Pioneer To Release TiVo/DVD Burner Combo

TK-421 writes "According to an official Pioneer press release, 'Pioneer is revolutionizing home video recording with the introduction of the world's first DVD recorders featuring the TiVo service. These new recorders offer consumers the control provided by the easy-to-use TiVo service integrated with advanced DVD recording for the option of short-term storage on a hard drive or long-term archival of broadcast programming on DVD-R/RW discs.'" The options include both 80 and 120GB models, starting at a not-inexpensive $1199, and there's more information via a CNET News article.

How long till...

... someone sues them for copyright infringement. The voting boot is open.
But please be quick: you can only vote while no litigation has been announced.

hm

The options include both 80 and 120GB models, starting at a not-inexpensive $1199, and there's more information via a CNET News article.

not-inexpensive? I know slashdot editors aim for obscurity, but what's wrong with "expensive"?

Re:hm

expensive is a term no longer allowed to describe home electronics.

It is the Ministry of Advertising's feeling that all products should be described in various degress of inexpensive for their price range:
inexpensive
almost inexpensive
barely inexpensive
not inexpensive
nowhere near inexpensive

Re:hm

Pull your head out of your grammatical ass, it captures a subtle shade of meaning that "expensive" doesn't. The rules they taught you in 7th grade english are breakable, sometimes to great effect.

Re:hm

you should be modded not-uninsightful

Today's word is "litotes"

Understatement by negating the contrary.

It's not uncommon.

And, before the "I can make a tivo" people post...

No, you can't. I've seen the systems and they are pathetic in comparison to a £200 tivo.

It's like buying a replica ferrari, it may look like a good idea but it doesn't have the performance.

And somewhere, a pin is placed upon a map

And yes, I know what's involved in a Mythtv box - for a dual tuner model, right now, it takes at least a 2000+ processor.

The above words were uttered, and everyone so implicitly understood the words, without qualifying remarks or context clarification, that the event went unnoticed. It was so normal, so mundane. Who would look at it and think twice? Why would they?

Deep at AMD headquarters, the intelligence report arrived.

"Here's the latest batch, sir."

"Hmm.. I see.. Hmm.. Oh! What's this?"

"It was a comment on Slashdot, sir. Someone used our notation for referring to the approximate speed of a microprocessor. But they didn't actually mention our name or the product's name. No unit of measurement or anything. Just a number with a postfix plus sign. And everyone knew what it meant. It was completely implicit."

The strategist smiled and pulled an Intel pin off a map, replacing it with the AMD pin. He leaned back in his chair and squinted at the map, nodding with satisfaction.

Everything comes up short...

Why can't anyone make what consumers want?

Tivo would be great if it didn't require on-going charges (and doesn't allow anyone to screw around with the installed software).

Throwing a DVD burner into the mix is a great step-up, but only if there is some way to edit the program before burning it... I don't want to have a copy for 50 years on DVD that starts with the end of the program before it, has commercial breaks in the middle, etc. It wouldn't take much work to give editing functionality (even if edited content must be burned to DVD and can't be watched from the hard drive, I can live with that.)

So, when are we going to see some such system? Or are we going to have to wait until someone releases a distro that does all this on PC hardware?

Re:Everything comes up short...

Throwing a DVD burner into the mix is a great step-up, but only if there is some way to edit the program before burning it... I don't want to have a copy for 50 years on DVD that starts with the end of the program before it, has commercial breaks in the middle, etc. It wouldn't take much work to give editing functionality (even if edited content must be burned to DVD and can't be watched from the hard drive, I can live with that.)

Part of the reason that PVRs like Tivo and ReplayTV still exist (though Replay has been sued, encouraging them to remove some features) is that they DON'T edit the originally broadcasted content. Providing easy-to-use editing features in a box like this - particularly in reference to commercials - will ensure litigation and will make it more likely that said litigation will be successful.

This is of even greater concern to content producers since more and more television shows are being released in pre-recorded DVD sets and being able to easily make commercial-free DVDs of TV shows at home would cut into that market.

Re:Everything comes up short...

You wanna burn to DVD? Here ya go:

• MythTV [mythtv.org], also used to edit commercials out of the recording
• MythMkMovie [icelus.org], used to make DivX files

After that, burn to DVD to your heart's content. Oh, and MythMkMovie is getting ready for the 1.0 release finally (within the next two weeks it looks like).

Everyone has me to thank for this....

... since if I had not just bought a Tivo last week, and a DVD recorder the month before, this would never have happened.

*sobs*

_____
Jaylen

Here is some other model like this one...

But more powerfull ... and older... The first is already known by a lot of people fujitsu-siemens Activy [fujitsu-siemens.com] and work under XP embbed.
The second is less known and the site is not in english but it works really well. Dreambox [dreambox.li] and run under Linux !

Why is Tivo still a set top box?

I'd have thought that by now people would have started building the thing into the actual sets. It somehow seems more logical to do it that way than combine it with a DVD player.

Re:Why is Tivo still a set top box?

I'd have thought that by now people would have started building the thing into the actual sets.

That's an easy one. People are far more likely to buy a $400 set top box than a $2000 TV. As well, people are more likely to agree to pay a subscription fee for a cheaper piece of hardware. If you put this into their TV set and then tell them they have to pay extra to get full functionality, they'll look at you funny and then call you an idiot if you think they're going to buy a $2000 TV that requires them to keep on paying. Finally, a STB is portable. If I want to have the Tivo in my bedroom on the small TV, but move it to the big TV in the entertainment room when I want to watch certain recorded shows, I can. If it's built into my TV in the entertainment room, I can't watch it in the bedroom, and vice versa (yeah, you can solve that with a networking solution, but then that requires another box, or another TV set with more built-in functionality, for more money).

Could TiVO partner with a TV manufacturer to build the functionality into a model line? Sure. Should they? Probably. Will they? Probably not.

Great idea.. if implemented right

This is a great idea, but it really depends on how well the implement the DVD burning from the harddrive.. This will need to have editing options to cut out commercials.. and that will bringe a whole wave of trouble onto the makers... replay TV fiasco, anyone? The real ticket would be fully editable shows, networking capability (at least 1394... that would be neat.. would encourage people to buy this instead of just a stand alone DVD recorder) Transfering all those babylon 5 SVCDs to this then burning them would be pretty sweet...

Re:Great idea.. if implemented right

They don't "need" to have editing options to cut out commercials on the DVDs. VCRs have been quite successful for some time without them. Frankly, the only people THAT concerned about not having commercials on shows they save are the super geeks. Most people are perfectly content with the ability to fast (really fast in the case of PVR and DVD recordings) forward through them.

Heck, my mom has, through my good graces, had a PVR for quite some time and there are still times when she doesn't even bother skipping commercials...me, I get a crawling itch when I can't skip commercials but I'm one of the aforementioned "super geeks" - of course, I'm also lazy (too lazy to process shows through the computer and then burn them commercial-free) so I just buy DVD collections whenever possible.

MPAA?

Didn't one of the PVR's remove a feature to share recordings between networked PVR's for fear of MPAA lawsuits? This isn't even restricted to the same kind of machines. Now you can record movies off of showtime/hbo automatically and burn them to dvd. I wonder what MPAA will do about this.

Now if they added commercial skipping and the ability to burn commercial skipped shows to dvd, that would be really pushing things. Hopefully my homebrew PVR box will have a DVD burner soon, and it will be able to do this.

Re:MPAA?

The difference here is that each copy you give to someone will require buying a DVD-R/RW disc (making this more akin to VCR-style sharing which has already passed the court test) while the ReplayTV show-sharing option didn't require any physical intervention whatsoever and the only thing standing in the way of giving shows away to everyone who wanted them was Internet bandwidth. The ReplayTV show-sharing function was, for all intents and purposes, the same as Kazaa, Gnutella and all the other peer-to-peer PC file sharing programs - the peers were simply task-specific devices (PVRs) instead of general purpose devices (PCs)

Re:MPAA? I'll Bite ;)

Comment, Mod, ARRGGH its so hard! :P but I'll bite ...

The recording of broadcast material (read news/live/tv/movies) by the home/consumer market is explicitly permitted* by the Sony v. Universal ruling [464 US 417 (1984)]. Therefore the MPAA doesn't have a foot to stand on if they attack PVR's which carry features qualitatively equivalent to that available on the VHS platform.

The issue with PVR's which go a step further to redistribute content to other users on the network is that in redistributing the content in a non-physical form to persons with whom you have loose if any affiliations opens up the end user for copyright infringement proceedings. Burning a DVD and redistributing the content doesn't carry the same issues or implecations as such use is effectively legalized by the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 and Sony v. Universal as this is seen as private non-commercial redistribution (such as sharing an Audio Tape or CD among friends).

Again, regarding adding features such as commercial skipping and burning commercial skipped shows to dvd (as the parent post requested), I highly doubt the addition of these features due to the chance, and high incentive, of advertisers then challenging whether or not the device is covered by Sony v. Universal or the AHRA of 1992. No longer is the device merely time-shifting or media-shifting the content, it is altering the content which is not explicitly covered (As far as I know).

* Note: Ok technically an action is not permitted or legalized by a court ruling, but such wording prevented me from saying: as is established as precedent by the case ...

Hmm

It sounds like a good idea, but most TiVo users who wanted to have more space or convert their collection to DVD have already figured out how to do so with minimal investment (TiVoNet, DVD-R, hard drive) -- much less than the price of this new TiVo.

Another reason I wouldn't buy one is that I know the HDTV-based [tivo.com] models are due out sometime in the near future, so investing $1,200 in something that will be obsolete in 1-2 years seems like a bad idea.

Still, it's nice for brand new users who have never owned a PVR and don't know how to use telnet.

Most?

most TiVo users who wanted to have more space or convert their collection to DVD have already figured out how to do so with minimal investment (TiVoNet, DVD-R, hard drive)

I suppose you think "most" = you and your friends.

Of the people I know with Tivos, including myself, about half have upgraded the hard drive. And none of them have set up video offloading, because we don't have the time to maintain such a cumbersome hack.

The half that haven't upgraded are generally our parents, who think the Tivo is the coolest thing ever, and would gladly buy a new unit instead of voiding the warentee.

Still, it's nice for brand new users who have never owned a PVR and don't know how to use telnet.

Which describes 249 Million Americans who don't own a PVR yet pretty well. I think they have a killer product on their hands, although it is a bit pricy.

-pmb

Have we really come that far?

And after all that technology, is it really that much better than a VHS VCR?

The biggest difference my parents are aware of is they can't fast-forward the copyright warnings on DVDs...

Re:Have we really come that far?

I couldn't live without my Tivo.

I tell it what shows I like and then I watch it whenever I like. I have no idea what days most shows are even on any more. I just sit down and see that there's a new Futurama or Scrubs or whatever. I don't have to program it with times/dates and I don't have to worry (mostly) about shows moving timeslots every week - the built in episode guide worries about all of that for me.

TiVo for Radio Stations?

Just a thought ...

What would it take to have a TiVo-like service for radio stations, that could be programmed to record all songs by a certain artist, or from an album, or one DJ'd by someone ... (analogous to Kazaalite choice of Song, Album, and User)

Could we then burn these songs on a DVD or CD from there ....

Many radio stations could release the playlist in advance to help in the recordings (aka TV listings) and in addition to the Clear Channel (go to hell) stations there could be many many many (maybe millions like kazaalite, or thousands like iTunes) of radio broadcasters ... broadcasting all the songs all the time ...

just a thought ....

Macrovision?

Both units are equipped to transfer old videotapes to longer-lasting DVD-R or DVD-RW discs for more permanent storage. By connecting a VCR via analog inputs to the DVD recorder, transferring content becomes a snap. Unlike videotape, DVD will not degrade over time when exposed to heat and humidity. Transferring home movies from tape to disc will preserve them for future generations. DVD-R discs are best for archiving because they are write-once discs (like CD-R) and cannot be accidentally erased. Once a consumer has transferred their videotape collection to DVD, the VCR is obsolete.

I wonder what they're doing about Macrovision with this feature. It would hardly be an improvement to copy a VHS casette to a DVD if there were messed up colours and wavy lines.

Re:Macrovision?

Unlike videotape, DVD will not degrade over time when exposed to heat and humidity.

But CDs and DVDs do degrade over time. Not in video quality, since that's all digital, but the storage medium itself has been known to rot (mostly CDs and laser discs, since DVDs really haven't been around long enough to see any noticeable deterioration). Sure, they last much longer than tape, and don't degrade with repeated viewings, but to say that they won't degrade at all is naive.

Are there any good long-term storage solutions? I'm talking on the order of decades, not years. Paper's done a pretty good job so far, but even that degrades, and it's a little hard to store digital information in an easily retrievable format on paper.

Re:Macrovision?

Are there any good long-term storage solutions? I'm talking on the order of decades, not years. Paper's done a pretty good job so far, but even that degrades, and it's a little hard to store digital information in an easily retrievable format on paper.

You young whippersnappers! Obviously, you're not old enough to remember punched cards and paper tape! Stores for decades, easily retrievable!

Re:Macrovision?

I wonder what they're doing about Macrovision with this feature. It would hardly be an improvement to copy a VHS casette to a DVD if there were messed up colours and wavy lines.

I doubt they do anything about Macrovision at all. Macrovision is applied to 'copy-protect' pre-recorded material which I suspect Tivo/panasonic have no interest in disabling with this feature. So, you will be fine with things you have recorded on tape yourself, but Macrovision will probably kick in with pre-recorded material. If you find it annoying, you should have thought about that when you handed over your cash for the copy protected tape in the first place!

SCO?

I don't see what this has to do with SCO. I read scodot.org for all the SCO news, not for some unrelated tosh about a piece of kit which is guaranteed to have the MPAA kicking your door down!

Well,

myself, I'd be happy with a built in (S)VCD maker.

Cheap media, good enough for non HDTV stuff, I'd be happy.

Somebody actually wants my money.

Instead of pandering to the MPAA, and watching sales never really take off, Pioneer has decided to submit a potentially profitable piece of hardware to the market.

Now if it had 30sec forward, I'd actually buy it.

Re:Somebody actually wants my money.

select - play - select - 3 - 0 - select

30 second forward now enabled.

TiVo in the UK - homebrew PVR instead?

Since the original hardware manufacturers (Thompson) for TiVo in the UK have pulled out of the market and you can now only get them on eBay - is it actually worth purchasing TiVo if you live on our little island?

Alternativily I was thinking about purchasing a silent PC (such as the one at Tranquil PC [tranquilpc.co.uk]) and installing MythTV on it, but I don't know how well it would work given that it's a hell of a lot more expensive than TiVo off eBay.

Also just looking at mini-itx.com [mini-itx.com] I see something called OneBox [oneboxmc.com]. It looks to be running Windows but apparantly it allows you to run MAME on it too.

So, ignoring the waffle above - what i'm saying is

1. Is TiVo still a viable option in the UK despite the fact there is no hardware manfacturers? (ie. could they just pull out at any time)
2. Would a homebrew PVR be better? (it would have to be substantially given that it costs twice as much and requires work from me)
3. Would the tranquil PC or other box mentioned in the preview /. article be any good as a PVR? (processor power, graphics, IR, to name three things to think about)
4. Would something like a onebox be better?

I like Linux and I use it, but I'm loath to spend lots of money on a homebrew kit only to spend several hours tearing my hair out and not getting anywhere. If it's going to be that, I'd rather just pay more and have it work.

Re:TiVo in the UK - homebrew PVR instead?

Short answer: yes. A proper TiVo is worth getting.

I believe it is a viable service in the UK. They have around 35,000 subscribers, all either having paid the 200ukp lifetime or 10ukp a month. The guide data (listings, descriptions, etc) is prepared by Tribune and will cost them significantly less than the subscriber cost. Add on a little overhead for running 0800 numbers, their own servers and a few staff and you're still making a fortune. Customer service is handled by Sky, but could be outsourced anywhere if Sky dropped them. I just don't see why they'd cut off a source of revenue (albeit a small one) and effectively shut the door on their return to the UK.

Homebrew - they're "better" in the sense that you can do other things with them. Run MAME, get your email, play DVDs and MP3s and other nifty stuff. I'm still not impressed by the actual TV recording and playback. I like things that have one task and do it very well - TiVo is in that category. I have consoles to play games on, and if I want to check my email in front of the TV I'll just grab my laptop.

I was really quite skeptical about the monthly subscription, but thought I'd give it a go for a couple of months. It's hard to get across how convenient it is to just forget about TV schedules and just have a box that gets the programmes you like whenever they're on and has them ready for when you feel like watching. That is what really separates the proper PVRs from the homebrew ones, that require far more checking, faffing about and general irritation.

If mine blew up tomorrow and it cost me twice as much to replace it, I would. It's worth every penny.

Format for DVD-R/RW storage?

Will this use TiVo's own closed file format or will disk created with TiVo/DVD Burner be playable with standard DVD-players?

here is the ultimate set-top-box

Someone should make a set-top-box thats a cross between:
A PC
A Games machine (perhaps)
A PVR
A DVD player/burner

Basicly, it would be a quiet-design, small-size PC with reasonable hardware and in a box that works well with your home entertainment box. Give it a USB thingo with a keyboard and trackball to use as input. And make it so you can plug in things like digital cameras, gamepads etc.
Then build in a ethernet port for network access and TV in/out for display and input of stuff.
And give it a big disk to store stuff
Also put in a DVD drive (perhaps with a DVD burner or one of those DVD drive/CD buruner combo) as options.
Build it around linux (because its free & its open, make all the software for this thing open) and bundle:
PVR software to make it work like a PVR
DVD player/burner software
Multimedia software so you can play audio, video and so on (by downloading it over the ethernet port or from CDs/DVDs containing audio or video data e.g. audio CDs, VCDs or whatever else the multimedia player supports.

So, basicly, this box would be usefull to:
1.record shows from the TV
2.play back the recorded shows
3.transfer the recorded shows over the ethernet link
4.burn the recorded shows to optical media (if you get the burner option)
5.watch DVDs, VCDs and whatever other video CD formats you want to install players for
6.watch video files in any format you have a player for
7.listen to Audio CDs and audio files in any format (being based on linux, supporting OGG for example would be dead simple)

You could also run anything else the hardware could support on it (for example, games or emulators).

Basicly, it would be a ready-made PC in a box designed to fit with an existing stereo, TV, VCR etc and capable of doing multimedia things. Would come with the software preinstalled and a nice GUI interface for the non-technical but those that know how could run anything from MAME to quake on it (if the hardware is up to it).

I'm confused..

Pioneer makes a device which allows you to record television shows and movies to DVD from your cable network. How is this any different than me using the same cable network, to download and burn music to cd's? Movies can't be copyrighted? Am I gonna get a little cease and desist popup on my television now?

Shame they won't do this with DirecTivo

It is a shame they won't do this for the DirecTivo sat receiver.

However, since that would allow you to in effect grab the high-grade MPEG data stream the sat service puts out without any degradation, it is roughly as probable they release a DTivo with DVD (a DVDDTivo?) as Bill Gates giving RMS a big French^WFreedom Kiss.

(and you cannot easily use TivoNET to extract the video from a DTivo - it is stored in an encrypted form on the HD and is decrypted by hardware upon playback, and as far as I know nobody has created a module that will play the video back through the crypto chip then stream it to your computer. Additionally, while hacking the stand-alone Tivo's isn't much of a problem, the DTivos will overwrite any changes you make on the next reboot.)

So I just grab the video using my Firewire capture device, then encode it. One step of analog loss (and I can go throught SVideo if needed). Fair use lives (though is on life support).

I'm still looking for a way to hack a Series 2

It sucks not being able to save a recorded show. I've even tried hooking up my video camera to the TiVo but the picture is scrambled on my video camera. I haven't figured that one out yet.

Did anyone catch this? (emphasis mine)

... hard drive or long-term archival of broadcast programming on DVD-R/RW discs.

Does that mean just the stuff that comes over the airwaves, or will it include cable transmissions, too?

*yawn* - could be too early ... my coffee hasn't been fully-absorbed yet. :)

<theory>I'm sure that Hollywood (MPAA, etc) will force this device to comply with the flag system they'll use with digital cable (flag for no record at all, flag for record short-term only or a flag for full record -- guess which one will be the default? ;)).</theory>

Build them

Hopefully building your own PVR, free from digital restrictions management systems will become more popular, Tivo will be useless because everyone will make their own or buy a normal PC that does it (without the restrictions). Then you can add funky things like free TV listings, and groups of people on the net who send signals when adverts start and stop so your PVR can automatically deal with them (i.e get rid of them). Hopefully we can completely drag commercial networks under by 2006, destroy the MPAA and RIAA by 2007 and look forward to a media free society by 2008 watching reruns of quincy :)

Why spend the cash when.....

... you can download the ISOs of your favorite TV programs (from any number of websites or P2P networks), burn it to CD with your existing burner (VCD format), then toss it in your fairly-new DVD player and watch it on TV? Savings: $1200.

Granted, the biggest issue here is sophistication: you need to know how to convert the media to VCD or whatever, how to burn files to CD-R, where to go to get the ISOs, etc. But as with all things, Linux especially, the more technically savvy you are, the less dependent you are on commercial software.

In related news

The heads of the MPAA executives exploded simultaneously today, for reasons unknown as of the time of this writing. Witnesses say they made a gurgling noise shortly before the intracranial blasts, just after being handed their daily printed media summary which included a digest of that day's Slashdot articles. Investigation continuing...

Replay TV with a PC

I have a Replay TV 5040 and a PC with DVArchive software and a DVD+R/RW drive. The DVArchive software transfers the mpg files off the RTV every night and stores them on the PC. I can then edit the file with any mpg editing tool and burn to a DVD.

-Jase

Once again...no directv version

It would be nice if they came out with a version that worked with DirecTV...

In other news...

MPAA lawyers just joined every cable and broadcast network's lawyers in filing a class action suit againt Tivo...

I do this with my MythTV box.

You can pull this off for less than half the price
by building a Mythtv box.

Full Tivo or the newly announced Tivo Lite?

There have been some stories about Tivo licensing their software in a 'lite' version which lops off some of the functionality (wishlists, season passes and only 3 days of guide data) to electronics manufacturers but doesn't cost anything.

I wonder if the Pioneer device is using FULL Tivo software or if its just the lite version. I would think that Tivo would find life a little hot under the collar if they started offering more automated archival options for programming under the full Tivo banner.

Or have Tivo decided to do something to counteract this by using nonstandard disk formats, ultra-low bitrates, no a/b editing, or even CSS encryption or other gimmicks to make the DVD copies less than desirable?

TV huh?

You know, most of us with cable TV / cable broadband have enough bandwidth to download TV shows from the 'net. I'm really surprised that the cable company hasn't worked this out yet. If they were to implement a pay-per-program service, using something like bittorrent in the cable box, I would be one of the first to subscribe.

If I like the simpsons, I should be able to select 'simpsons' from a menu of this season's TV and have it downloaded to my box whenever a new one is released.

By using sensible proxying, relaying etc they would not need much more bandwidth than they already use for TV. If they ran it on a closed hardware platform then they wouldn't have any of the concerns associated with putting the shows on the 'net, since it would be a private network only accessible by their hardware much as the current cable system is (okay, so you can crack the cable TV system and get free movies, but how many people actually bother, as a percentage?)

Toshiba has a better deal: only $599

Toshiba will also release a similar recorder for $599 as well as a player/tivo device for only $299. http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/news/newsarticle.asp?n ewsid=107

I do this already today with my Tivo...

DirecTivo + Turbonet ethernet adapter + your choice of extraction tools (MSFTP, Tytool, Tystudio) + your DVD authoring/burning tool of choice.

That said... its a fair number of steps (although getting less each day) and is definately beyond the technical means of your average "Joe."

This sounds great to me.

This is damn near exactly what I have been asking for.

Thanks for running this past us, Simoniker.

I'll be looking for it.

Re:IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Mr. Garrison's [tvtome.com] working for Apple now?

Re:Tivo & MythTV

Because the HW used in the TiVo isn't standard PC HW and none of the MythTV code supports it. And the little fact that the CPU and RAM in the TiVo is insufficient to handle MythTV, ignoring the fact that it is also a MIPS CPU, etc. Could someone write an entirely new Linux-based OS and application to run on the TiVo, maybe even port MythTV - I suppose so, but why bother? PC HW is cheap enough.