Nokia Enters PVR Market 207
Daaelar writes "Nokia has just recently announced their entrance into the PVR market with the realease of their Mediamaster 260 S. It apparently has PVR capabilities as well as the ability to receive small images via Bluetooth for viewing on a larger screen, i.e. your television. It also includes some built-in games, as well as a feature to record from a digital camera or camcorder."
Link to non-flash and much more informative page- (Score:5, Informative)
404 (Score:1, Informative)
I hope this is better than their firewall offering (Score:4, Informative)
Not one of them worked.
We ended up having their top tech staff in the country give us a visit, with everyone wondering why a six figure purchase should be quite so DOA. At first, there was a lot of head scratching, but it turned out that the machines had a variety of hardware and some software problems.
Allegedly these systems are well tested prior to shipping. At that price, you'd hope so! I hope they test these PVRs well, otherwise they're in for a world of support pain.
It only needs one (Score:2, Informative)
You can watch other channels while recording using the tuner in your TV. That's how people used to tape shows on their VCR while watching another on the TV.
Multiple tuners only comes into play if you want to record multiple shows simultaneously. Which would be kinda sketchy anyhow due to limits on how fast the hardware they're listing could do video compression on more than one stream.
Re:I'll bite... (Score:3, Informative)
1. It records the original data stream off the satellite, so playback is as good as the original. There's no high, medium, low quality settings on this one. There's about 35 hours on this model, which I find is way more than enough.
2. With DirecTV, the monthly Tivo charge is reduced to $6. Personally, I make good living, so this really doesn't bother me. If it pays for new features now and then, fine. And the guide data is pretty good.
3. Tivo simply has the best software. I love 'puters, but I can't imagine wasting the time to set up some kludge using Windows or Linux or whatever. Nothing beats an integrated box for $199. Nice conflict resolution and the To Do list is more useful than you might initially think. Nice search functions, too.
Re:The corporate PVR killer, a MythTV distro (Score:3, Informative)
DTV set-top boxes (Score:5, Informative)
I can't imagine it's much of a stretch, therefore, to move into the PVR market.
Re:Do one thing, do it well (Score:2, Informative)
Nokia has been bulding TVs and (first analog and then) digital satellite receivers for a LONG time. I think this even started before their phone business.
The Linux DVB API was developed by them about 3 years ago and they funded implementations of it for the most popular cards here in Europe.
The API (after some changes) basically is still in use and part of the 2.6.x kernel.
This is also not the first digital PVR box developed by Nokia. Not all of them made it to the market but at least one is available here for months now.
Intended for European Users (Score:4, Informative)
The information on TV reception mentions Analog and Digital reception. For Digital, they talk about DVB digital Satellite TV, which is used in Europe. In the US, we use a terrestrial broadcast mechanism (ATSC).
Zenith/LG has an . But it doesn't do satellite.. [zenith.com]
Tivo has been rumored to have an HD/ATSC DirecTivo for forever. Who knows if it will ever come out.
Re:It only needs one (Score:2, Informative)
Also note that there is only one input from the dish. Dual-tuner DirectTV-Tivo's have two inputs, one per tuner. While I have never really understood why this is required, it does make me tend to believe that this box is only single tuner.
Finally, the hardware specs are not all that relevent, but not for the reasons stated. Satellite broadcasts are already MPEG encoded, so there is no need for the box to do compression. They only need to do the much less computationally intensive decompression.
Re:Do one thing, do it well (Score:2, Informative)
European TV rules. (Score:4, Informative)
But not here in North America. Nope, everything here has to be proprietary. We have to "let the market decide" (translation: "let the corps screw us over"). The result less competition and little innovation. I am guessing Europe is at least three years ahead on TV tech and they are pulling away because they picked ONE standard and ran with it.
Re:Do one thing, do it well (Score:3, Informative)
The roots of Nokia go back to the year 1865 with the establishment of a forest industry enterprise in South-Western Finland by mining engineer Fredrik Idestam. Elsewhere, the year 1898 witnessed the foundation of Finnish Rubber Works Ltd, and in 1912 Finnish Cable Works began operations. Gradually, the ownership of these two companies and Nokia began to shift into hands of just a few owners. Finally in 1967 the three companies were merged to form Nokia Corporation.
At the beginning of the 1980s, Nokia strengthened its position in the telecommunications and consumer electronics markets through the acquisitions of Mobira, Salora, Televa and Luxor of Sweden. In 1987, Nokia acquired the consumer electronics operations and part of the component business of the German Standard Elektrik Lorenz, as well as the French consumer electronics company Oceanic. In 1987, Nokia also purchased the Swiss cable machinery company Maillefer.
In the late 1980s, Nokia became the largest Scandinavian information technology company through the acquisition of Ericsson's data systems division. In 1989, Nokia conducted a significant expansion of its cable industry into Continental Europe by acquiring the Dutch cable company NKF.
Since the beginning of the 1990's, Nokia has concentrated on its core business, telecommunications, by divesting its information technology and basic industry operations.
(More at http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,8764,1125,00.html)
DVB *isn't* Satellite... (Score:3, Informative)
You can find out about the UK's digital transmitters here [itc.org.uk].
Of course, DVB is just an output format.. DTT (digital terrestrial tv) is a way of delivering DVB).
Re:It only needs one (Score:3, Informative)
Re:DTV set-top boxes (Score:1, Informative)
Re:European TV rules. (Score:3, Informative)
There is a single DVB standard, the encryption is standard, but the entitlement management isn't.
There is a single standard interface to content access modules (it is very much like PCMCIA) and you will have to install a module in your receiver that in turn accepts a smartcard from your provider.
There are several systems in use (Mediaguard, Viaccess, Conax, Cryptoworks, Nagravision, Betacrypt to name a few).
Receivers exist that support all systems without additional module, but of course they are always under close scrutiny and often removed from the market after they turn out to be "to open".
Why? Europe is not a single market for the entertainment industry. They are about the only industry that escaped the big "there has to be equal competition everywhere" dogma of the EU.
So, when a German entertainment firm launches a service for German customers, Dutch customers are not allowed to view that, not even to subscribe to it!
The only way to view other countries' services is through hacking. Which largely explains the large amount of activity you see in this field.
The entertainment industry of course does not get the message. Like with MP3 distribution over the Internet. They try to get out the message that they are treated unjustly, camouflaging the fact that they themselves are unjustly handling their customers.
Re:Convergance again? (Score:4, Informative)
Er, mate, Nokia have been making superb digital TV set-top-boxes for the European market for donkey's years. Mobile phones are the new market for them, they've been making STBs for longer than that.
Ask anyone about the UK's digital terrestrial system [freeview.co.uk] (multi-channel digital TV through an aerial- no subscription, no cable, no dish required) and everyone will tell you that Nokia is one of the top three brands- faster channel switching, faster menus, faster multimedia content, and it doesn't crash.
Re:It only needs one (Score:2, Informative)
(That's skipping a whole mess of detail, but...)
Re:What's a PVR? (Score:3, Informative)
That is a VERY GOOD suggestion, thanks.
And I would like to add, from your reference, that if using the acronym tag, even IE (granted, 5+) will display it, although withouth the nice dashed underline Mozilla puts out.
Example: (hold mouse over to try)
PVR
Code for the example:
<acronym title="Personal Video Recorder">PVR</acronym>
Now for the problem: I just found out the hard way that Slashdot strips-out the acronym tag, d'oh! Editors, take note, this is something usefull!!!
Re:DVB *isn't* Satellite... (Score:2, Informative)