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Consuming RSS on your Tivo

Andrew Grumet's got a screenshot of his TiVo displaying RSS feeds on his TV, using a hack for TiVo Control Station. Without the capability to grab the item description and read it, I don't know how useful it is, but it's an interesting hack and probably a direction that a someday super TiVo digital home media hub might go.

In TiVo Hacks, a similar hack lets you check an email account and display subject lines and from addresses. That would seem more useful than RSS (especially if you got new mail saying "From:Boss Subject:Get back to work!"), but both pieces of software wouldn't do much besides remind you when to turn off the TiVo and get back to work on your PC.

January 31, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

USA Today publishing TiVo data

This is interesting and something worth watching: USA Today announced they will publish TiVo data in their Life section showing monthly data for Most Watched and Most Recorded. I bet they'll also add most paused moments (like last year's super bowl and oscars) as well.

They'll treat the whole thing like the Nielsen ratings when they show the top ten shows from 20,000 selected households using a TiVo, so privacy problems should be minimal. USA Today will carry the data right alongside the Nielsen ratings and top box office totals, but it's nice to see this data being considered as legitimate as the more established methods of viewership measurement. [thanks Rino!]

The first chunk of data on the USA Today site is last week's top 10 recorded shows, shown right alongside Nielsen's new enhanced demographics data:
24.0% American Idol (Mon)
23.7 American Idol (Tue)
21.1 American Idol (Wed)
19.5 The Apprentice
16.4 Obnoxious Wedding
15.4 Will & Grace
12.1 Scrubs
12.0 Friends
11.9 Alias
11.1 The OC

January 29, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Netflix profile

There's a great story about Netflix over at The Register that describes their successful entry into the video rental market (only 2% nationwide), but notes they're doing better in San Francisco:

while its original market in the San Francisco Bay area is now running at 5.9 per cent. It reasons that it can reach this penetration, perhaps more, across the US and it is this calculation that initially led it to say at this week’s unveiling of its fourth quarter figures, that it will make the $1 billion mark early.

Pretty impressive that 1 in 17 rentals in SF is coming through the mail. This article goes into great detail about how they're moving towards delivering movies over broadband with the mention that they're currently mailing out "5 million Gb of data" each day via DVD mailers.

Since their current model relies on the scarcity of actual product, it'll be interesting to see how they move the business online to copies of movies that don't have to be returned. It'll also be interesting to see how they work out deals with studios to deliver movies. Right now they simply buy millions of DVDs. I assume Hollywood will be wanting a percentage of any and all online video sales when they move away from physical DVDs

January 28, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Weaknees kit review

The San Jose Merc does a review of the Tivo upgrade kit from Weaknees.

If you can follow step-by-step directions, written in simple English -- with pictures, no less -- you can upgrade from about 40 hours to as many as 320 hours of storage in less than a couple of hours. The instructions even include information on how to fix a rebooting glitch on a handful of DirecTV units -- just in case.
[later in the same article]
Shapiro said the company has already upgraded more than 100,000 TiVo units -- about 10 percent of the total TiVo boxes out there. Last year, sales were more than 400 percent over the year before, they said.

If any PVRblog readers have tried the Weaknees kit, feel free to leave a quick comment to let us know how easy it was to install. From the numbers that are quoted, it's clear that many Tivo owners want a LOT more storage than is installed from the factory.

Mercury News: Add-on kit boosts TiVo storage [mercurynews.com]

January 26, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBack

TiVo Buys Super Secret Strangeberry

Slashdot has a story about how TiVo has purchased a company called Strangeberry. There isn't anything on their website aside from news of the acquisition but they're reportedly in the broadband services business.

This may be a shot of one of their products, and if it is I would trust the description to be true as well. I've heard of a few Silicon Valley startups that were producing home broadband boxes that did everything from act as a firewall and wirless router, to home filesharing and IM, to callerID/tv/movie/weather updates on your TV, all in one simple box running a linux port. It would seem like a great move for TiVo to pick something up like that and bake it into their boxes, making TiVo customers less likely to jump ship for a free PVR from a cable company.

January 26, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Doubts about HD TiVo

GearBits has a good breakdown of why there are doubts about the standalone HD TiVo seeing the light of day.

It echos a lot of things said here by many commenters -- that the nature of cable HD is too difficult to create decoders and recorders for, and the number of people using over-the-air HD is very small, marketingwise. This is all based on guessing how the market is going but given that TiVo has pushed back plans for the non-DirecTV unit to some future date, if you've got HD content coming in from cable or the air, it might be worth checking out the competition for DVRs. [via gizmodo]

January 26, 2004 in Op-Ed | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

DishPlayer DVR 921

Mike Langberg of The Seattle Times tests out the HDTV compatible DVR from Dish Network. It's expensive but has all of the features that DVR-lovers have come to expect, and aside from a few small configuration quibbles, Langberg was enamored of it.

This 18-pound silver box, introduced in late December, is a satellite receiver for HD and standard channels from Dish Network; a tuner for receiving and recording local over-the-air HD broadcasts received through a roof antenna; and a DVR with a gigantic 250-gigabyte hard drive. That hard drive holds 25 hours of HD programming or a staggering 180 hours of regular TV.

There's just one big obstacle between me and digital nirvana: The 921 costs an eye-popping $999. While that would stretch my budget, it's a drop in the bucket for home-theater enthusiasts who've spent perhaps $6,000 for a big plasma TV and $3,000 for a neighborhood-shaking surround-sound system. Indeed, Dish Network says demand is so high that customers might have to wait several weeks to get a 921 delivered.

If anyone has experience with HDTV PVRs, we'd love to hear what is good/bad about them. I personally think that 250GB is way too little storage capacity. I'd like to see 1TB and a DVD-burner attached so you can record your favorite shows to DVD.
The Seattle Times: High-definition DVR is a high-quality product

January 25, 2004 in Product Reviews | Permalink | Comments (45) | TrackBack

TiVo Canada How-To

For one reason or another, TiVo has never been available in Canada, which all my friends north of the border remind me of whenever the subject comes up (they're still fighting for it though).

There are ways of getting TiVo in Canada, some involve smuggling boxes over the border, some say the DirecTiVos work up yonder, but the most comprehensive guide to getting a standalone TiVo working in the great white north is the how-to at TiVo Canada.

This is probably the most intense and illegal hacking how-to I've seen for TiVo. It essentially is a way to bypass the TiVo service entirely (a long-standing community no-no subject), by pulling in XML listings of canadian networks from the internet and using a heavily hacked version of TiVo to use it as the programming guide. It's so complete they even have their own logo graphics you can download and add to the TiVo system and built a web-based TiVo service emulator that your TiVo will connect to instead of the real TiVo servers. The group operates from this site, offers files only from a password-protected CVS repository, and this 1700+ member Yahoo group.

Hopefully TiVo will see this group's efforts as enough demand to warrant releasing the service up there.

January 23, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (21) | TrackBack

BW on television woes

Business Week has a long piece on trends in the TV industry. In the face of falling numbers of younger viewers who are migrating to DVD movies, video games, cable TV and the Internet, creative TV executives are copying their competitors (Extreme Home Makeover is a copy of Trading Spaces, which is a copy of a British show.) They also touch upon DVRs:

In the next few years, an even bigger distraction is coming in the guise of the digital video recorder (DVR) -- the time-shifting, ad-zapping machine that will allow folks to retrieve programs from last night, last month, or just about anywhere in the TV universe. Satellite and cable companies, in a fierce battle to win subscribers, will soon be all but giving DVRs away.

We seem to be continually hearing about the challenges the incumbent media have in the face of new trends, new technologies, etc. but changing the actions of millions of people does take time, and in that time, the incumbents can regroup, create new strategies, and attempt to win back their customer base. Somehow I doubt the halcyon days (pre-cable) will ever return.
BW Online | January 21, 2004 | Trouble in TV Land

January 21, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Windows Media Center Beta

Microsoft has sent out emails to prospective testers of the next version of Windows Media Center XP. Neowin has a copy of the email text with a link to the beta site.

You sign into the site and are given a survey. It's about 40 questions about how you rate yourself as a computer user, how much tv, video, photos, and music you consume on PCs, and what kind of gear you have at home. Like any beta test, you never know who they are looking to help test, though it's usually to match some future market segment.

They say the test includes a PC, but doesn't mention if the new Media Center Extended hardware will be included, but it'd be silly to test just the OS and standard hardware without the new Extended features.

January 21, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

More from CES: Endless personal video players

Gizmodo has a roundup of all the personal video players shown at CES last week, and there are approximately a bagillion of them set to launch this year.

I have to admit, as much as I like my TiVo and find viewing movies and shows on a computer useful in some cases, I'm not sold on the utility of a dedicated personal video player, nor do I think they'd be wildly successful in the US. I've heard from many folks that they're big in Japan because most people in a major city take a long subway ride to and from work, so personal players are convenient ways to catch up on TV and news. In America though, most everyone drives a car (aside from a few major cities) and you can't view a TV while operating (not legally or safely) a car when commuting to and from work.

The only time I could see wanting one of these personally would be during flights across the country. I don't fly more than once a month, so my laptop serves as my personal video player just fine. Also, Sony and other electronics manufacturers have been selling handheld TV receivers for decades, without anything more than moderate uptake among sports fans. I'm still not sure there is any market for a personal video device, even though a video iPod sounds cool on the surface.

Maybe I've completely missed this one. Do personal video players have enough of a niche and a chance for big sales in the US? How would you use one, and would it be worth spending $500 on a device that only did video playback?

January 14, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack

PVRs, DirecTV and Murdoch

Business Week has an interesting overview of Murdoch's vast empire, since News Corp. has successfully acquired DirecTV.

One of the strategies that DirecTV will be using to grow it's subscriber base will be to purchase and distribute DVRs in bulk.

Murdoch can make such pledges because he intends to buy new DVRs in bulk -- up to 20 million at a pop, says [News Corp executive] Carey, who figures mass purchases will drive the current $300-per-box price to below $200. Pressed on whether he would actually give away the boxes, Murdoch bristles. "[EchoStar Communications CEO] Charlie Ergen is already giving away some of his boxes. We will be matching him," he says. "We can't have him out there with a financially superior offering." At the moment, DirecTV offers the machines for $99, a price that will likely drop, he concedes.

BW Online | January 19, 2004 | Rupert's World

January 12, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

EFF's ReplayTV suit ends

About a year and a half ago, the EFF along with five plantiffs (including Craig from Craigslist.org) brought about a suit against Hollywood studios in order to defend their rights to continue using ReplayTV, after the same companies sued ReplayTV (which eventually lead SonicBlue, ReplayTV's former owner, to bankruptcy).

Today, the 28 Media companies named in the suit agreed not to sue ReplayTV users, thus ending the EFF's case. Since this was a voluntary and early ending thanks to the media companies backing down, the court didn't rule that it was unlawful for them to sue in the future, though they have left a provision of protection to other ReplayTV owners in case Hollywood changes their mind.

The money quote:

"Skipping commercials is not illegal and neither is sending television shows from your home to your office, as one of our clients does," said EFF Staff Attorney Gwen Hinze. "We're pleased that we were able to protect our clients against unjustifiable copyright claims for exercising their fair use rights."

[thanks Steve]

January 12, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Intel Moves Further Into Consumer Electronics

Intel is joining the fray of computer companies jumping into the consumer electronics market. CNET has a story detailing the semiconductor company's future plans.

Part of these plans include releasing what they call the "Entertainment PC", or EPC for short. The computer is a full blown PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition, and will run on a 3ghz version of Intel's upcoming update to the Pentium 4 processor, code-named Prescott. The EPC is said to look more like a VCR and will use TV's in place of normal monitors. It will be used for playing music, viewing pictures, watching videos, and will have PVR functionality. Intel will be licensing the EPC out to PC manufacturers, and will have an estimated cost of $799. The EPC's release date is set for sometime in the middle of 2004.

Intel also has introduced a semiconductor designed for projection televisions and displays that are greater than 35 inches across. The platform is called Cayley and is based on LCOS (liquid crystal on silicon) technology. LCOS is a revolutionary way to project images on large screens, but up until recently the five year old technology has suffered from low production yields. Intel (who originally developed LCOS) has found ways around this and is able to produce it cheaply as well. The first TV's based on Cayley are predicted to enter the market near the end of 2004.

The company also claims that during 2004 more and more standalone PVR's and other video players will run on Intel processors and semiconductors, and that in 2005 they expect to sell more imaging chips for digital cameras and camcorders. Intel also announced new graphics chipsets for handhelds.

January 9, 2004 in Products | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

HDTV DirecTiVo news from CES

As an addendum to today's CES announcements by TiVo, two conference calls took place this afternoon, one by DirecTV and another by TiVo that mentioned the upcoming HDTV-capable DirecTiVo unit. Here is a chunk of their press release with some specs on the new unit:

The DIRECTV® HD DVR, along with the DIRECTV®DVR with TiVo® service, will apply familiar DVR functionality to DIRECTV and off-air ATSC high-definition programming – including the ability to record, pause, instant replay and rewind live television. The new DIRECTV HD DVR will feature a much larger recording capacity than existing DIRECTV DVRs, and will feature component and digital video outputs for enhanced audio and video.

The DIRECTV HD DVR will incorporate a 250 GB hard disk drive, which allows customers to store up to 30 hours of DIRECTV high-definition programming, up to 200 hours of standard-definition programming or any combination of the two*. The DIRECTV HD DVR enables customers to record high-definition programming from both DIRECTV and off-air ATSC. A customer can simultaneously record two different programs from DIRECTV, ATSC or one from each, while watching a pre-recorded program all at the same time. This means a customer can watch one high-definition program while recording two other high-definition programs.

In addition, the DIRECTV HD DVR will be one of the first products available with the latest in digital interfaces, High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connector with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). The outputs may be configured for 480i, 480p, 720p, or 1080i formats.

Word on the street is that the units will cost somewhere around $699-899 depending on storage space and manufacturer. If any of the above technical jargon sounds like greek to you, the best source of background info on it is the TiVo Community board's new section devoted to HD TiVo, and more specifically the FAQ on all things HDTV TiVo and DirecTiVo. It does a great job explaining everything known about the upcoming units, what kind of hardware you'll need, what channels you'll get, and how it will operate.

January 8, 2004 in News, TiVo | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBack

VIA Entering Entertainment PC Market

[H]ard|OCP has a scoop on a new device from Apex Digital called the "ApeXtreme Personal Gaming Console and DVD Player". Despite the unwieldly (and horrible) name, the device looks to sport a pretty typical PC-Meets-Stereo-Component exterior. Under the hood is VIA's Eden Embedded System Platform which should provide more than enough power for all types of video and audio playback, but is lacking for cutting edge PC gaming.

The ApeXtreme comes with an ethernet port and a modem for connectivity (no built-in wireless yet), and has RCA, DVI, and S-video outputs. The device also comes with a Component Video output, giving it High Definition capability. It also appears to have a 40GB HDD for storage.

Running an embedded version of Windows XP, the device should have a familiar interface for most users. Of interest is the news that the OS will not be "locked down", which definitely means hacks and add-ons will follow from the community not too long after its release. Perhaps one of these will be PVR functionality? Getting a USB WiFi adapter up and running should be very feasible as well.

Estimated pricing will be US $299-$399. More info should be available any day now, as it is expected to be launched at CES.

UPDATE: VIA has a press release about the device, as does S3 (maker of the graphics chipset). The VIA press release mentions a 20GB HDD, but perhaps the $399 version will come with the 40GB one mentioned in the rumors? VIA also has a page detailing the platform behind the device called the Glory Personal Gaming Console Platform. This is essentially the same as the Eden platform, but with the S3 graphics core and fancy audio.

January 8, 2004 in Products | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

TiVo to Go -- Finally!!!

Huge TiVo news has been coming down the CES newswire today, some highlights:

TiVo is committed to launching a few new products in 2004, including the long-awaited HDTV DirecTiVo which they are still claiming first quarter 2004 for release. I can't wait to buy one of those. They've also signed up Toshiba and Humax to make DVD burning standalone TiVos like the ones that Pioneer is currently producing. The biggest news of all is that they're finally going to allow video extraction:

TiVo to Go is what they're calling their new video extraction, which sounds like it will be some DRM protection scheme applied to recordings you can download to your PC from your TiVo. They'll also allow you to burn downloaded shows to DVD. It'll be interesting to see how the TiVo hacking community uses/modifies/cracks this technology. If they wanted to prevent all piracy, I'm surprised you can burn DVDs, as it seems the content is pretty much fair game for DVD rippers at that point, but perhaps they won't allow DVDs to play on anything but computer DVD drives that carry your encrypted TiVo key. It doesn't launch until Fall of 2004, which seems like a long time in such a lively marketplace. Hopefully they don't deliver it too late to market.

That said, this is the biggest news of all and many a TiVo owner is probably dancing in the streets after hearing this news. I can't wait for it, though ideally, I'd want a HDTV DirecTiVo that did it but I bet they continue lagging their DirecTV devices behind the standalone product line.

Lastly, BravoBrava has announced some sort of technology gateway that will allow you to remotely schedule your TiVo recordings using alternate PDA and cell phone interfaces, though frankly it's not the most useful (programming grids are a pain to navigate on a tiny cellphone screen) or innovative feature (snapstream has had this for ages, and TiVo should have just made a wap gateway for their existing web service).

January 8, 2004 in News, TiVo | Permalink | Comments (28) | TrackBack

Networked media device roundup at CES

Right now in Las Vegas the Consumer Electronics Show is going on and that means about a zillion new products are being announced, shown, and demoed. So far this appears to be the year of the convergence between home computer networks and home theater systems. In 2003, there weren't too many options (personally, I enjoy my Gateway DVD player for this purpose), but after hearing all this week's announcements it's clear that with a little hardware and programming almost any company can stream a song or movie from a PC to a Home Theater system.

This week's roundup so far includes a lot of "second generation" home media adapters. Linksys is doing a 802.11g hub that can do music, photos, movies, and play DVDs over a faster g network. Netgear is making music streaming devices that include streaming internet radio stations. Prismiq brought out a device last year, and they announced they're now allowing paid-for downloads of Hollywood movies from CinemaNow to play on it as well in a Video-On-Demand sort of way. Microsoft will be streaming content via their xbox that will also work with CinemaNow and Gateway and Samsung will produce network-capable TVs that will look for Windows Media Center PCs on the network. Phillips has gone another way, adding internet radio streaming directly inside their new TVs, with plans to develop media hub devices that will play music and movies from home PCs as well.

January 8, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Steve Jobs on Portable Video Players

This David Pogue interview with Steve Jobs includes direct questions to Jobs about possible video iPods and Steve's three-pronged response for why they're not putting much energy into it.

His reasons are pretty flimsy, especially the assumption that people want to watch their favorite movie on a personal device. Sales of these devices have done well (I hear) in Tokyo for many of the same reasons iPods sell big in major cities here -- many people like to listen to recorded news such as NPR. If I still rode a subway everyday to work, I'd love to carry last night's Daily Show with me, and having it play on a 4" screen wouldn't hinder the experience as much as Jobs thinks. When he makes assumptions that people don't want to carry movies around with him he ignores that people might want to use them for video-out to a large TV and/or take advantage of the thousands of hours of weekly TV programming worth saving and watching at your leisure.

"Now, I'm not saying we’re not working on something like that," Mr. Jobs added. "Who knows what we’ve got in our labs?""

But from his comments, he made it clear that he and Mr. Gates were miles apart on their assessment of a technology's future. It wouldn’t be the first time

January 8, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Diva: WMV9 meets the DVD

From a post on Marketwire, Malata is demoing "Diva" -- DVD Player, Internet Broadband Streaming Device, Video Recorder, Audio/Video Playback of Digital Content on a Standard TV -- at the Microsoft booth at CES.

The DIVA is the first DVD/CD recorder to use Windows Media Video 9 to record over the air television programming directly on CD or DVD media. Taking advantage of WMV9's ability to deliver nearly three times the video storage of MPEG2 (and twice as much as MPEG4), the DIVA offers consumers the ability to record more than 11 hours of television programming onto a DVD (or nearly two hours on a CD).

...

In addition to its unparalleled video capabilities, the DIVA can record more than 70 hours of WMA music per DVD. The DIVA also can serve as a broadband Internet browser able to "stream" Internet-based movies and music from a broadband Internet connection. And for home video buffs, the DIVA allows them to record their CDs of home movies using Windows Movie Maker 2 in Windows XP and play them back directly on the DIVA with no time-consuming conversions to MPEG2. The DIVA is also the first DVD recorder to support HighMAT for audio, image and video, allowing easy access and navigation of custom CDs made on a PC of photos, music, and video with the click of a remote control.

January 8, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The future of Windows Media Center

Contrary to rumors that Microsoft would kill Media Center XP, recent news leaks point to a new three part system for Windows Media Center that includes XP on the desktop, the XBOX acting as media hub for your TV, and a new portable video player (like a video iPod everyone wanted to hear about yesterday at MacWorld?). The New York Post is reporting it will be small, sleek, and carry shows and movies downloaded from a computer. How they intend to do this all legally still remains to be seen, but it's an exciting new direction for Windows Media Center. [via paidcontent]

UPDATE: Looks like Bill Gates' speech lived up the rumors, describing Media Center Extender to stream content to up to 5 TVs in a house, an XBOX media center, and the whole thing will use DRM to cut down on piracy.

January 7, 2004 in News, Windows Media Center XP | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

EyeTV expands to EyeHome

Elgato Systems, makers of EyeTV, a sort of USB hardware and software TiVo/SnapStream for the mac platform has released a bunch of new products for this week of MacWorld and the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

EyeHome is a new magic box that streams photos, music, video, and movies from your mac to your TV. I only does MPEG and DivX, so quicktime or raw DV output from iMovie won't work. It comes with a remote and all the standard home theater hookups, and looks like it has all the features most other media centers have, except it uses Apple's rendezvous network protocol to share media files from macs.

Their EyeTV line looks like it has expanded with a model for regular tv, one for digital satellite, one for HDTV over the air broadcasts, and all sporting firewire interfaces and the ability to dump recordings to DVD. The HDTV one looks the most interesting, I'd love to know what kind of storage and processor is required to record much hi-def content.

January 6, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

TiVo sues EchoStar over DVR patent

I knew the day would eventually come when TiVo would exercise the patents it got a few years ago (thanks michael for tracking them down), but I thought we were still a few years away from that, and it would likely only be a last resort when they lost all marketshare.

According to c|net news, today TiVo sued EchoStar over the patent on recording a show while watching another (but isn't that already possible with a VCR?). TiVo has over 40 patents and I'm sure some are quite novel (wishlists) while others seem a bit more obvious.

It will be interesting to see how Comcast, Time Warner, and the other gaggle of companies releasing DVR clones reacts to this suit.

January 5, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Diskology tool for TiVo upgrades

An interesting bit of news from Diskology is that their new disk copying hardware/software package Disk Jockey will include utilities to prepare hard drives for TiVo boxes, and will even work on the mac.

At $349, the Disk Jockey is a pretty hefty price to pay for a backup system, but it's cool to see a hardware manufacturer recognize the benefits of providing means to backup specialized operating systems like TiVo.

January 5, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

BitTorrent + RSS = TiVo

A great idea over at ScottRaymond.net is the combination of two technologies that would enable him to keep up on TV programs he likes, without needing to even own a TV. BitTorrent allows you to share the downloading of large files with thousands of other people that have the file but there's no easy way to search for new torrent files. RSS is a summary file for sites that can let you know when a site or page has updated automatically when using a RSS reader.

If BitTorrent sites used RSS, you could essentially have much of the functionality of TiVo ("Give me all new episodes of Six Feet Under this year") on your personal computer, without the need for television. Of course, the legal issues around this type of technology would kind of make it impossible to do for very long, but it's perhaps a glimpse into the future of where entertainment could be going.

January 4, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBack

Gateway Connected DVD hacking

After looking through the comments in the Gateway Connected DVD player review and my first post when I discovered it, There is a wealth of information for owners looking to extend their use of it. Here's a short list of highlights from the valuable comments that have all come in (thanks to everyone that posted and shared their info, by the way):

- How to allow >3Mbps movie streams
- Linksys 802.11g cards are supported with the newest firmware
- How to let it index and use files on mapped network drives in XP
- How to go about hacking in streaming radio support
- How DivX streaming is done and what is required for it (latest software + fast processor on your PC)
- full list of 802.11b cards that are supported
- Where to download the latest firmware and desktop server

Now, if someone could figure out how to change all the gateway graphics with personalized graphic files, I think we'd have pretty much every major feature request covered on the unit.

January 1, 2004 in Products | Permalink | Comments (171) | TrackBack