hd dvr

DISH Network generated a fair amount of news over the past couple of weeks at CES and beyond. Here is a round-up of recent major announcements from the company:

The [itvt] editorial team is on the road this week, so we are covering most stories in round-up/summary form, and we anticipate that there will be some additional interruptions of our regular news publishing schedule beyond that. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers.

Canadian cable MSO, Rogers Communications, said Monday that it will offer a new line of Cisco HD DVR's (the Explorer 8642HD) that will include a model with the largest DVR hard drive (500GB) in Canada, allowing customers to record up to 62 hours of HD or up to 280 hours of SD content. "We understand that for our customers, entertainment is about the experience for the whole family and at the center of it is often the PVR," John Boynton, Rogers' EVP of marketing, said in a prepared statement "The new Rogers Cisco Explorer 8642HD PVR is designed with the whole family in mind so that they can each enjoy their own entertainment on their time. No longer will they have to deal with record-delete issues. They can watch what they want, when they want."

Evolution Digital--a division of Evolution Broadband, a reseller of digital equipment to independent cable operators--said last week that it is supplying TiVo HD DVR's to TVMAX, a regional cable operator that specializes in providing services to MDU's and that serves the greater Houston area.

Interactive TV and conditional access technology provider, NDS, and Chinese value-added TV service provider, DOXTV, on Wednesday announced the launch of what they say is China's first HD DVR and push-VOD service. The service, part of an offering dubbed Chongqing Cable TV+, is offered to subscribers of Chongqing Cable (note: the latter claims to have around 5 million analog and digital subs), which, in addition to NDS's XTV DVR technology with push-VOD capability, has deployed the company's MediaHighway middleware, its VideoGuard conditional access system, and an EPG co-developed by NDS and DOXTV.

Arris, the communications technology provider that acquired struggling DVR company, Digeo, and its flagship Moxi products (including their Emmy-winning "cross-hairs" interface) back in September for just $20 million in cash (see the article published on itvt.com, September 27th), announced a new three-tuner version of the Moxi HD DVR, Monday night, as well as a steep price reduction for the two-tuner Moxi HD DVR, and a new Moxi multi-room package.

Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue:

Satellite TV provider, DirecTV, said Tuesday that it is launching The Weather Channel's interactive TV applications--which launched on its platform on the broadcaster's standard-definition channel around a year ago--on the broadcaster's HDTV channel, The Weather Channel HD. According to the company, since their launch last year, the apps have generated nearly a billion total household impressions.

The interactive TV weather apps include:

At the ANGA Cable show in Cologne, Thursday, interactive TV and conditional access technology provider, NDS, announced that it has secured the first deployment of its XTV DVR solution in Germany: Tele Columbus and PrimaCom, two independent German cable operators which work in tandem (and which, between them, have around 3.5 million subscribers), have selected the solution to launch what is billed as Germany's first cable HD DVR service. According to NDS, the new DVR service offered by the two operators will be based on a hybrid set-top box that incorporates an Ethernet connection, as well as dual cable tuners.

Paul Allen-owned set-top box vendor, Digeo is holding two "ManCave" sweepstakes in order to promote its flagship Moxi HD DVR to male sports fans (note: the company recently announced a series of new features and enhancements for the box, that appear to be designed to transform it into a platform for bringing over-the-top video to the living room, much as rival TiVo has transformed its DVR into an OTT device--see article published on itvt.com April 9th).

UK satellite-TV provider, BSkyB, announced Thursday that its Sky+ HD service has now been deployed in over a million Sky households (1,022 million, compared to 465,000 this time last year), following record sales in the first three months of 2009. The company says that the growing popularity of HDTV has also contributed to the rapid growth of its Sky+ DVR service, which is incorporated in all Sky+HD boxes: including the Sky+ HD customer base, Sky says, the Sky+ DVR service (which is powered by technologies from NDS and OpenTV) added 406,000 net new subscribers during the quarter and is now in over 5 million homes--almost one in five homes in the UK and Ireland.

Paul Allen-owned set-top box vendor, Digeo, announced a series of new features and enhancements for its Moxi HD DVR Thursday, that appear to be designed to transform the device into a platform for bringing over-the-top video to the living room (much as rival TiVo has transformed its DVR into an OTT device). The new features, which the company says will be available automatically to Moxi HD DVR customers via a free software upgrade, include:

--Signs New HD DVR Deal with DirecTV
--Signs Deal to Bring TiVo Services to BlackBerry
--Launches High-Capacity HD DVR
--Partners with Entertainment Weekly

TiVo and US satellite TV provider, DirecTV, have extended their existing partnership with a new, non-exclusive deal that calls for the companies to develop, market and distribute a new TiVo-powered HD DVR service to DirecTV customers. The deal also extends various mutual intellectual property arrangements between the two companies. DirecTV has offered a version of the TiVo service, branded as "DirecTV with TiVo," since 2000.

--Integrates its SDV Solution with Digeo's Moxi HD DVR
Video networking specialist, BigBand Networks, has launched a network-based media-processing platform, which it says will help broadband service providers transition from a broadcast video distribution model to personalized video delivery, and which it bills as cost-effectively delivering a range of personalized video services, including IPTV, addressable advertising, multi-channel HDTV, and interactive TV. Dubbed the MSP2000 (for "Media Services Platform"), the new platform provides service providers with an "evolutionary" path to delivering personalized video services, BigBand says, and makes use of existing infrastructure to enable new revenue opportunities, including more relevant advertising.