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Television Media Toys Technology

HD DirecTiVo And Other CES Treats 172

Posted by timothy from the more-will-roll-in dept.
Gadget Guy writes "The CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) has announced their CES (Consumer Electronics Show) Innovations 2004 winners. Within is a shot of the new Hughes HD DirecTiVo with some new LED's on the front including "Temp" for those sure to be occurring overheats. The surprise winners were the Motorola IM Free with no backlight along with it's "left un-justified" keyboard and the color SideKick who's black and white cousin was debuted at the 2003 CES show. Plus check out this Samsung DLP TV! Stealth bomber cool!"
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HD DirecTiVo And Other CES Treats More

HD DirecTiVo And Other CES Treats

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  • It's about time Tivo service was available for high-definition... now if it could only sort my groups without those stupid duplicate entries... or do a season pass for all channels a show appears on.

    • Re:HD Tivo! (Score:5, Informative)

      by pogopogo ( 464296 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @04:21AM (#7801677)
      Um, you can do a season pass for all channels. Just create a wishlist item for the title of the show and it will record it on every channel.

      So make a wishlist for "Sex and the City" or Seinfeld and it will record the episode from all the channels.

      • Re:HD Tivo! (Score:2, Informative)

        by ThePixel ( 47166 )
        Actually, it doesn't always work -- for instance, I get local chanels via DirecTiVo, but a season pass will only grab either the local channel shows, or the DirecTV shows. Never both. So If a show (such as Stargate SG-1 appears on SciFi and my local FOX affiliate) I have to have TWO season passes to grab all the shows, or setup a Title Wishlist (which I have done for Stargate) unfortunately a Title Wishlist doesn't always work -- for instance, I'd like to get all of the Friends episodes, but a Friends Tit
    • Great! Now I can record 15 minutes of high definition glory on that whopping drive!

      --D

  • 720p Versus 1080i (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Naffer ( 720686 )
    Not meaning too get too offtopic, but I noticed that the order of formats in the picture goes [480i] [480p] [720p] [1080i]. Is that supposed to mean that 1080i is of higher picture quality then 720p? I assume that the number means lines of resolution, so 1080i would be higher res. Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't a 720 progressive image give you twice the effective framerate? 60 full frames per second versus 60 half frames per second?

    • Re:720p Versus 1080i (Score:4, Informative)

      by flyboy974 ( 624054 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @04:37AM (#7801707)
      720p gives you 60 frames per second. 1080 gives you 60 frames per second, but, interlaced (30 half frames, interlaces together to make 60 total frames). You watch The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King at the theater. You sit in awe. 24 Frames Per Second. Now, you think that the LotR is smoooooth. But you say that 1080i isn't? Your mind sees approximately 22-30 frames per second. This is why a 1080i is indistiguishable, frame rate wise, from 720p. Very very very very few people can see the difference.
      • "Your mind sees approximately 22-30 frames per second." - I hope you mean motion blured frames per second, since otherwise you can easily see the difference between 30fps and 60 fps and up to ~72fps.

      • Re:720p Versus 1080i (Score:4, Informative)

        by ender's_shadow ( 302302 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @05:02AM (#7801759) Homepage
        again this untruth - people see much more than 30 fps. It's just that ~24 fps is sufficient to convey motion to the brain. You're just wrong about the diff b/t 1080and720 - the resolution is better (sharper), interlaced or not.

      • Re:720p Versus 1080i (Score:5, Informative)

        by Osty ( 16825 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @05:13AM (#7801777)

        Your mind sees approximately 22-30 frames per second. This is why a 1080i is indistiguishable, frame rate wise, from 720p. Very very very very few people can see the difference.

        Bullshit. Modern science has not found the upper limit that the eye can distinguish. I found a nice link [100fps.com] simply by searching Google, so you can do the research yourself about what information is out there.


        Given various different tricks (motion blur, mostly), your eyes only really need 18fps to determine motion, but even at higher frame rates you'll still be able to detect flicker and jerkiness. Next time you watch Return of the King, look for any long horizontal pans (caveat: I haven't seen the movie yet, so I don't know if there are any good examples in the movie). If the pan is fast enough, you're going to see flicker and jerkiness. This is also why you need a much higher frame rate for video games, because proper motion blur is computationally expensive and current hardware still can't handle it and everything else while maintaining a smooth rate (the other issue in trying for the highest possible frame rate is that games measure averages, so a 30fps average means that the rate will drop below 30fps. A locked 30fps, like many consoles games do, guarantees the game will not drop below 30fps at the cost of visual quality). Look out of the corner of your eye at your computer screen. If you're using a CRT, you're going to be able to see flicker even if you're running a higher refresh rate (some people can't detect it past 85Hz or so, but most people can). Work in an office with all flourescent lighting, and see how long it takes you to get a headache. You may not physically see the flicker, but your eyes do and the headache is caused by strain because of it.


        Between 480i and 480p, I can certainly tell a difference in refresh rate. Turn off progressive scan output on your DVD player, watch a scene, and turn it back on, or play with the progressive settings in the DVD player setup. If you can't tell a difference, you're a rare person, not the average. Just because you can't see the difference doesn't mean that other people can't either.

        • Completely OT. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by juuri ( 7678 )
          One of the reasons the dreamcast was able to hold its own in games against the PS2 was due to it being able to do motion blur in the chipset. This was used in a lot of games to great effect. Unfortunately it seems everyone else decided not to implement this so we are left with cold hard static images in things like driving and sports games.
        • Modern science has not found the upper limit that the eye can distinguish

          And you are just talking about the human eye. What about animal eyes? No, I'm not some PETA nut...it just occurs to me that many people have pets that they are quite fond of and would not want to do things to cause discomfort for those pets.

          So, I wonder what pets think of our modern video and audio systems? Are those DVDs that to us have spectacular pictures and CD-quality surround sound appear to dogs as horrible flickering lig

          • Re:720p Versus 1080i (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Single GNU Theory ( 8597 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @10:05AM (#7802553) Journal
            So, I wonder what pets think of our modern video and audio systems?

            Pets probably think modern video and audio systems don't smell very interesting.
          • >So, I wonder what pets think of our modern video and audio systems? Are those DVDs that to us have spectacular pictures and CD-quality

            >surround sound appear to dogs as horrible flickering lightshows accompanied by intolerably distorted sound full of digital artifacts?

            I don't know about TV frame rates. But I have had several cats. They didnt mind the loud speakers. For some reason they liked to sleep on the speakers. They wouldnt move off the speakers til I cranked it up so loud that the speakers we

          • Re:720p Versus 1080i (Score:3, Insightful)

            by xeaxes ( 554292 )

            There was a report on the news about cats and tv. They were distinguishing why some cats watch and some cats do not watch.

            The answer? The cats that watch TV have slower brains then the cats that do not watch TV. They cannot distinguish that TV is not real.

            I'm guessing the same is true for dogs. Especially in regards to sound. It's interesting that some dogs can distinguish that hearing a doorbell or dog bark on TV is fake and some dogs cannot. So, higher quality audio and video probably means that

          • So, I wonder what pets think of our modern video and audio systems?

            With the big-screen TV my parents bought a few months ago, one of their dogs starts growling/barking/howling when she sees another dog on-screen. How's that for an answer?

        • Re:720p Versus 1080i (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Halo- ( 175936 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @10:02AM (#7802537)
          There is one other important element in how "fast" the human eye sees: Where you are looking. The receptors in the certer of the eye respond much more slowly than the receptors on the edges; however, the center of the eye has much greater resolution. The reason for this is that you need detail for subjects you are actually looking at, and you need speed in your peripheral vision to see things sneaking up or being throw at you.

          I've played with this effect when configuring monitors before. Set the vertical refresh to something painfully slow, then try looking at it out of the corner of your eye. Ouch...

          So, I would suspect that on really large screens (ie movie theaters) the refresh rate is more critical than on smaller screens.

          Me? I own a plain old low-def 24" TV, so this is all moot for me. :)

          • "The receptors in the certer of the eye respond much more slowly than the receptors on the edges;"

            It's kind of funny how the edges of your eyes work. I went to a play with a friend of mine, we had center seats. On either side of the stage was a dim EXIT sign. Whenever I looked straight at the stage, I could see the EXIT sign at the edge of my vision, but if I looked right at it, it was too dim to see it. I remember my friend next to me was having the same problem, we'd both turn our head and look at t
        • "If the pan is fast enough, you're going to see flicker and jerkiness."

          When I was a kid, I saw an animated movie a little too close to the screen. As some of you already know, when there is panning in an animated movie, there is no motion blur. The strobing was distracting. There were places I was seeing a double image.

          I think projectors have improved since then. I read somewhere that they actually show a film at 48fps, but each frame is shown twice. If that's true, I can see why I haven't noticed i

      • Re:720p Versus 1080i (Score:3, Informative)

        by nvrrobx ( 71970 )
        You are correct, but only for viewing moving video. Still pictures or text, and you'll defintely see the difference. Now, I know a lot of people that can't tell the difference between a monitor at 60 hz vs a monitor at 100 hz. If you're one of those people, 1080i is just fine for you. I, for one, can very much tell the difference, and I'd rather avoid the eyestrain headaches that go along with interlacing. :)

        So, in summary, if you plan on viewing still images, or reading text (browsing the web, anyone?

      • Re:720p Versus 1080i (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Squid ( 3420 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @06:32AM (#7801896) Homepage
        Actually 24fps isn't all that smooth. I can think of a few shots in ALL the Lord of the Rings movies - usually vertical pans or other rapid tracking shots - that looked very choppy. Not a problem on DVD, but in the theater, the whole damn screen seems to flash, as essentially the whole frame changes 24 times a second.

        Fast-moving objects at 24fps don't always "move" fluidly across the cinema screen, all too often you get 24 flickery copies of the object, because your eyes are not quite tracking the motion, you're seeing the object blink out at one location and blink in at another. Now, in a rapid camera pan, especially a vertical one where you're trying to cover more "ground" with the narrow aspect of the frame, you get 24 flickery copies of the WHOLE FRAME stuttering up the screen. It looks unsteady or "blurry" to the eye, though every frame may be razor-sharp.

        We may only "see" at 22-30fps, but we are affected by problems well beyond that, whether it be fluorescent lights about to conk out, or monitors that "only" refesh at 75hz. For motion to appear smooth and comfortable we'd really have to get to the point of having 120fps video.
      • at least use the right terms, 1080i gives you 60 fields per second, which calculates to 30 frames a second. anyone remember non-interlaced monitors? both formats have better detail/resolution than 'standard' 480i and 'good' 480p, so whichever one your new TV supports, more power to you! (just make sure that it does those resolutions natively, and it doesn't downconvert/upconvert via line-doublers and similar, because that will defeat the purpose of having this really nice TV to watch really nice signal inpu
      • Movie directors have to be very careful about the shots they take due to the 24fps limitation.
        If you ever saw "Twister" in the theatre you would have noticed that the kitchen scene where they rapidly turn the camera from pointing at one person to another at different places in the room was very hard on the eyes because the frame rate was quite noticeable. However, the special effects looked ok because they took the time to make them look real, whereas the kitchen was real.

    • Re:720p Versus 1080i (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @07:14AM (#7801978)
      So many bad assumptions.

      First. Everyone needs to read up on the kell factor to understand the impact that interlace video has on human perception of resolution.

      http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/kell.htm

      For those of you too lazy to read, it is generally accepted in the broadcast industry that interlace video (1080i, 480i) conveys about 70-75% of the total available vertical resolution (kell factor of .7). This means a 1080i image is about 810 lines of perceived vertical resolution.

      This is IF the compression system in use is not filtering the overall frequency response to some even lower value.

      All of the ATSC interlace modes run at 60 fields not 60 frames. (discounting drop frame modes) In interlace video there are only 30 frames of data which are spread out over 60 samples in time. Some people in the industry would argue that the kell factor for fast moving sports footage, especially panning footage such as car or bicycle races has a vertical resolution or kell factor of only .5. This means that the content of the video is moving so quickly that the next field of video samples do not line up at all with the previous ones and therefore add now new resolution content. For sports footage this means you are comparing 540 vertical lines (out of 1080i) to the REAL 720 samples at 60 Frame.

      Sony spent a LOT of money testing human perception and found out that the human eye cannot tell the difference between 1334 horizontal samples of resolution and 1920 samples when the viewer is seated at normal theater viewing distances. Of course its this same logic that says people can't hear anything above 20Khz. YMMV. The upshot of this is that the highest quality sampling available on compressed HD equipment is around 1440 horizontal pixels. Panasonic would argue that they have 1920 samples but their compression is so high that the effective frequency response on moving video is not nearly that.

      720P is far superior to 1080i for a number of reasons, all of which must be considered.

      1. Most televisions are not capable of true 1920 resolution. In fact, most broadcast monitor engineers would argue that none of them are. Keep in mind that there is a big difference between being 1920 ready or capable and having the electronics to drive a true, stable, jitter free 1920 image.

      720p solves this because it is a much easier resolution to drive on consumer displays and therefore there is less box induced artifacting (scaling, motion interpolation, etc).

      This means that if YOUR televisions native resolution is less than 1920 it will have to format convert the video down to whatever your native resolution is. Chances are that your televisions native display technology is progressive scan (DLP, LCOS, LCD, etc) so it will also be frame rate converting at the same time. Going from an interlace format to a progressive format is not a simple task. Cheap televisions (or STBs) will do simple field integration or bob/weave as it is known in the consumer world ('vertical/temporal mesh' to the industry). Better televisions will try to do motion adaptive de-interlacing. This is any set driven by Faroujda, Sage, Genesis electronics (all owned by Genesis). I suppose that there will be some sets that will attempt motion compensated de-interlacing but consider that the cheapest motion compensated stand alone box out there is about $100K and ask yourself if you are really getting what you are paying for. I digress. The point is that it is much easier for your television to convert 720p to 1080i than the other way around, or even better for it to just accept the 720p signal and display it natively.

      Toss in the fact that television stations are all broadcasting at different HD resolutions, your STB (set top box whether satellite or cable) has its own native processing capabilites (or necessities) and your television has its own limitations and you end up with some very ugly scenarios. The worst of which is a 720P->1080i->

      • Re:720p Versus 1080i (Score:3, Insightful)

        by davegust ( 624570 )
        The problem with your position on 1080i is that many of your 720p "advantages" are due to the limits of today's technology.

        - Today's sets can't show full 1920
        - Today's cameras can't shoot full 1920
        - Interlaced to progressive conversion is expensive
        - Digitizing progressive is easier

        While these statements are true today, in 5 years these problems will be be solved. They are technology limits.

        Approximating the recovery of interlaced fields is simply a technology problem, not a mathematical limit. We throw
      • One thing to keep in mind is perception VS screen size. If you have a screen less than 60" I agress totally, it's not uncommon to have 100+" screens. I dunn'o. I've seen DLP at my local theater, holy crap did it look horible. I mean, bad, really, really bad. Sure, it's a 50 foot wide screen showing 720P, but at some point you'll see it on the small screens.
    • I don't think it's supposed to mean anything more than that 1080 is a bigger number than 720. Among videophiles, there's really no consensus on whether 720p (as used by ABC) or 1080i (CBS, NBC) looks better.

      I'd guess that button is to control the output resolution. (Some HDTV sets have native support for only 720p or 1080i.) Anyway, I sure don't see the "Temp" indicator referred to in the submitter's comments.

    • This is a religious argument for HDTV people. I
      personally think that the progressive scan 720p
      mode is better for just about everything,
      especially sports and computer animation (the
      Monsters Inc teaser they used to show on ABC
      almost brought tears to my eyes it was so
      beautiful... I hope they hurry up and make fully
      re-rendered 720p Pixar movies ASAFP).

      However, 1080i still looks pretty damn good most
      of the time!

      Compression artifacts are a BIG problem with
      both formats though... I can only imagine how
      badly the
      • I had occaision one day to hang around a pro-sumer TV/home audio boutique and they had a whole wall of _nice_ plasma and LCD displays. They were playing DirecTV HD, specifically DiscoveryHD. After a few minutes viewing I was astonished how artifact ridden the feed was. You could see all sorts of blocking effects, especially around the edges of objects moving across the frame.
        The pricey TVs made the artifacts abundantly clear, and it kind of took the wind out of my sails in wanting to get HD-capable DirecTV
      • DVDs had compression artifact problems in the early days also. That was taken care of. I have faith that this won't be a problem in HDTV in next few years.

  • no so cool (Score:4, Insightful)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @04:20AM (#7801676)
    Plus check out this Samsung DLP TV! Stealth bomber cool!"

    Wasn't one of the cool promises of a flat plasma TV that we could hang them on the wall with little wasted space? Not have to ballance them on top of a space wasting cousing of R2-D2? Who in the world wants this TV with it's queer makeover and awkward space wasting base?

    • Re:no so cool (Score:5, Insightful)

      by iainl ( 136759 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @04:31AM (#7801693)
      The Samsung isn't a flat plasma TV though; its a DLP rear projection that, since the single DLP unit is much smaller than the multiple bulbs of a traditional CRT rear-pro, they've hollowed out the stand to the bare minimum for maximum cool looks.

      If you want flat plasma, then get flat plasma. I wouldn't hang one on my wall though, as not only do I need the stand space underneath it to house DVD, Laserdisc, Amplifier, Satellite decoder, VHS recorder, Minidisc player and multiple consoles, but the sheer weight of a 43" plasma screen means you need blooming great bolts in it to ensure it doesn't fall off.
    • Maybe because this isn't a Plasma TV, this is a DLP (as in projection) TV.

      So, you're wrong.

      • DLP is a superior technology anyway. (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The only advantage to having plasma is that the sets are thin.
        It's certainly not a good idea to get plasma for its picture quality, because DLP beats it hands down (and the latest rear projection LCD screens do as well).

        In a nutshell, plasma screens are heavy, fragile, run hot, easily suffer from burn-in, suck a lot of power, and diminish noticeably in brightness within a couple years of use.

        Plasma's time has come and gone... and it never did get cheap.
        I think even the DLP and LCD sets will lose out to th

    • Re:no so cool (Score:3, Informative)

      by tgd ( 2822 )
      Um, thats not a plasma TV.

    • Re:no so cool (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @10:01AM (#7802531) Homepage
      Wasn't one of the cool promises of a flat plasma TV that we could hang them on the wall with little wasted space?

      Sure, and you can still do that. You'll only pay roughly twice as much for a HD plasma screen as you will for a HD DLP. DLP may not be perfect, but I do think it's the best digital display technology out there right now. It's light (our 46" is only 80 lbs (36 kg); our 32" CRT TV is far heavier), they're not flat but they are narrow (ours is only 16" deep), they have no burn-in issues (plasma does), pretty good black levels (best of the digital bunch), great resolution (1280x720 currently), high contrast and brightness (you don't NEED to watch in a pitch black room), and good connectivity (DVI and VGA input!).

      Yeah, it's still much more expensive than a RPTV CRT HD set, but I think it's worth it. And, as I mentioned, it's considerably cheaper than plasma.

      As for the stand -- it's separate. Don't buy it if you don't like it. Mine is in a huge honking entertainment center, many people buy various stands for them -- with the weight you don't need to worry about whether or not the stand can hold the TV. And, after all, you need somewhere to put the receiver, DVD player, TiVo, etc.
      • I'm curious, is plasma considered a digital display? While it is an array of fixed pixels, are the individual cells driven by analog or digital principles?

        One thing to keep in mind is that current home DLP isn't for everyone. Some people get severe headaches because of the rainbowing inherent in single chip DLP. It is allieviated somewhat by 6x equivalent color wheels but many of those affected by 2x still have problems with 6x.
  • The Akosa PlugLan(TM) Network Jack -- imagine how much time, effort, and money stringing up CAT5 network cables could be saved if we simply just used these instead to use our existing electrical wires to transmit data.

    Motorola IMfree Personal Instant Messenger -- kick the middle school girls off of the computers, and give them these little keypads. $1500 machines being hogged for using AIM is ridiculous. Plus it's Linux-based.

    "Air Flo" Hand Cooling Controllers -- When playing Xbox for hours on end, your c
  • I have a Sony DirecTivo unit that I've loved for many a years now. I love it more now that I am a beta user and got dual tuners before most of the public. (About two years of Beta's now)

    But, what is so special about the new Hughes DirecTivo? I checked the CES website and the link, and there is nothing about specs. Notta new, other than HDTV. Ooo.. A piture that the Sony Tivo still kicks ass over. I havn't looked into DirecTV's specs about their broadcast of HDTV, but, I'm guessing it's highly compre
    • Pardon the redundancy, but I think this addresses the key issue here. OK- I don`t have a `proper` Tivo (actually, that Hughes unit looks like the same type of system...), but I have a HD recorder embedded into my digital cable box (a PERFECT convergence of technology if you ask me- the integration of the cable `guide`with the absolute ease in programming and use), but there are obvious artifacts and compression going on- especially in low light scenes. I`m just wondering what the video snobs will think of

    • Re: Why include a link to a picture? (Score:5, Informative)

      by golemite ( 69787 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @06:52AM (#7801924) Homepage
      The new HD DirecTivo will have dual OTA tuners and dual Satellite tuners, meaning you can be recording up to 3 HD/SD programs while watching another one live. The HD is 250GB and will support all HD as well as SD output formats. The unit has recently entered Beta testing and hopefully will appear on store shelves soon. Check AVSForum [avsforum.com] for more info.

      DirecTV HDTV actually delivers quite a good image. Flipping between the same game on Sunday Ticket HD on DTV and CBS-HD OTA reveals some artifacts being introduced occassionally from further compression but still delivers a good image that will only get better as more satellites get in the sky. Other channels such as ESPN-HD (when they are actually showing HD) and Discovery HD look excellent compared to full bitrate OTA channels.
      • I thought I read that you could only use 2 of the tuners at once. At least I remember seeing that on the tivo community board.

      • The new HD DirecTivo will have dual OTA tuners and dual Satellite tuners, meaning you can be recording up to 3 HD/SD programs while watching another one live.

        Incorrect. You can use any two tuners at once while watching a third program that is already recorded.

        I know know if it has any picture-in-picture capability, so I don't think you'll be able watch two things at once, but regardless, you'll be able to record two things at once and watch another. Pretty impressive actually that it'll be able to h

    • Re:Why include a link to a picture? -- WRONG!!! (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "...and got dual tuners before most of the public"
      Dual tuners have been available for gen1 and gen2 DTiVos for a LONG time. I think it was v 2.5.2 of the software that added them. Any DTiVo bought in the last 1.5+ years came out of the box with this feature.

      "I havn't looked into DirecTV's specs about their broadcast of HDTV, but..."
      Then don't comment. There are plenty of people who are very happy with the DTV HDTV broadcast.

      "I've ran out of space due to the recent influx of some MTV over TiVo exlus
    • How is this Beta? Am I misunderstanding? I have a gen-1 DirecTivo (without USB) and I record 2 different programs while watching a third pre-recorded one.

      I love my DirecTiVo as well. It had to go get serviced once and I felt physically anxious when I was sending it out...hehehe.

    • Re:Why include a link to a picture? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @10:15AM (#7802625) Homepage
      About two years of Beta's now

      And if you're currently participating in a beta then you're breaking your NDA. For some reason, I doubt you're participating in the current beta though -- you'd have a clue then.

      But, what is so special about the new Hughes DirecTivo?[...]other than HDTV. Ooo.. A piture that the Sony Tivo still kicks ass over.

      First off, the make of the TiVo has absolutely zero impact on the PQ. They're all the same design and components.

      That said, the big thing is HD. Your Sony can't do HD. Nor can any other TiVo on the market. This one can. And it'll beat the pants off of your Sony when it comes to PQ because of it. Oh, and it has component and DVI output, which your Sony doesn't. It'll even look better with SD material.

      I havn't looked into DirecTV's specs about their broadcast of HDTV, but, I'm guessing it's highly compressed

      You're right. You haven't looked into it. DirecTV is now broadcasting all of its HD channels at full bitrate. They were previously doing some bit combing to reduce the bitrate to ~12 Mbps, but they have apparantly stopped that and now HD channels are broadcast at up to 21 Mbps.

      How much more bandwidth can you get out of older comm. satelitte? HDTV has about 4x the number of pixels over normal broadcast. You can't support both without giving up something.

      The bandwidth is static. They could allocate all of the bandwidth on a transponder to HD -- they'd just carry fewer channels on that transponder. The more HD channels they put on a bird the fewer SD channels they can broadcast (which basically affects how many locals they can broadcast; all the major channels are on the 101 bird anyway. HD is on the 110 and 119 birds). Oh, and they have a new bird going active in January. It'll have enough bandwidth to transmit every single channel they carry in HD. Including the locals. All of the m. It's unknown what they're going to use the new bird for yet, except that it will be HD related.

      Oh, other new things about the HD DirecTiVo? Four tuners. Two HD DirecTV and two ATSC. You'll only be able to record from two at a time, but you won't have to worry about whether the signal is coming in OTA or DBS.
      • Took a paragraph or so before I realized your references to 'bird' were in regards to the DirecTV satellites and not some cute lass.

    • DirecTv's HD is not over compressed. They put up a satellite that is dedicated to HD. It requires a third LNB, but the picture is so great even the skeptical will be amazed.

      Rav

      Dreams are better as dreams than reality.
    • Obviously you haven't been in a Best Buy or Circuit City (or whatever you have where you live) in quite some time. Stroll in to Best Buy now and you'll see more big-screen TV's than regular TV's. All of them will be hooked to an HD feed, generally DirecTV's HD feed, because it is the easiest to get.

      So, apparently do you not know about DirecTV's HD quality, you don't seem to understand the quality of HD in the first place. There is absolutely no way on Earth that your regular PAL/NTSC television has a pi
  • There are some pretty cool products up there. But one really stands out as having revolutionary potential-the lightglove. This is clearly going to be the input device of choice in the future.

    Just think of the applications for a wireless device that's perfectly ergonomic, customizable, and works with all major OS'es and a huge variety of electronic devices. Check out the website faq here [lightglove.com]-this thing is a universal remote control for your tv, game console, garage door, even microwave. It even works underwater

  • Ah, Tivo, the most hackable of all VCR substitutes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Channard ( 693317 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @05:24AM (#7801799) Journal
    So hopefully someone will be able to modify TIVO in such a way it ignores the 'do not record' flag on HD programmes.
    • Yep, I think this will happen soon, with the demise of my series 1 directtivo there is now a definite need to work on them surface mount skillz to add an offboard rom so I can do the magic. TiVo has likely even closed the holes that were present on the series 2
    • So hopefully someone will be able to modify TIVO in such a way it ignores the 'do not record' flag on HD

      Give me a break people... Why waste several hundreds of dollars on a single-function device that you are mostly locked-out of, when you could just get a REAL computer, and tell it to do ANYTHING you want it to do?

      If a few programmers released something of a multimedia distro, it could be very easy to setup.

  • Taz I (Score:4, Informative)

    by Jesus IS the Devil ( 317662 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @05:47AM (#7801841)
    The Taz I looks to be a better buy at $379 (60GBs) than the Archos AV380 (80GBs), which is selling for $899!

    Taz I:
    http://www.tightsystems.com/gift.htm

    Archose AV380:
    http://www.archos.com/products/prw_500570. html

    The only noticeable difference I see is that the Archose supports xVid while the Taz doesn't. However they both support Divx.

    I'm almost sold... Just wish the product was already available today.
    • The gift certificate linked to says
      "So . . . here's what we've come up with for you. For $379, you get the following:

      1. A very nice gift certificate worth $425 towards the purchase of a TAZ I. (We have not announced a suggested retail price for TAZ I yet.)"

      And on another page "TAZ I will be available in limited quantities in early 2004".

      So at the moment you can pay 379 dollars towards a product that isn't shipping yet and hasn't got a price announced yet.

      But if you go through the Tight Talk discussion t
    • At 6.3" x 4.2" x 1.5" i wouldn't call the Taz I portable. Archos reports 4.4" x 3.2" x 1.2", which is much better IMHO. I still want an av340.

  • The obvious questions... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ChangeOnInstall ( 589099 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @06:10AM (#7801870)
    Will an HDTV DirecTivo function exactly as my current original-generation Tivo in terms of letting me watch any show I recorded, i.e., are these affected by the broadcast flag stuff? Will it provide component video outputs and an optical audio output such I can watch those programs on the HDTV I bought three years ago?

    If the answer is yes, I'll certainly buy one.
    • I would be shocked if it didn't have all those goodies. Maybe with the exception of the broadcast flag stuff. I can't think that it would be very difficult to create a filter that sits inline that switches the "record" bit in question. As for the component video ouput and the optical audio output, it would make no sense to not have either of these. They already have the optical audio out and HD needs either component out or dvi out (I think this is true but no sure). I am going to buy one shortly after
    • i.e., are these affected by the broadcast flag stuff?

      Since it has ATSC tuners it should be affected by the broadcast flag. I don't know what the effect would be. The flag is only supposed to be used for PPV and special events anyway. Any broadcaster found absuing the flag is going to get raked over the coals by the public. That said, you're not going to find anything that doesn't obey the broadcast flag -- it's not like you can import a tuner made for some area that doesn't use the flag. The North America
  • for the love of baby jebus, could someone please make a pda/phone/mp3 player/digital camera with a compactflash slot?

    i dig all these devices. i don't dig carrying them -all- around. i also enjoy the no-DRM and healthy competitive market in CF memory cards, as opposed to SD/MemoryStick.

    I realize it'd be fairly bulky - larger than any one of those devices, but judging from the size of the individual items all rolled together, i'd expect it could be about the size of the Dell Axim, and maybe 1.5 times as thi
  • Now for those of us with digital cable, a regular HD Tivo would be excellent. Also, it is time for Tivo to allow for large hard-drives (especially with HD), either as a BTO option or as aftermarket without trashing the warranty. Heck, I'd even be willing t send it back to phillips to have it done, if that's what they demand, if it was reasonably priced and big enough.

  • DirecTivo's future (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Scryber ( 244784 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @10:59AM (#7802851)
    Like everyone else that has a DirecTivo, I am really looking forward to an HD DirecTivo.

    But, the recent approval of the sale of DirecTV to Rupert Murdoch and News Corp could portend some bad news for Tivo. Murdoch already owns a company that produces DVR units, and the industry speculation is that he will dump Tivo and replace it with his own DVR.

    This is the last thing I want to see, as I love the features of my Tivo and hate the idea of Tivo (the company) being squished by Murdoch's mega conglomerate. Stay tuned...

    • What company is that? Just wondering.

      As for the rest of your comment, everything I've seen has speculated the OTHER WAY, saying that TiVo will get MORE attention now, as in some ways it's been "abandonded" by DirecTV (according to some. Example: we STILL don't have version 4, and all software updates and such are up to DirecTV, not TiVo). I have heard GOOD THINGS about what's going to happen. And why would he ditch TiVo? DirecTV has been having a hard time keeping them in stock and keeping up with demand.

  • Hi,

    I had the opportunity to be at a demo of the new HDTivo given at TIVO HQ about a month ago. I wrote the following review note to an interested friend who couldn't make it to the demo.

    You may find it interesting:

    ->

    Derek,

    A few observations which I hope Dan will correct if they are incorrectly stated.

    - First, one of the features I think I've heard you saying you have been wanting for a long time. Folders for your "Now Playing List".

    From my understanding, the standalone TIVO units currently have th
  • Ah...did you know that the "ostia" in Spain and catholic circles means the thing that the bishop/father gives you on your mouth during mass? (sorry about the rather poor definition of ostia, but it's funny to see products that are named without considering global meanings)
  • Within is a shot of the new Hughes HD DirecTiVo with some new LED's on the front including "Temp" for those sure to be occurring overheats.

    Are we looking at the same image? I see no "temp" LED's. Maybe you're confusing those with the format LED's? (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i)

    I've done plenty of cruel things to my TiVo, like stick two 7200rpm drives in it and stuff it in a stereo cabinet above my amp and haven't seen any dangerously high temps (I've since backed down to a single 5400rpm drive and moved it a

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