[NTLUG:Discuss] HDTV, broadcast flag, ...

[Bryan J. Smith]

From:  Paul Ingendorf
> The Tivo does not require a
monthly fee for their service
> they also offer a lifetime service for $299.

FYI, by "lifetime" they mean the life of the TiVO _device_ itself, not you personally.
If a box gets hosed, you've gotta sign up for another plan.
Not good when the monthly rate is flat per household no matter the number of TVs.

> Think about it you can get a 40 Hour unit right now for $49.

They seemingly have raised the monthly subscription though.
When I bought my DirecTiVO 40GB for $79, it was $4.95/month for 2 years.
BTW, I upgraded it to 2x120GB.

>  Do you think
they can make a unit that does real time mpeg hardware compression &
decompression,

Well, the DirecTiVO units don't have the codecs, only decodecs.
The stream is already encoded.
Which makes it easy to have 2 _simultaneous_ feed.
People forget that advantage of DirecTiVO.

> has a 40GB HD, a built in digital tuner, and a nice user
interface for $50 bucks?

Which is Linux too.
There are major hacking guides for the units too.

> Come on part of the way they generate revenue is
through the recurring revenue found through their service.

Exactly.

> So what does this mean for you?
> If you want to avoid a monthly charge of 13 dollars just spend the $350 on the unit and you are done.

Well, some people do want additional features too.
And that's why they do it.

But IMHO, just add another box for those.
In fact, assemble such a box, and you can connect it to several TVs.
I.e., treat it like "just another cable feed" from the standpoint of going into ypur TV.
There are then 900/2400MHz wireless remotes that don't need line-of-sight.

I haven't yet because I plan on building a serious box with 1080i via DVI out.
And I'll do that when I get a TV with DVI in.

Until then, my DirecTiVO does what I want.
And then the only other capability is audio (MP3/Ogg), which I plug directly into the Logitech Z-580 system (my 5.1 amp I use with Digital 5.1 decoding built-in).

> Your concerns about the broadcast flag could be an issue

Which is why I'm going to build one later on - probably just for load  broadcast pickup.

> but if you took the
time to think it out you would realize that the tivo is one of the mosthacked PVRs out there.

Exactly.

-- 
Bryan J. Smith (currently mobile)
b.j.smith at ieee.org