and cable TV services, too, many of them without having a wired broadband connection of their own. They get their service from Andrew, who added an inline amplifier and put a better antenna in his attic. Now most of Andrew's neighborhood is watching digital TV with full PVR capability, making unmetered VoIP telephone calls, and downloading data at prodigious rates thanks to shared bandwidth. Is this the future of home communications and entertainment? It could be, five years from now, if Andrew Greig has anything to say about it."

External TV Tuners / PVR Devices: 3-way shootout @ TechSpot

External TV Tuners / PVR Devices: 3-way shootout @ TechSpot: "We took on three different products for this shootout, all of them external devices which should offer extra versatility versus its internal counterparts. The first is a unit from Transcend, which is called the TV-Box. Next on the docket will be a unit from Digistor. And finally, the largest of the bunch is the RTV VEG-N Video Entertainment Generator."

Russell Beattie Notebook - Nokia Design Thoughts: Simplicity

Russell Beattie Notebook - Nokia Design Thoughts: Simplicity

"The new Nokia 6255 - a CDMA flip phone with video functionality running on the "Series 45" platform, will be launched soon and you can see that unlike many of their recent phone launches, Nokia has gone back to basics on the design. Fantastic. That phone is truly lustworthy - and not just because of the functionality, but because of the clean lines and useful design.

I think all of us Nokia fans are pretty sick of the wacky unusable keypads, odd shapes, and questionable usability aren't we? I mean, more power to Nokia for having the kahunas to try something new, but I'm sick of being an apologist. "Look at this great phone! Yeah, yeah, I know it's a bit weird. But it's so cool!" Now that they've been bitchslapped by the market in the last quarter it looks like they're going to get back to basics. Actually the quid-pro-quo may not be direct since the design for the 6255 probably happened years ago, but I think that they'll now make more of an effort go in that direction, starting with this phone.

I expect the 6255 to be huge success because it's both clean and functional. What's the hottest consumer product on the market right now? Right - the iPod Mini. Look at it. It's *ridiculously* simple in design and usability. It's not over-designed, it's not shockingly new, it's elegant and beautiful and clean. This is the future of all mobile products.

Consumers like simplicity, cleanliness and functionality. Apple truly understands this as does Sony - look at the PowerBooks and the SonyEricsson Z700 for examples. Look at TiVo. It should be a mantra for any consumer product development team: simplicity and functionality. The 6255 is a fantastic phone for this reason. It's not boring, it's beautiful. We've got enough clutter in our lives, no? The devices we carry with us during almost all our waking ours should not add to it."

Plextor > News > PX-TV402U Press Release

Plextor > News > PX-TV402U Press Release

FREMONT, Calif. – September 13, 2004 – Plextor® Corp., a leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance digital media equipment, today announced the new ConvertX™ PVR model PX-TV402U with built-in TV tuner. The new PX-TV402U captures and records broadcast, cable, or satellite TV onto a computer hard drive using the DivX®, MPEG-4, MPEG-2, or MPEG-1 formats. Users can watch, pause, and record live TV, or use an integrated electronic programming guide (EPG) to schedule recordings with a single mouse click.

TiVo Canada How-To

TiVo Canada How-To