TiVo Hits The Road With Portable Players

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A new mobile infrastructure sprang into being on Monday, with manufacturers introducing a new line of video players capable of playing Tivo-recorded videos, all based on a new embedded processor from Advanced Micro Devices.

The three announcements – the TiVo-to-Go service, the AMD Alchemy Au1200 embedded processor, and new personal video players like the Vassili from First International Computer – were not intrinsically tied to one another, in the sense that the TiVo video will only be played back on AMD-based video players.

However, the announcements set the stage for similar disclosures this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where chip and PC makers have discovered the lucrative new market of consumer electronics.

The TiVo service will be pushed to Series2 TiVo boxes as a software upgrade, but not all of them. With the service, users will be able to connect their PCs to the TiVo box, although the transfer of video requires special TiV Desktop software. Each user is assigned a media access number and password to access the content. However, users will not be able to copy "protected" content, such as pay-for-view movies. Future programs encoded with the so-called "broadcast flag" preventing content from being copied would not be able to copy the video, as well.

Users who sign up on the TiVo website can be placed on a priority list to get faster access to the new service.

 

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Pioneer adds TiVo to DVD recorders

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Pioneer Electronics is hoping to raise the profile of digital video recording services by adding TiVo's service to its line of DVD recorders.

The Long Beach, Calif.-based electronics arm of Tokyo's Pioneer announced Wednesday two new DVD recorders that incorporate TiVo's digital video recorder (DVR) service. The devices will be available in the fall and will allow consumers to pause TV programs and schedule recording onto a hard drive as well as record shows onto DVD-R (DVD-recordable) and DVD-RW (DVD-rewritable) discs.

The drives are among the first from a major manufacturer to offer DVR- and DVD-recording capabilities and are expected to boost consumer interest in digital video recording. DVR services, though popular among subscribers, have not seen the success that many expected early on. Now, however, the service is beginning to catch on with consumers. DVD recorders are one of the more popular consumer electronics devices in the market, and as prices come down, demand is expected to grow.

Worldwide shipments of DVD recorders reached 1.5 million in 2002 and should increase to more than 11 million in 2005, according to research firm In-Stat/MDR. Shipments are expected to rise significantly as manufacturers begin to add DVR features to their products.

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TV Guardian DVD Recorder & VCR Combo

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Filter out offensive language and play DVDs or VHS videos with the versatile DVD Recorder & VCR Combo. The combo player is manufactured by RCA and the TVGuardian technology is manufactured by Principle Solutions, Inc. You can’t buy this particular model from either of the manufacturers, but you can purchase it from the Family Safe Media website.

The TVGuardian technology does not work with the VCR part of the player—the filtering components only work with DVDs. The technology uses the closed–captioning signal encoded in DVDs to filter out objectionable language. Filtered language is muted and a cleaned–up version of closed–captioned text replaces the offensive word(s).

Features Set:

The TVGuardian technology in the DVD Recorder & VCR Combo will filter out over 150 words and phrases such as curse words and sexually charged dialog from DVDs—the filtering does not work with the VCR. However, the TVGuardian model 201 will work with VCRs, DVDs and television.

Universal Studios does not include closed–captioning on their DVDs, so look for the closed–captioning (CC) symbol on the DVD packaging.

Ease of Use:

Use the remote control to access the TVGuardian menu options that display on your television screen. From there you can set your preferred filter limits. If the player is in progressive scan mode, the closed–captioned text will not display, but the dialog will still be muted.

Ease of Installation/Setup:

Connect the DVD & VCR Combo unit to your television with the A/V cable included with the player.

 

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Panasonic DMR-XW480

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Once again, Panasonic's served up a feature-rich PVR/DVD-recorder and saddled it with an unfriendly remote control and befuddling menu structure. DLNA streaming and plenty of storage space make this a sensible buy, but only for those with plenty of patience.

Design

The appeal of Panasonic's DMR-XW480 certainly doesn't lie in its visual style. It's a plain black box, like any other AV box that you may come across. About the only genuine oddity in its design is that the eject button for the DVD tray sits on the opposite side to the tray itself, and the button above the tray controls the unit's power. It's a design we've seen before, and it's annoying, because if you hit the closest button to the tray, rather than ejecting, the whole unit simply shuts down.

The XW480 utilises Panasonic's standard remote control layout, which we've had issues with for years now. It's most charitably described as overly busy. It offers up a lot of functionality directly from the remote, but it's buried under layers of menus and often baffling labels.

Features

It's the feature set of the DMR-XW480 that makes it interesting. First of all, it's a dual-HD tuner digital TV recorder with an in-built 500GB hard drive and DVD Super Multi writer built in. It's also network aware, which brings in two slightly different sets of functions. Firstly, there's Panasonic's Viera Cast, which allows access to Picasa, Weather, Bloomberg Television and YouTube. There's also a number of blank icons on the Viera Cast main screen, suggesting functions that may be built into the firmware in the future. As always, we can only assess the features available right now, because promises of future functionality don't always play out as actual features down the track.

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Expert Review Panasonic DVD-S53S/K

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Considering an upscaling DVD player like the Panasonic DVD-S53 retails for substantially less than either a Blu-ray or HD DVD player, it can be a solid compromise for consumers who don't want to commit to one of the new high definition formats until a clear winner has emerged. Using an HDMI connection, the Panasonic DVD-S53 upscales standard DVDs to high-definition 720p, 1080i or 1080p signals so you can enjoy an HDTV-compliant picture with about double the resolution provided by an ordinary progressive scan DVD player. This is a great way to optimize the picture quality from your existing DVD library.

The DVD-S53 is a slim, neatly styled device available in a choice of colors to complement your existing home theater set up. The player comes in a black finish as model number DVD-S53K or in silver as model number DVD-S53S. In every other respect the two models are identical, so whichever finish you opt for, you'll find the DVD-S53 offers excellent picture quality and disc compatibility. Upscaling to 1080p, the unit produces clean and sharp images with deep blacks and plenty of shadow detail. The unit handles just about any format of recordable disc, including DVD-RAM and those encoded with DivX, WMA, MP3 and JPEG picture files.

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Apple moves to support DVD+RW format

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After years of backing only one format in the recordable DVD format war, Apple Computer is adding limited support of a rival format into its operating system.

Apple, a longtime supporter of the DVD-R format, confirmed Monday that it is adding support for DVD+R and DVD+RW into the Macintosh operating system with Panther, the new version of Mac OS X that ships next week. Apple is only adding support for backing up data and has not yet added support for the format into its media applications, such as iDVD and iTunes.

Although they are both formats for recording DVDs that can be played on PCs and in many consumer DVD players, DVD+RW drives cannot write to DVD-R or DVD-RW media, just as DVD-RW drives can't write to DVD+R or DVD+RW media. Increasingly popular are drives that are capable of writing both formats.

Nonetheless, the move is a strategic shift for Apple, which until now has supported only the -R standard, contending it was used by more DVD players. The company has shipped some machines with Sony-made drives that can write to both the +R and -R standards, but in those cases it turned off the +R capabilities.

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Can I play my recorded DVDs in other DVD players - What are the DVD Formats?

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After years of backing only one format in the recordable DVD format war, Apple Computer is adding limited support of a rival format into its operating system.

Apple, a longtime supporter of the DVD-R format, confirmed Monday that it is adding support for DVD+R and DVD+RW into the Macintosh operating system with Panther, the new version of Mac OS X that ships next week. Apple is only adding support for backing up data and has not yet added support for the format into its media applications, such as iDVD and iTunes.

Although they are both formats for recording DVDs that can be played on PCs and in many consumer DVD players, DVD+RW drives cannot write to DVD-R or DVD-RW media, just as DVD-RW drives can't write to DVD+R or DVD+RW media. Increasingly popular are drives that are capable of writing both formats.

Nonetheless, the move is a strategic shift for Apple, which until now has supported only the -R standard, contending it was used by more DVD players. The company has shipped some machines with Sony-made drives that can write to both the +R and -R standards, but in those cases it turned off the +R capabilities.

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The Best DVD Recorders

It's true that any DVD recorder you choose to buy would be much better than your old VCR. But the best DVD recorders go much beyond that. What you should look for:

Format-compatibility

Today, only computer DVD burners are totaly compatible with all DVD formats. The most popular format in DVD recorders world seems to be DVD-R/RW, probably due to support from DVD Forum Alliance members. But a thorough analysis into DVD formats reveals that the controversy upon compatibility differences is rather unrealistic. Plus, beyond the compatibility issue, they all have ups and downs in what other features are concerned: DVD-R/RW can't be played untill they're finalized, unlike DVD+R/RW. DVD-RAM will let you apply some editing functions to the recorded material and access to its content is easier.
You can choose a multi-format unit like the ones Sony makes (DVD±R/RW compatible). Among their top rated are RDRGX7 and RDRGX300. Units like Toshiba DR1 or most models from Panasonic (DMRE60, DMRE100-H, DMR-E55S, DMR-E50K, DMR-E50S, DMR-E30S, DMR-E20, DMR-HS2 and others) write DVD-R/RAM formats.
DVD recorders that burn DVD-RAM discs are nicer because they replicate some TiVo functions, but DVD-RAM discs won't work on any other players except newer models from Panasonic (since 2001).

Hard Drive Incorporated

Panasonic was the first to introduce this feature for DVD recorders, in July 2003; the first model (DMR-E100H) came up with 120 GB hard drive; but newer models from Panasonic (DMR-E500HS) or Sharp (DV-HRD200) have up to 400 GB HD capacity.

Time Slip Function

This feature allows you to simultaneously record and playback and chassing playback. It is similar to what TiVo can do (just like all DVRs), and only DVD recorders that burn in DVD-RAM format can replicate it. So expect to find time slip function on most Panasonic models, the DVR 310-S from Pioneer or Toshiba's D-R2.

Outputs

Progressive scan playback and other upscale outputs are just must-have for DVD recorders. At a rough estimation, more than half of the DVD recorders on the market today feature progressive scan output, and an even greater majority use component video output. FireWire/i.LINK port helps you transfer recorded material from your camcorder, and units that don't feature this output just aren't ready for demanding buyers.
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