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You’ve probably seen it by now.

What looks like a commercial for a new TV show or movie, turns out to be a commercial for a line of HDTV sets from LG called Scarlet. (Check out the video below if you haven’t seen it already.)

It seems like it was a successful campaign, in that it garnered lots of press attention including a red-carpet fake premiere with (fake) celebrities and lots of mentions on the Internet.

However, I’m more interested in the fact that this is one of the first TVs that are branded. And it’s about time. Everything else around us has branded names. Think of cars (Toyota Avalon, Ford Taurus), MP3 players (iPod, Zune), cell phones (LG’s Chocolate, Motorola’s Razr or the iPhone)–heck even condoms have brand names (Trojan, Magnum). So it’s about time that TV sets are becoming brands that consumers can identify.

LG’s Scarlet line of sets don’t really push the bar as far as new or advanced features, it just has a good brand name. And the back of the TV is red, too. So it doesn’t take much beyond lots of advertising dollars, an online viral marketing campaign, and a new product to begin promoting a new brand.

Why aren’t other TV set manufacturer’s doing this? I mean, Sony, which came up with Walkman, and Vaio, should have a good TV brand. Panasonic does have the Viera line of TV sets, but it reminds me too much of Good Morning America’s Meredith Viera to really have a brand impact with me.

Having a name like Scarlet, also makes it easy for consumers to find reviews and prices on the Internet. You don’t have to remember that the Scarlet is product number AZTX-4208, for example. (I just made that up.) Just Google “Scarlet” and TV and up comes results to help you shop and compare.

Brands. It’s what people want. People share with others what brand their new cell phone is. And consumer electronic manufacturers should realize that people want to show off their new HDTVs also. And let’s include DVRs also. Tivo has done pretty well as the top brand of DVRs, but distinguishing different product lines is kind of tricky. Tivo’s Series 2, or Series 3 DVRs are boring names. Why not the Tivo Magum? Or um, something like that.

[tags] Tivo, LG, Scarlet, branding, advertising, HDTV, TV [/tags]

A three-judge federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that EchoStar/Dish Network violated Tivo’s DVR software patent. Tivo is expected to receive about $94 million in damages and interest. As a result, Tivo’s stock soared 29% on Thursday. Naturally, EchoStar said it would appeal the ruling, which will extend litigation that has been ongoing since 2004.

Dish said in a statement:

We are pleased the Federal Circuit found for us on Tivo’s hardware claims, but are disappointed in the Federal Circuit’s decision on the software claims. The decision, however, will have no effect on our current or future customers because EchoStar’s engineers have developed and deployed ‘next-generation’ DVR software to our customers’ DVRs. This improved software is fully operational, has been automatically downloaded to current customers, and does not infringe the Tivo patent at issue in the Federal Circuit’s ruling.

So Dish customers will be able to use their existing DVRs without being affected much by this ruling.

For its part Tivo’s press release was full of joy:

“We are extremely pleased that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit unanimously ruled in our favor in EchoStar’s appeal of the district court judgment of patent infringement, full award of damages and that the injunction, which was stayed pending appeal, was ordered to be  reinstated. Today’s ruling is confirmation of the value of TiVo’s IP portfolio, which is in addition to the other benefits TiVo has to offer. TiVo can now continue to focus on its goal to drive greater distribution in both its stand alone and mass distribution efforts.”

So essentially Tivo won on software, but not on its hardware claims. That’s ok, I guess, since Tivo is discontinuing its Series 3 HD DVRs according to Megazone at Tivo Lovers.

[tags] DVR, Tivo, Dish Network, EchoStar, lawsuit, Series 3 [/tags]

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]

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]

Just saw this on TechBargains. A Tivo Series 3 for $389.99 after a $200 rebate from Buy.com.

The rebate is good until January 26th, so check it out if you’re in the market for an HD Series 3 Tivo.

[tags] deal, Tivo, Series 3, DVR, Tivo Series 3 [/tags]

Sling Media (now owned by EchoStar) announced that it was now supporting BlackBerry smartphones.

The Slingbox allows customers to watch and control their home TV on an Internet-connected computer, or mobile phone including those based on Windows Mobile, Palm OS and Symbian operating systems. Having support for BlackBerry was a long time coming and it should bring some more users to Sling. BlackBerries, however, were never known as multimedia friendly devices, which is probably why it took so long to support them.

There are other ways to get your TV content on the go, but Slingboxes are the best way to actually connect and control your home TV, DVR and other components while you’re traveling or away from your home. However, you must have pretty fast broadband connections in order to make it work. Since you don’t have the videos saved locally to your PC or phone, you do save on storage space, which can be a premium for older smartphones. However, the streaming, live nature of Slingbox makes it only for those with fast connections, like broadband cards or unlimited data plans for your phone.

Here are the ways how I see how to watch your home DVR/TV shows while on the road.

Transferring to Portable Devices. Rather than use a Slingbox, I use Tivo’s Desktop software to transfer shows to my PC. From there, I can burn videos onto a DVD or transfer it to my portable device, like my Windows-based smartphone. The downside? It’s a slow and clunky process–I have to wait for Tivo to transfer the file over my home network, then wait while I burn the show on a DVD. The whole process can take about 1 hour or more.

Portable DVRs. Comcast’s upcoming portable DVR is going after the same market–those who want complete access to their DVRs while away from the home. But the Comcast portable device is the actual set-top. So what happens when you un-dock the device from your home and take it on the road? Will you miss recordings? Will your family that’s not traveling be able to watch TV? Or should this portable DVR be relegated as a second set-top and not the primary one for the home? I guess it’s still too early to tell since the Comcast DVR isn’t out yet.

Network DVRs. This would seem to be a great option since you theoretically wouldn’t need to buy anything. Network DVRs save your shows on your TV provider’s hard drive so you don’t actually need to buy a separate set-top box like a Tivo. Everything is saved out there in the network. The benefits are that you get unlimited storage (well, almost), and access from anywhere. Imagine recording a show like American Idol, traveling to another city, then just logging in to your cable provider’s network DVR via your laptop (or smartphone) and streaming it. All your shows would be available and you don’t need to buy a Slingbox. Unfortunately, here in the U.S. network DVRs are available because of a lawsuit between Cablevision and the TV studios and networks. Things are different in Europe, and maybe things will change here in the future.

I think network DVRs are a great idea and wish that consumers were able to use them. In the short term, I would really like it if Tivo started offering place-shifting (Slingbox functionality) in its boxes. I just don’t feel the need to go out and buy and hook up yet another device to my TV/DVR right now. Perhaps if I traveled more often I would feel differently.

For anyone using a DVR and HD, it’s the classic dilemma: Do you use your cable or satellite provider’s DVR box or buy a Tivo? It’s like “Sophie’s Choice”.

On one hand, your cable provider offers a low cost DVR that works with HD content for just a few dollars a month–Comcast charges me about $5 per month. You also get just one box, rather than having to use a cable set-top and a separate DVR. Plus cable companies don’t charge you for buying the box; you usually rent the box for just a few dollars a month.

Going with Tivo means, higher initial cost of buying the HD DVR (about $600 to $800 for a Series 3 DVR).  It also means higher monthly costs–I pay about $20 per month for the Tivo service.

So lots of people are going through these issues when they upgrade to an HDTV and HD service. One blogger called “Dog Monster” wrote about this dilemma after deciding to go with a Comcast DVR, rather than buy an HD Tivo DVR.  And he writes that his frustrations with the Comcast DVR happened in less than one day of using it. He writes: “I loved watching television until I got my cablebox DVR.”

He goes on to list his 20 reasons why he decided to dump Comcast’s DVR and buy a new Tivo Series 3 box. Here’s the quick list:

1. Comcast DVR has no predictive fast-forward.
2. No Start From Beginning When Reaching the End of a Recording.
3. Not Recording Shows.
4. Searching for Shows is Clunky and Slow.
5. Finding Your Favorites Shows is Difficult.
6. The Cable Box Doesn’t Show the Time When Recording.
7. No Way of Knowing if A Show is Being Recorded.
8. Button Lag.
9. No Sound Effects like Tivo.
10. Not Intuitive Interface.
11. No Recommendations.
12. Recording Same Episode Multiple Times.
13. Doesn’t Know What Shows Are New.
14. Cannot Change Recording Quality.
15. Not Being Able to Exit the Play Timeline.
16. Doesn’t Warn About Conflicting Recordings.
17. Accidentally Recording SD Channel Rather than HD.
18. Comcast Doesn’t Group Shows Together Like Tivo.
19. Remote Control Is Not Easy to Use.
20. No Scheduling Shows Online.

Along with the points made here, I really miss the integration with the Internet for downloading photos, and other content (like RocketBoom) and the ability to save files on my computer with Tivo Desktop software. I must admit I am hitting my breaking point with Comcast’s DVR. I’ve been using it for about two months now (alongside my Series 2 Tivo for SD recordings) and have been very frustrated with it as well. Since I have multiple inputs on my HDTV set, I have both my Comcast DVR connected to watch and record HD content, and my Tivo for SD recordings and all my previously recorded shows.

But switching between the two is getting tedious. I want HD recording and Comcast’s DVR just isn’t giving me what I want out of an HD DVR.

It’s probably just a matter of time before I buy an HD Tivo and use it 100% of the time and drop Comcast’s DVR.

[tags] Tivo, Comcast, HD DVR, DVR, Comcast DVR, Series 2 Tivo [/tags]

TMZ is reporting that Hillary Clinton is getting someone from Tivo to help her use her DVR. It seems that Hillary told her daughter Chelsea that she couldn’t get her Tivo to work properly since it was always recording shows she didn’t want to see and deleting shows she had recorded.

Well, Tivo came to the rescue. TMZ said that Tivo will send over a “Tivo man” who will teach Hillary how to use her DVR in just five minutes. That’s a mighty nice offer, which means pretty good publicity for Tivo.

At the same time, what’s wrong with Hillary that she can’t figure out how to use a Tivo?

They are well known for being very easy to use. Perhaps she should have asked Bill or Chelsea for some help.

[tags] Hillary Clinton, Tivo, TMZ [/tags]

[Photo courtesy of SEIU International]

In a bid to remain atop the online movie rental business, NetFlix said it will deliver movies directly to TV sets later this year. Currently NetFlix only lets subscribers to its “Watch Instantly” service view rentals on PC screens.

This new service will come in the form of a new set-top box that connects to the TV and computer, much like Apple’s Apple TV product. In many ways, the device isn’t a new approach or anything really startling–the main thing is that it’s coming from NetFlix which already had a deep library of movies, an existing DVD by mail rental business and the PC viewing option. Those things make it a very compelling strategy and is may make it a success for NetFlix.

In essence, NetFlix is understanding that it’s critical to deliver content (movies, TV shows, etc.) to TV screens since many people are getting HDTV sets and most do their viewing on the big screen in the living room.

Having yet another set-top box, however, seems like the biggest flaw in this plan. People will not rush to buy another box unless it offers something compelling that they can’t get anywhere else. And customers can definitely get movies in many other ways, without getting a new box and hooking it up to a PC, like the NetFlix service requires.

For example, want to watch a recent hit movie like Pirates of the Caribbean? There’s On-Demand, DVDs, free TV, premium channels like HBO, and online pirated versions available. Will consumers really flock to a device that just delivers movies? Tivo seems like it has the right approach with its partnership with Amazon for its Unbox movie delivery service. However, Unbox (and even Apple TV) have not been huge hits.

Another downside is that the movies that NetFlix delivers to TVs will likely not be HD-ready. Many people will still want to rent the physical DVDs, especially if they own Blu-Ray or HD-DVD players.

Guess we’ll have to wait and see how NetFlix tackles this interesting new delivery to the home.

[tags] Apple TV, Apple, NetFlix, Amazon, Tivo, Unbox [/tags]

Nick Wingfield from the Wall Street Journal writes about how no one’s really figured how  to watch Internet video on TV sets.  So far, products like Apple TV and Akimbo haven’t reached mass usage for a number of reasons such as they’re hard to use, hard to install, high cost and low value proposition because content can be found elsewhere.

Wingfield goes through the problems and talked to vendors to discuss possible solutions. For example, the problem of too many set-top boxes. Consumers need to know that a new stand-alone box gives them something they can’t get anywhere else. Things like new high def DVD players have the potential to keep a coveted place underneath the TV set. Also, game systems like PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 act as set-tops since they can download music and movies.

The solution to this is incorporating features into existing devices or one new converged box. However, there’s no consensus on what that box might be. Will it be Tivo? A cable box with a DVR and Internet functions?

According to Scientific Atlanta, cable companies may end up winning this battle. Cable and satellite TV providers already provide the majority of DVR devices to U.S. consumers, so it seems possible that Internet connectivity will soon be a part of set-tops. Kip Compton, general manager at Scientific Atlanta said that cable companies will begin rolling cable boxes that can access Internet video next year.

However, others believe that cable companies won’t want to do this because consumers will be able to watch TV free by accessing content on the Internet. And that may impact their revenue.

Cable and satellite companies, however, need to think beyond their quarterly earnings cycle and think longer term. Consumers will be happier and increased usage in Internet video may mean better integration of digital media advertising and may spur other revenue that we haven’t even thought of.

IPTV services may have the biggest jump. In the U.S. AT&T’s U-Verse and Verizon’s FiOS TV services use IP networks to deliver broadcast TV programming. So integrating other IP features should be relatively easier than it would be for cable or satellite providers.

So far, however, IPTV providers are just ramping up in the U.S. so they’re just trying to roll out broadcast and VOD services and gain new customers. Advanced Internet features aren’t yet a big part of IPTV, either in the U.S. or the rest of the world where IPTV is much more mature.