DVR

The Hopper, DISH Network's new whole-home HD DVR system is now available, the company announced this week.

The Hopper allows DVR content to be shared on up to four TVs throughout the home using small units called "Joeys" that work in tandem with the main Hopper unit. You can pause, play and rewind both live and recorded HD programs on all TVs, just as you would on your main TV.

Additional features include:

• Two-terabyte hard drive for up to 2,000 hours of entertainment
• PrimeTime Anytime™ - customers, with a single click, can enable recordings of four primetime HD network channels, where available, and store them for up to eight days
• Record up to six HD shows at once during primetime hours

TiVo announced a new set-top box at CEDIA last week – the company's most advanced to date – with the ability to record four different shows at once while watching a fifth recorded program, thanks to its FOUR tuners. Dubbed the TiVo Premiere Elite, the new box has a huge two-terabyte hard drive capable of holding 300 hours of HD programming, and is THX certified.

The TiVo Premiere Elite features TiVo's easy to use interface and provides access to Web entertainment from Netflix, Pandora, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube, and more.

It is compatible with most popular home automation controllers such as Crestron, Control4, and RTI, along with the TiVo Slide remote with a QWERTY keyboard and TiVo's apps for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

The TiVo Premiere Elite is for use with digital cable systems only and does not work with analog cable or satellite. It will be available by the end of the year Pending FCC approval, through tivo.com, authorized home theater installers and Best Buy's Magnolia stores.

TiVo announced on Monday that they have slashed prices on their TiVo Premiere and Premiere XL DVRs for a limited time. You can now pick up the TiVo Premiere box for $99.99 with a one-year commitment of $19.99 per month – saving you $200 on the box. The TiVo Premiere XL is now priced at $299.99 (regularly $499.99) with a one-year commitment at $19.99 per month.

"TiVo delivers the best entertainment experience money can buy for your HDTV. And in keeping with the holiday spirit, we've listened to our customers and reduced the upfront cost making it even easier to give the gift of TiVo to yourself or others," said Joe Miller, senior vice president of retail sales and marketing for TiVo. "TiVo is the easiest and only complete way to get both television and broadband content in one simple experience. Whether you want traditional TV or movies, web videos, or music you have access to an amazing array of Internet content from Amazon Video On Demand, Netflix, Hulu Plus (coming soon), YouTube and more -- plus your live and recorded cable television programming all packaged in one sleek device." Read more

EchoStar announced today they are bringing the DishHD experience to Taiwan. DishHD satellite TV service includes the widest variety of high definition video channels available in Taiwan. Digital satellite TV is broadcast in 1081i and features Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. The service is distributed to homes via a small satellite antenna and a digital set-top box.

Two packages are available – Standard and Premiere. The Standard DishHD package includes 12 HD channels, with the Premier package delivering 30 HD channels – that's more than twice the number of HD channels offered from any other pay television service in Taiwan!

DishHD is broadcast via AsiaSat's high powered AsiaSat 4 satellite to direct-to-home satellite antennas as small as 30 cm in diameter. A premium set-top-box is also available from DishHD. The 612t HD DVR features two satellite tuners, an interactive electronic program guide, and a 500 gigabyte internal DVR that allows customers to pause, record, and replay live television while simultaneously recording or watching another live TV channel.Read more

TiVo today announced that they are lowering the price on both the TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL DVRs. The TiVo HD is now $249.99 (reg. $299.99) and TiVo HD XL is now offered at $499.99 (reg. $599.99).

Need an HDTV to go with the TiVo? In addition to the lower price, you can get an additional $100 off the cost of an HD TiVo DVR when you purchase an HDTV from Best Buy, bringing the price of a TiVo HD DVR to only $149.99. A subscription to the TiVo service is required and sold separately.

"This holiday season consumers are focused on giving great gifts at a great value. It's not how much you spend, but how much you get for what you pay," said Tony Lee vice president of marketing for TiVo. "The TiVo service offers the world's largest on demand video library, giving you and your family countless hours of in-home entertainment. So rather than giving a gift that will be shoved into a junk drawer or forgotten days later, give the gift that your family will use all year long, a TiVo HD DVR."

Get more information on TiVo products and service at tivo.com.

Last week DISH Network announced a new feature that many providers have had available for quite some time – remote access to DVRs. The DISH Remote Access service allows customers to manage programming on their DISH DVR remotely. Customers can schedule recordings, search through the program guide, even watch recorded programming (with a connected Slingbox).

To use the free service, connect the DISH receiver to your home's Broadband connection and you can then use a computer or iPhone to connect to the Internet and manage your DISH ViP DVR.

DISH Remote Access service is compatible with the DISH ViP 922, ViP 722k, ViP 722, ViP 622 and ViP 612 HD DVRs.

DISH also announced that later this year they will release the ViP 922 HD DVR which will include all of the above features, but will also have built-in Slingbox technology. No longer will a connected Slingbox be necessary to watch recorded programming remotely. It sounds like a good plan, given that DISH bought Sling Media last year.

For more information on DISH Remote Access, visit www.dishnetwork.com/dishremoteaccess.

EchoStar's new T2200S is the world’s first SlingLoaded, tru2way-based, multi-tuner, HD DVR set-top box designed for the cable TV industry. With Sling Media's placeshifting technology cable TV subscribers will be able to watch live TV, DVR and VOD content, on almost any Internet-connected device, such as the computer, mobile media players or cell phones. And with its huge 1 terabyte hard drive, subscribers will have up to 1,000 hours of storage.

• Supports MPEG-2, H.264 (MPEG-4) and VC1.
• 1GHz tuners to support expanded network bandwidth.
• Connect to the home network via Ethernet, WiFi (with optional WiFi adapter) or Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA).
• Picture-in-Picture
• Supports advanced resolution formats up to 1080p.
• Individual branding opportunities for MSOs.
• Supports Macrovision and DCS analog copy protection.
• Features an attractive, capacitive-touch, backlit front panel with
• clock display.

It will be available for testing in June and will be in production by the fourth quarter of 2009. Pricing has not yet been announced.

TiVo is launching a new free mobile optimized website. Anyone - subscribers and non-subscribers can browse m.tivo.com to check TV schedules. Kinda handy to get information on upcoming episodes of The Office from your phone. TiVo subscribers can then schedule recordings or set a Season Pass on their TiVo boxes at home.

Settings by zip code and provider (satellite or cable company) let you customize the schedule.

It is marked as a beta test now, but should be fully released soon.