some very cool E* and D* innovations upcoming for '05

[Dknow]

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - DirecTV Group Inc. on Thursday debuted its first digital video recorder with technology from another News Corp. division, raising questions about the strength of its relationship with digital video recording pioneer TiVo.

"We'll support our existing TiVo customers," a spokesman for DirecTV's (Research), the largest U.S. satellite TV operator said. "But our core initiatives and new customer acquisition will focus on our new DVR."

Meanwhile, DirecTV's chief competitor, EchoStar Communications Corp. (Research), rolled out its own new digital recorder, which includes space for 100 hours of digital video-on-demand capabilities.

Last June, DirecTV divested its stake in TiVo and stepped down from TiVo's board, fueling speculation that News Corp. would eventually dump TiVo. DirecTV represents TiVo's single largest pay television customer.

TiVo Chief Executive Mike Ramsay told Reuters that the company will continue to offer TiVo recorders to DirecTV customers and is currently developing new products for the service.

DirecTV also previewed technology, including an expansion in high-definition programming for local markets and a service called "DirecTV Active" that will give users custom local weather and horoscopes.

Portable Recorders, Split Screens
EchoStar leaned heavily on digital video recording in its own presentation. Its showpiece, the model 625, will offer 100 hours of recording space for users and have 100 hours of space for video-on-demand content. It will debut by March.

Currently seen by some to lag in the market for high-definition broadcasts, EchoStar plans to expand its HD lineup once it moves to a video standard called MPEG4, which offers better data compression than the current MPEG2 standard.

"The big mass push in HD for us will be this fall as we introduce MPEG4," said Charlie Ergen, chief executive of EchoStar.

The company will also introduce a line of portable video players that can connect to the DVRs and download recorded content for playback on the road. EchoStar will use devices made by consumer electronics company Archos for the service.

Other services on tap, EchoStar said, are horse race wagering through on-screen interactive services and a device that will pipe audio from satellite broadcasts to any area of the home.

Ergen also said EchoStar would move back into the market for two-way broadband Internet access via satellite this fall, though he did not offer specifics. Both EchoStar and DirecTV have had limited success with such services.


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[mgd2win]

Looks like either D* or E* is dumping their Divicom/Harmonic compression in favor of the new Tandberg MPEG-4 encoders. We use a lot of Tandberg gear (MPEG-2) on our fiber network and it works very well including the IP based Input and Output. Guess I might need to get one of these MPEG-4 units and play around with them

Satellite Broadcaster Taps Tandberg For MPEG-4 Video HeadendAn undisclosed North American satellite broadcaster awarded Tandberg Television the first announced MPEG-4 AVC HDTV video headend contract valued at $9 million. The contract also includes Tandberg's EN5990 encoder in fully redundant systems plus its Reflex statistical multiplexing software. Most of the equipment will be delivered in the first half of this year, Tandberg said.

Support of MPEG-4 advanced video coding throughout broadband infrastructure is critical to the delivery of HDTV over lower-bandwidth broadband, such as ADSL2+, and thus key to the triple play business plans of companies who can not dish up FTTx with the tens of megabits per second that currently standard MPEG-2 requires for just a couple of video streams. The industry standard MPEG-4 and Microsoft's rival proprietary video compression technology deliver HDTV at half the MPEG2 bandwidth, enabling HDTV to be delivered over broadband at speeds under 10 Mb/s. For satellite transmissions, where the bandwidth constraints are more severe than terrestrial systems, the value of MPEG-4 is obvious.

[Dknow]

Another bonus about the MPEG-4 being applied is that D* annouced late last week that they will replace customers HD receivers with MPEG-4 capapble receivers for free. They also plan on carrying all HD locals and will launch 150 HD national channels via Spaceway MPEG-4 birds. They also have what's known as the "home media center" that will launch late in '05 that will give 4 rooms HD-DVR capability and also allow subs to access computer files from their TV's. It's looking to be an exciting year for satellite and a scary one for cable! VOD is starting to look primitive all of a sudden.

[bdraw]

I am glad to see everyone moving towards mpeg4, but I can't wait to hear what Directv plans to do with its HD-Tivo customers when mpeg4 is used. Will they have a new HD-DVR by then? Will it be as good as a HD-Tivo, or will it resemble the SA8300?

If they have a new HD-Tivo or DVR for mpeg4 it will work out nicely for people who can use it early like tampa, since the HD-Tivo will still have a good resale value on ebay, since only 16 markets can take advantage of mpeg4.

If the new HD-DVR is not as good as the HD-Tivo I will have to wait till something better comes around, who knowes it may be the cablecard HD-Tivo due out in Q1 06.