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PVR Module

josh

josh

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Could (should?) Kaleidescape create a PVR module? I'd sure rather have my TV shows stored on this industrial-strength array (rather than my flaky HR10-250 which has now died and been replaced 5 times!).

I'm imagining another 1U hardware module that has dual cable-card tuners (or ATSC + Satellite tuners) and connects just like the Reader does... storing shows on the drive array.

I'd sure love to see what the Kscape UI designers could do with multi-room PVR interface & functionality. :cool:

And it would be great to ditch my DirecTV/Tivo unit forever... i've never had a more problematic device that I rely on so much.

I'd take that over Blu-Ray or HD-DVD support for the next year... just my $0.02.

--josh
 
A PVR needs to be able to decode proprietary signals - so you'd need a tuner card for DirecTV, Dish, OTA, CableCard, and other cable systems. Tivo has presumably been trying to create a Tivo for every delivery system, and even they have not been able to get widespread access.

So yes, it would be great if Kscape did this, but I think it is actually impossible given the business realities.

AND NOOOOOOOO - HD-DVD and Blu-ray support is 100% necessary ASAP!!!! Not that I feel strongly about it or anything :p
 
ptrubey said:
A PVR needs to be able to decode proprietary signals - so you'd need a tuner card for DirecTV, Dish, OTA, CableCard, and other cable systems. Tivo has presumably been trying to create a Tivo for every delivery system, and even they have not been able to get widespread access.
Click to expand...
They could do fine with just OTA/ATSC, DirectTV and Cablecard... and that could be one receiver, or maybe two (pick the one you want). But it's doable.

ptrubey said:
AND NOOOOOOOO - HD-DVD and Blu-ray support is 100% necessary ASAP!!!! Not that I feel strongly about it or anything :p
Click to expand...
If my screen were as big as yours, I'd feel that way too I guess!:)
 
josh said:
They could do fine with just OTA/ATSC, DirectTV and Cablecard... and that could be one receiver, or maybe two (pick the one you want). But it's doable.
Click to expand...

Oh man is this a much bigger undertaking then it seems. CableCard is far from an easy solution to implement as some cable operators make it as difficult as possible for users to get their hands on CC units. And then there's the whole problem of CC 1.0 being one-way (no feedback for on demand purchases, etc). This limitation has really devalued CC in my eyes but, then again, I'm a long time DTV subscriber. On that end, things are worse. DTV finally got onboard with allowing tuners built into Media Center PCs. But that's not going to happen until next year at the earliest and there's very little info on the details so we don't know what limitations, quirks, etc it will have yet.

I know it seems like a no brainer. One solution for all your DVD and TV content especially given the available storage capacity and the idea of them being networked rather than separate standalone units in each room. But DVRs are very complex. It would be a huge undertaking that would consume K's resources for a while. As such, I don;t think they would do it for a long time, if ever. BR and HD-DVD support will probably come within the next year though.

Jeff
 
Actually, thinking about this again, it may not be that hard, and also may play into Kscape's long term plans to be a media delivery platform.

There are companies out there, like Motorola's UCentric, that offer a complete PVR platform (Tivo too for that matter). And Kscape has designs to be a media delivery platform - it is very possible that the best way to achieve this is to have movies downloaded via dedicated delivery channels from DirecTV, or a cable company.
 
Kaleidescape has expressed an interest in offering downloadable movie content form their earliest days. The challenge is, of course, beiung able to accomplish that goal. Direct agreements with the studios seem to be a difficult path to travel given the studios' historical reluctance to a downloadable model (of course things are just starting to change with teh likes of CinemaNow). Beyond that, the K user base is too small to make the effort worthwhile from the studios' point of view.

The media delivery platform idea is an interesting one as we're seeing new services pop up to offer deliverable content in new ways. As far as agreements with cable companies or DirecTV, it's as complicated as the PVR issue. Different providers in different markets and while DTV is national, they don't have true VOD offerings like many local cable companies do. So, I don't know if they have the right agreements in place with cable operators to offer a wider library via download.

K partnering with some other of these new services is an interesting possibility though. CinemaNow is interesting, but the resolution limitations on the content is probably too unattractive for K. I have no idea if they are contractually bound by the studios to limit the resolutions or if that's just a business model choice. Then there's something like Moviebeam. Another interesting idea but I don't know if the rental model interests K either.

I think K isn't willing to sacrifice quality and if they are going to offer a downloadable or other deliverable model, they want it to be for ownership and not rental. They probably also don't want to be limited by a small catalog either. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I know it's something they would very much like to do.

Jeff
 
I wonder if Kaleidescape could license the TiVo software and just run it inside the Kaleidescape system. TiVo is as reliable as I need on the software side and I know they are looking for more partners. Just a thought that might help offload a lot of the cost of implementation. All they would need is a secure way to get the TiVo material onto the server. It could be a special TiVo with no hard drive and a network connection. The software could load off of flash memory and would probably be more responsive than the ones we have now since the recording of data would be offloaded to another entity.
 
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