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Television Media Technology

New Sony PVR/DVR and DVD Recorder 268

Posted by Hemos from the busting-on-through dept.
i4u writes "Sony announces in Japan a new digital recorder NDR-XR1 equipped with the 80GB hard drive and a DVD recorder. The unit features a broadband connection to retrieve a programming guide. The system can record up to 90 hours of programming on the 80GB Hard drive. Recorded shows can be directly burned on DVDs with the built-in DVD writer. This is the dream machine! Wonder if it will be available on the US market, This baby is poised to 'piss-off' Hollywood. This would be a nice alternative to the ReplayTV box. The Digital Recorder NDR-XR1 will go on sale April 12th in Japan."
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New Sony PVR/DVR and DVD Recorder More

New Sony PVR/DVR and DVD Recorder

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  • Split Personality (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lothar+0 ( 444996 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @12:31PM (#5653177) Homepage
    This baby is poised to 'piss-off' Hollywood.

    Or the Sony studio execs down the hall.

    • Re:Split Personality (Score:5, Funny)

      by Pii ( 1955 ) <<gro.rebasthgil> <ta> <idej>> on Thursday April 03, 2003 @12:37PM (#5653240) Journal
      This was exactly what I was thinking...

      It's amusing to watch a fight where in one corner, you have Megaconglomerate Sony, and in the other corner, you have Megaconglomerate Sony.

      I think it's fair to say that only a company with the mighty resources of Sony could muster a fight against Sony.

      But, to paraphrase Costanza, "A Sony divided against iteself cannot stand..."

      • They're not as dumb as you think. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It's okay, but not as good as you think it is.

        Trust me, attempting to interface it to a computer will prove to be excruciating. And just like Sony MiniDisks are proprietary, there is no guarantee that the "DVDs" will actually play anywhere else.

    • Remember Minidisc players (Score:5, Informative)

      by Confused ( 34234 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @12:45PM (#5653301) Homepage
      Or rather, the product will be crippled to hell by DRM systems to be nearly impossible to use properly.

      This has been done before with the NetMD minidisc players, which don't allow to extract the pieces recorded with the microphone.

      I wouldn't be surprices, if those burned DVD can only be played back on the same unit, that DVD commercial DVD can't be copied or some other copyright protection idiocy.
    • This baby is poised to 'piss-off' Hollywood.

      ReplayTV pissed people off because it had features that let you skip commercials, and it had an ethernet port which meant that you could stream video from your ReplayTV to your PC, or just download it directly, which in the MPAA's eyes, means that it'll be that much easier for everyone to become the pirate that they naturally are.

    • Yeah, good point. There have been quite a few articles about this. Here [wired.com] is one from Wired (which wasn't the actual one I was thinking of). (Wired.com seems to be down so here [google.ca]is a google cache.)
    • that supports DRM?

      that shat upon Aibo owners and hackers when they tried to exchange info on how to do new/cool stuff with their hardware?

      Hmmph... I can already hear their CEO addressing the division heads:

      "What we've got here is... a failure to communicate!"

      • Sony has since changed their stance [wcsr.com] on the aibo hacking [aibohack.com]. Besides, it is a misunderstanding of Sony's corporate culture to speak of them as one entity. Sony is a very large company which is run as seperate business units acting as self-contained businesses with unique goals. This results sometimes in situations like others have pointed out in this and other articles where one part of Sony is doing something which seems to violate the spirit of what another part of Sony is doing. The Playstation project w

  • Too bad the Sony links are in Japanese!
    • Oops! Been a while since I used it... here's a translation of the release:

      The SONY marketing corporation, hard disk drive (the or less HDD) with the digital recorder ' NDR-XR1 which loads the DVD recorder ' and, 5.1chcDvd foam/home theater system ' NAV-E900 ' of HDD built-in type ' NAV-E600 ' sells the total 3 type as a brand of the foam/home AV gateway equipment which corresponds to broadband network environment.

      Both machines are defeated, by various functions due to the regular connection to broadban

  • OK...I can't read a thing on that web site. They seem to have a different word for everything :) Can anyone translate it to English or American for me?

    • not even altavista can help you, if you run the url through you get amoung other things

      The knitting machine is the digital recorder which loads the connected function to broadband network the HDD and the DVD of the 80GB - the RW

      For what it is worth I can read most of this, but not to a level that I could post here, but it does seem like a cool piece of Equipment.

      As to things like copyright, the Japanese are quite lax about it, or were when i was working there. It is the only place in the world
      • FYI here in the UK you can borrow CDs, DVDs and videos from the local library. Ours charges about 2.5ukp per week for a dvd, a bit less for a video and about 0.8 ukp for a cd for three weeks.
        Not for copyright theft but it's a lot better than video rental shops so I treat the CD/DVD section as a try before you buy deal. It's a cheap and easy way to try new music .

  • Similar to other products (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ruiner13 ( 527499 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @12:32PM (#5653186) Homepage
    I saw pioneer (i think) had a similar unit. It had a 40GB hard drive though. I'm not sure what this unit does, but the one that I saw, once you burn a recording onto DVD, it deletes it off the HD. I find that kind of annoying, but I guess they had to do that to compromise with the movie companies (only allow one copy at a time, and don't allow mass burns of the same program). I hope this one does not have tha behavior.

  • Hmmm (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jkabbe ( 631234 )
    But isn't Sony part of Hollywood?

  • Piss Off Hollywood? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @12:32PM (#5653194) Homepage Journal
    I don't know. Think about this. PVR's piss off hollywood because you FF through commercials. But, even though you WILL FF through commercials on this also, the commercials will be permantntly burned into a DVD. What sales company doesn't like the idea of permanent commercials on a DVD?
    • the commercials will be permantntly burned into a DVD
      Until you transfer that file to your computer and slice it off with common video editing software, that is. ;)
      • Until you transfer that file to your computer and slice it off with common video editing software, that is. ;)

        Except the whole point of this machine is *ease of use*. Record TV shows and save them to DVD. What could be easier. Now if the machine allowed to cut out commericials on the machine itself, that would be cool
    • Actually, this isn't the case. Right now, with my Tivo, I can archive stuff to a DVD recorder as I watch it on my Tivo, which means as I watch, I FF through the commercials, and thats how my video gets saved. So, in essence, its very easy to have archival copies of all your favorite shows without the garbage. You can do it now for less than that Sony machine costs. All you need is a Tivo, $199, and a refurbished DVD-recorder, about $500, and you have your "magic box" right now.

      • Re:Piss Off Hollywood? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by radish ( 98371 )
        Or yank the recorded programmes from the Tivo to a PC with TurboNet, cut out the ads properly using a video editor, and then burn with your PCs DVD burner (or as I do, burn SVCD onto a CDR). Sweet :)
        • Why record twice, im sure dvd's players with 30 second skip will be out. :) Gotta come up with some new features to make you buy new DVD players.

          And with dvd blanks being expensive, why reburn to lower quality.. Of course, if your gonna share, edited SVCD or Divx will work nicely.
          • I only record once, on the Tivo. If there's something I want to keep, I burn it to SVCD, seeing as I don't have a DVD burner. The quality is not as good as the original of course, but IMHO it's still a lot better than VHS, and it's a whole lot cheaper than any of these integrated systems. I could also use DivX but my DVD player doesn't play that so I'd have to watch it on the PC.

          • Why record twice, im sure dvd's players with 30 second skip will be out. :) Gotta come up with some new features to make you buy new DVD players.

            You are probably right, but honestly the whole deal of fast forwarding or skipping forward 30 seconds is just a band-aid. If you don't want to watch the commercials, you edit them out cleanly, and then you get no commercials at all. This is also a good reason to buy your favorite shows on DVD. I have seen a number of shows where the currently running show is

        • I'm currently in the market for a DVR, and was looking into this exact function. Haven't been able to find any info about yanking programs off the tivo, though. In fact the tivocommunity.com message boards appear to have explicit prohibition against even discussing the topic on that site. A (brief) google search hasn't turned up much yet. Any advice on where to look for HOWTOs?

          Also, you mention the TurboNet card. Is the same possible using a USB network card on a series 2 tivo?
          • Try http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/ for info. There's not much in the way of real HOWTOs due to the illicit nature of the process, but it's pretty straightforward using TyTools.

            Being in the UK (we only have series 1 units) I don't know much about the series 2, but from what I hear they're much harder to hack in general. But if you can run tivoweb on it, then you can probably run tytools.

      • Would you supply more details about how you are doing this? I'm interested in the same thing.
    • What sales company doesn't like the idea of permanent commercials on a DVD?

      The same kind who shut down websites for containing video clips of commercials.

      It was one of the dumbest things I have ever heard, when a few years ago a website (can't remember the name) was SHUT DOWN for containing copyrighted material. It was a website of funny/interesting/nostalgic commercials. How stupid could advertisers be, to shut down a website that did their job for them. It's all about control. Insanity.

      • I believe the site you refer to was Adcritic, and it is sadly missed.

        I do understand why advertisers didn't rescue it, effective advertising doesn't need to entertain you, it needs to pound something into your skull over and over again (I bet you are not entertained by the never ending Subway Jared ads but I bet you know his story and now equate Subway with healthier food). A lot of the ads on Adcritic were entertaining and you can remember the ads but can you remember what the product being advertised was

      • Remember also that actors have signed an agreement on the conditions around using their image. If the ad companies didn't shut down the site, they could be in trouble from the actors and their agents.
      • AdCritic didn't shutdown due to industry pressure, copyright violation, or anything else like that. It shutdown due to popularity - the bandwidth bill was too damn big and they were losing too much money.

        It has since re-opened, but it's now a pay-your-own-way site.

        Just search Google for Adcritic and shutdown if you want more info.
    • What sales company doesn't like the idea of permanent commercials on a DVD?

      Lots of companies won't like this - many commercials are time sensitive and meant to be a part of a larger ad campain. Some companies (Coca-Cola, Nike, etc) might be interested in building long-term brand awareness, but for most this is a losing proposition, especially if people FF over the commercials on the DVD.

    • What sales company doesn't like the idea of permanent commercials on a DVD?

      Most or all of them. A commercial from 6 months ago is quite probably not relevant anymore. Different campaign, colors, price, maybe even product name.

      And if a product goes horribly wrong (e.g. Firestone tires), then they DEFINATELY do not want that ad out there being seen again and again. They'd rather we forget all about that little faux pas.
  • When it can receive and record HDTV, then it will be my dream machine.

  • Sony is a Tivo licensee (Score:5, Interesting)

    by shadowj ( 534439 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @12:34PM (#5653217)
    So is this thing based on Tivo technology, or is it something else entirely? And if it's something else, what does that say about Sony's relationship with Tivo and Tivo's future?

    I own two Tivo boxes, and wouldn't give them up for anything. Unless I see something better, of course...

    • Well, the latest Sony US released PVRs are Tivo series 2s, and the last Japanese released PVR that was mentioned on /. a while back was Tivo, so this is probalby a Tivo as well.

  • Nifty... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by japhar81 ( 640163 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @12:36PM (#5653235)
    Its nothing that can't be done with a high-end PC now (including HDTV, yum), but at the right price, thats $600 for those of you who need a number, it ought to sell very well. Why $600? Take a cheapo mini-ATX barebones box ($400 at a trade show) add a DVD/RW or whatever your flavor is ($200-$250 at a trade show) and you have the same thing. At least for us geeks, thats the case. But more and more 'common folk' seem to be realizing the same cost of parts vs. cost of the unit deal.
    • Barebones typically doesn't include a video card that supports TV-out. You're also missing MPEG2 encoding hardware and/or video-capturing hardware as well as any hardware to support HDTV. You also didn't include costs of peripherals such as remote control devices, etc.

    • Re:Nifty... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @01:24PM (#5653636) Homepage
      Ok let's step into relaity.

      freevo is the lowest processor/ram hungry of all the free-pvr projects.

      cheapest Computer that can do it as good as a Tivo is a Athalon 1800+ with 256 meg of ram. The mobo,processor,fan,case,powersupply in super cheap form (I.E. really crappy and ugly case) is around $400.00 now you need a video card that can handle tv out correctly... $50.00-$100.00 WinTV-D card to do the HDTV you mention $200.00 Pioneer A05 (anything else is utter crap for DVD burning) $250.00 Hard drive $150.00 - $300.00 depending on size/speed/quality.

      now how about an IR remote? $30.00 for a ir reciever or build it yourself for $15.00 in parts and a good knowlege of electronics.

      $1000.00 is the actual REAL price for a working freevo box done in economy mode. More if you buy a real AV case that looks like a stereo component.. MythTV requires a XP2600+ to do the same job because it requires X and really is no competition for freevo right now.

      so you are off by a large amount because you left out most of the hardware needed. and you STILL need to hack together lots of pre-alpha software to get it to work.

      • Re:Nifty... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by kjeldahl ( 65177 )
        Exactly what would you recommend to get decent video capture and real-time encoding, if possible? I built my linux based PVR and even upgraded to a brand new motherboard and processor (1.5 GHz AMD) to see if that would improve video capture. I still only got 15-20 frames per second (because it was captured uncompressed I guess), and capturing sound worked poorly or not at all. Encoding "off-line" (after capture) is fine, but as long as capture was both poor quality and with serious frame dropping, building

  • Im suspicious (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Loosewire ( 628916 )
    All sony owned record labels are pushing for copy protection , why would sony want to make a machine which helped piracy (ok not music piracy but they all want to push for DRM , watermarking, etc etc)
    *shifty eyes*

  • Compression... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DarkBlackFox ( 643814 )
    Run the page through babelfish.altavista.com. Not a perfect translation but enough to get the jist. Looks like it's only capable of 90 hours on it's lowest quality setting. The highest results in 15 hours. Gee.. wonder what type of compression it's using... could it be MPEG-2? Must be if it's designed to burn DVD. How much more could it fit if divx were used? It is kind of nice though, with an 80 gig hard drive, it must keep the price relatively low... Aside from the dvd burner, all other features a

    • Re:Compression... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by teeker ( 623861 )
      The variable bit rate encoding is rather nice, but again, what can this do that my computer (with a dvd burner and all in wonder 9700) can't?

      1. Sit nicely (and quietly) in your tv stand/entertainment center.
      2. Be used by somebody other than a CS graduate
      3. Work properly out of the box
      4. Remote control without buying extra hardware and programming
      5. Be used without having a monitor/keyboard/mouse attached.

      Consumers will simply not put up with those inconveniences for something like this. Somet
    • Just as a FYI - Tivo uses VBR & MPEG-2 as well, and gets ~12hours on a 40gb disk in best quality. This thing must be doing it at pretty damn high quality...

  • Sony Tivo (Score:4, Informative)

    by thehun101 ( 218731 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @12:41PM (#5653278)
    Sony already makes a DVR [sonystyle.com] built with Tivo [tivo.com] technology. I imagine they will still use Tivo technology for a US release of the new product.

    Adding a DVD burner is definitely a cool addition.

  • Why wait, when Panasonic are already there? (Score:5, Informative)

    by iainl ( 136759 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @12:42PM (#5653280)
    "DMR-HS2
    Progressive-Scan DVD Video Recorder with 40GB Hard Disk & Time Slip Playback records to DVD-RAM and DVD-R discs
    MSRP $999.95 "

    Straight from the relevant page of the Panasonic site (which I'm having problems giving a direct link to, sorry).

    The drive is only 40Gb in this case, but thats easily enough if you're backing up to DVD regularly.

  • Yes, this may actually be "it". (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mbourgon ( 186257 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @12:46PM (#5653308) Homepage
    This is a noticeable improvement on the 2nd generation of DVD-recorders, along with the Toshiba RD-X3 [rd-style.com]. First generation was a DVD-Recorder. Pure and simple. They're still coming out, should be under $500 this summer. The second generation, which is still coming out, includes a Hard Drive, which IMHO is necessary. While the DVD-RAM can let you edit and the like, it's far from a DVD-R.

    I'm using the Panasonic DMR-HS2, which has a 40 gig drive. Very nice, but programming it's a pain - either manually program it or use VCRPlus+ codes. A TiVo-like program guide would be the cat's meow. The catch is that for $1000+, should it come with a "lifetime subscription" ala ReplayTV, or are you going to have to pay each month? This is not a trivial issue - the boards dedicated to these DVD-Recorders mention it frequently.

    Three other things:
    1) Cable Blaster - if you have a cable box, you have to program your box to change channels, and the DVD-Recorder to record. A Cable Blaster/Cable Mouse (i.e. something to change channels) really is a necessity.
    2) CPRM is supported on these things. The television transmission can have a "No Copy" bit set, and these DVD-Recorders will obey. So, for now, MythTV may still be superior.
    3) How long before DVD-R drives become cheap enough for them to be included in some kind of Tivo? A big reason for owning these is to make it _easy_ to burn to DVD. Yes, you can use stuff like DVArchive to download to your computer. Then you transcode. Then burn to DVD. This is all one step, and the reason I have one - it's simple. Granted, I'd rather make SVCDs of some of them, rather than a DVD, but I'll cope.

  • Worthless.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by freeze128 ( 544774 )
    It's worthless to me until it supports my Time Warner Digital cable system. That seems to be the problem with Tivo and ReplayTV. What good is a PVR that records all your favorite shows no matter what channel/time they are on, when all you see is channel 3 coming from your tuner?
    • That seems to be the problem with Tivo and ReplayTV.

      And you came to this conclusion how? You certainly didn't own either device, or you would've realized that if your Time Warner set-top box is one of the few that isn't supported via direct serial connection to the Tivo/ReplayTV, an IR blaster is included with each device and will support any STB that has an IR remote.

    • I have a Series 2 TiVo (60 hours), and Time Warner Digital Cable. They get along fine. The TiVo has an IR sender that it uses to change the channels on the cable box.

      I put in a splitter, so the cable feed goes into the TV as well, so I can watch one (analog) channel, while TiVo records programming from the cable box (analog, digital, premium, it doesn't matter).

      Eventually, there will be standards for Digital Cable (didn't they just get approved?), so that future consumer electronics boxes can "tune" the

  • Cost, media, Tivo (Score:4, Insightful)

    by swb ( 14022 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @12:53PM (#5653375)
    I can't read Japanese, but their appears to be an MSRP of 145,000 yen on the Sony page. That's ~$1200 at current exchange rates, and far more expensive the similar Panasonic unit which has an MSRP of $999, and generally goes for about $700 on EBay. Shouldn't these kinds of devices be going *down* in price, not up? I realize the Sony unit has some networking features for guide data and so forth, but I can't see those adding $300 worth of value, unless its a total Tivo replacement.

    It's also not clear what writable format they're using -- + or - or all of them. I'm mildly biased in favor of the - format because it seems to be the most compatible where I've tried it.

    As far as a Tivo replacement, I'm not sure I see that. Tivo is pretty far down the pike in terms of scheduling, selection, conflict avoidance and user interface. I don't think this Sony unit is meant to be that, but instead as a VCR on steriods.

    I'm personally waiting for the DVD writer decks to drop in the $300-400 range. I have a Tivo, so I don't need an extra source of guide data. The internal HDD is nice for basic editing (from what I understand of the Panasonic DMR-HS2 unit that has one), but its a big added cost as well. I could live with just the writer. I'd hope they'd drop to sub-$500 this year, perhaps closer to Christmas, but maybe the economy/war/malaise will make us wait even longer.

    • The Japanese market may be able to support a higher intro price than the US market. They're more tech rabid than Americans (a frightening thought, that).
    • Actually Panasonic has a new model just anounced
      (e50 something) with a MSRP of $449, (maybe less on fleabay).
      The current model still has a MSRP of $699, but many retailers are discounting it to $499 right now.
  • I love TiVo and I love Sony for their industrial design sensibilites. Everything in my entertainment center has a Sony logo on it. Including the TiVo. I wonder how this news bodes for the Sony TiVo... [sonystyle.com]
  • Is this going to be their open source box [sony.net]?
  • why does it look so ugly? I mean it has styling that reminds me of 1979's VCRs *yeuck*
  • I can't get to the articles but... does it say how many minutes/hours you can record on one standard DVD? For instance iDVD will only allow for 90 minutes to be recorded onto a DVD but I'm pretty sure that's because of the compression it uses... just curious.
    • Using "Standard" quiality recordings from my ReplayTV and recorded to DVD with ULeads's DVD Creator (it works, and that's better than most programs I tried) I get about two-hours and twenty minutes to a 4.77GB DVD-R.

  • Apex. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by blackmonday ( 607916 )
    I can't wait to see the Apex version of these units a few years down the line. DVD-R's will be 10 cents each, the unit will cost 90 bucks, and the DRM will go away if I hold the "6" key on the remote while I start up the machine.

  • Expensive! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Dr. Mojura ( 584120 )
    The listed price is 145,000JPY, which equals [xe.com] $1,213..
    Nice if you can afford it I suppose. I wonder if there will be restrictions on exporting it to the US.

  • Burn broadcast to DVD? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kevin Burtch ( 13372 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @01:10PM (#5653502)
    That's kind of silly since DVDs are drastically higher resolution, better sound (with more channels), etc.

    VCD/SVCD would make much more sense... since VCD is VHS quality and SVCD is (supposedly) about the same quality as NTSC is capable of carrying... AND you can play them back in (almost) any DVD player.
    Not to mention the fact that it would be MUCH cheaper.

    I'd love to have a VCD/SVCD recorder.
    • try this. The Terrapin [calibex.com] recorder. about 250 bucks. I think it has been discontinued, but it was a hell of a cool idea.
    • No, DVDs have dramatically more space than VCDs. Why not just encode at the VCD quality and fit a lot more on the DVD?

      • While the cost/MB is about the same, I see a distinct advantage in the smaller size.

        It's easier to give a recording to my sister when it's the only recording on the disk... rather than giving her 5+ hours of recordings (by the storage ratio listed in the article).

        That, and CD burners are drastically cheaper than DVD burners.
    • VCD is less than VHS quality. And broadcast NTSC is higher than SVCD. I've played with both, and DVD. DVD has the ability to reciord at higher quality than broadcast NTSC this can be mitigated by lowering the bitrate at which the video is recording.

      It is also very untrue that "(almost) any DVD player" can play VCD/SVCD format discs. No one I know owns a DVD player that can play VCDs, yet everyone I know has a DVD player (or a PS2/XBox) that can play DVDs just fine.

      I've gone down both roads and DVD is
      • No one I know owns a DVD player that can play VCDs

        Most Apex's do, even the $60 bottom of the Walmart line. And I have a low end Panasonic surround sound 5 disc setup that does as well. Most VCD's anyway. I've had a few that won't play.
  • A quick note to clear up any confusion about the amount of video you can compress onto that 80GB hard drive with this unit...

    It's about 4 LOC (Library of Congress) although if you need to be more exact, you could say that it's 4 LOC, and then round to the nearest Volkswagon

    *DUCKS*
  • I doubt that a product like this will work out in the States with all our anti-copyright legislation. I do believe, however, that a small hacker community will pop up, with modded japanese models, pirate US guide sites, and the like. It's gonna have to slip under the radar, and if it does, I hope I'm part of it. This thing sounds great. However, tivo is only as good as it is because the software is so good, one false move and this product will suck.
  • Until I can talk to it from any device on my wireless network, it is no Dream Machine. If it had 802.11b support and an NFS server, then I might label it the Dream Machine. Until then... I'll build my own. [slashdot.org]
  • Though, I am not sure about the laws in Japan regarding DRM, this is not going to accepted with open arms here. Just wait till those people on Capitol Hill get news about this.
  • Ok... I can't read Japanese... or is it Kanji that you read and Japanese that you speak? Whatever it is, I can't interpret what any of this means except for looking at the pictures.

    And from looking at those pictures, it looks to me like this thing doesn't use TiVo software. Not that I think TiVo software is currently, and will forever be inherently better than any software. It's just that it has such excellent search features. The PVR component of this device simply won't be that good without effective
  • i just posted this on another thread but its relevant to this too:

    Built from parts:

    G4 450
    Desktop-style G3 case painted black w/ silver trim
    768 MB RAM
    120 + 80 GB drives (coming soon - currently only 80 and 12)
    32 MB Radeon Dual-Head Graphics (drives a 27" TV and a 14" VGA 800x600 mirrored or separate display at the 'control center' of the couch)
    DVD-RW
    External CD-RW
    Mac OS X (incl. all the goodness of a full install of X)
    EyeTV
    VLC (for VideoCDs, DivX, etc)
    Remote Control via Keyspan
    Wacom Tablet

    Best freakin' PV

  • I'm not surprised - American TV is rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @02:46PM (#5654380)
    Okay, I'll admit the title is rather trollish, but I have a point.

    I went on holiday for 10 days - in the, granted, limited time I saw telly I couldn't get over the fact that (compared to the UK) advertising is literally rammed down your throat.

    Almost everything is sponsored by someone, you have advert breaks with unnerving frequency (often just cutting out in the middle of the tension without any thought to picking a bit where it would make sense) and you even have adverts just after the starting credits and just before the ending credits (I mean, whats the point of sticking some adverts up - only to come back to the credits, and then more adverts??).

    Finally, I was watching some ice hockey and even the player stats screen was littered with 3 adverts! Amazing.

    So, in short, I'm not really surprised that Tivo took off over there and badly here. Yes, we have adverts - but they're appproximately once every 15 minutes, cut out at appropriate sections of the programme or film and aren't put so close to the beginning or end of items that it annoys the viewers.

    BUT, and it's a big but - Sony are very pro-DRM. Their Net-MD line would be great if it wasn't so crippled and last month I went to buy a CD/MP3 player only to find that whilst their top of the range product was very very cool, you couldn't fast forward or rewind through MP3's. I fail to believe that this is due to technical problems - more the fact that they want it to be so slightly inconveniant that you give up using MP3's.

  • I'm looking to get a PVR, but I need one with an ethernet port, as I don't pay for a phone line in my apartment. SonicBlue's ReplayTV seemed to be the right choice, except with Sonic Blue's financial troubles I don't think buying a replaytv is a good idea at the moment. Are there any other options? Tivo seems to be phone line only. This unit seems great, except I dont need or want to pay for DVD burning features.

    Any suggestions would be helpful.

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