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Topic: IPTV

January 11, 2007, 10:45 PM

Posted in: Digital TV services

IPTV is one of the oldest and most frequently recurring "new topics" at CES, having broken ground here back in the early 1990s, and with few attempts at a living-room-based Internet service having ever taken firm root, especially in North America. But now there's some headway as set-top box (STB) providers work to build a new generation of standardized (a new phrase in the STB world) components. Sunday night's keynote from Microsoft, though, left many thinking it would try to spoil that party.

Topic: Slingbox

January 10, 2007, 4:56 PM

Posted in: Digital TV services

It's still Michael Gartenberg's favorite device: the Slingbox system that captures video from your home TV and pipes it through the Internet straight to your remote receiver anywhere in the world. Monday, Sling confirmed its plans to produce SlingPlayer software for Palm OS-based handsets, leading to wide speculation that the company's next targets will easily be Windows Mobile- and Symbian-based handsets.

Topic: US digital broadcast TV

January 8, 2007, 11:51 PM

Posted in: Digital TV services

Scott Fulton, BetaNews: On February 17, 2009 - just over two years from now - the analog broadcasting system used by American broadcasters for the entire 20th century will be shut down. Some of the spectrum will be turned over for emergency response use, while other portions of it will be auctioned off by the FCC, perhaps for use in wireless Internet service. But at that time, the old analog receivers will fail to receive signals; they'll need set-top boxes or compatible cable TV inputs to keep them functional.

With just a few years to go, we're not getting a very clear picture of what it is that the new low-resolution (i.e., 480i) DTV broadcast receivers will look like. Meanwhile, a new class of digital broadcast service is busting its way into the party, with the notion of being geared for portables and handhelds, but with the technological infrastructure to be a competitor in consumers' living rooms. Is The Next Television going to be the next battleground?

Topic: TiVo for Cable

January 8, 2007, 10:35 PM

Posted in: Digital TV services


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Photos: TiVo for Comcast
At CES 2007, DV-R maker TiVo showed off the first working demo of its video recording software for Comcast's set-top boxes manufactured by Motorola. The software is surprisingly different from TiVo's standalone boxes, which company officials attribute to the collaboration process and requirements of the cable provider. With TiVo's DirecTV partnership now over, deals with cable companies such as Comcast and Cox will prove critical to TiVo acquiring new customers.