According to this article in Forbes, the growing number of PVR users are starting to effect the Nielsen Rating system. Nielsen Media, which runs the rating system will react to the trend by creating a separate measure based on recorded viewing.

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PVRBlog can’t find the Gateway Connected DVD Player anymore on the Gateway product website. Does this signal the end for it as a gateway product?

I have used one for a few months now, and while it does a decent job, there are a couple of issues that have annoyed me. The response time to open the DVD tray right after you power up the unit is very slow and can be annoying to the impatient. DIVX playback is a little flakey at times, especially on the synchronization between sound and video. All in all, it’s been a good device with those exceptions and I’m sorry to see it go.

It looks like the original supplier, GoVideo still has their branded unit for sale, but I believe that there were slight differences between the two products (the remotes, maybe?) that prevented one from using the GoVideo firmware on the Gateway product or vice versa.

The Induce Act, which could potentially hurt PVR technology vendors like Tivo, was shelved today by Orrin Hatch, the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairmain. For now, consumer advocates and PVR and P2P technology companies can give a sigh of relief, although there are plans to pursue the bill during the next session.

Stay tuned to this after the presidential election dust settles.

(Hat tip: Lost Remote)

According to WNBC, the 75,000 Time Warner cable customers in Manhattan with DVR service are not to happy at the moment. It appears that Time Warner auto-updated the DVR with a new software release, but along with all that auto-updating goodness came a bug which freezes video playback for 3-4 seconds at a time. According to one subscriber, Patrick Menton, “It can happen maybe eight to 10 times during a program and it’s very aggravating.”

Time Warner Cable has acknowledged the problem and are working diligently with the vendor on fix. Their time estimate is that they will have a fix perhaps in the next two weeks. In the mean time, I guess DVR users will have to come up with some sort of playback freeze drinking game to reduce their frustration.

Via eHomeUpgrade, Microsoft’s MSN TV 2.0 officially launched. Microsoft describes it as an Internet and media player and it can stream some “premium content” from the Internet, as well as from another PC. It’s MSRP is $199, but there is a monthly subscription charge as well.

I guess if I squint the right way, I can see it useful for people who don’t already have a computer or connection to the Internet, but for someone who already has broadband, I’m not sure why I’d want to shell out $10 a month to use this thing. If they added a tuner card and MCE, that would be one thing, but it doesn’t seem like there is much there there.

Microsoft executive Steve Ballmer discussed his views on convergence technology and DRM technology in a press briefing in London.

There isn’t much newsworthy about his comments but it’s pretty clear the MS strategy is to use the DRM (digital rights management) technology they’ve created to build partnerships with the RIAA (music) and MPAA (movies) and then leverage this technology and partnerships to become the standard on devices. Having standards help consumers by allowing devices to play together nicely, and having a MS license on each device would be nice from Microsoft’s perspective as well.

There are some problems with both the demand and supply side of that strategy. On the demand side, if the restrictions are too great, people will bypass it to fulfill their needs via some sort of open standard. Consumer electronics is a difficult market and companies look to provide niches, and likely, there will be providers who will provide products that support the open standard.

On the supply side, some partners like the MPAA are more willing to partner with Microsoft, but there are other large players that are unlikely to want to play ball like satellite and cable operators who view Microsoft as a threat. Those guys might be just as likely to throw their weight behind behind a different standard, or partner with some company that isn’t as threatening like Apple.

(Hat Tip: eHomeUpgrade)

Engadget has an interesting article discussing two new services for downloading television shows over Internet. The first is TVTonic.com which is a free service for downloading various television broadcasts including movietrailers and news clips.

Homechoice, available in Great Britain, sounds like an interesting service. When you sign up for their service, they’ll pipe 80 television channels over your phone line, a high speed internet service, and access to some television content like music videos. The trick for getting all this data downloaded over copper is that they only send down the television channel that you are currently viewing (as opposed to sending all the channels down the pipe like cable). Still, subscribers need a 2Mbit connection to make it all work.

NPD, a leading market research firm, released a press release reporting market numbers for Video On Demand services. Picking through the public data:

• 0.3% of videos purchased or rented came from VOD sites.
• MovieLink is the leader in this emerging market with 33% of sales, followed by MovieFlix
• 80% of consumers are male
• Half the consumers were under 35
• Leading title downloaded this quarter: Independence Day

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I’m way behind the curve here, but Major League Baseball sells video of each of their games which you can download for $3.95 a pop. You can also download the radio broadcast for $.99. And if that isn’t enough, you can also create your own human highlight reel, downloading “minivision clips” of video for $.99 each. I’m sure there are a few Boston fans who want to re-live the Bill Buckner incident over and over again.

It’s a nice forward-thinking service for baseball fanatics. I hope HBO takes a clue and does the same thing for all the Soprano fanatics, like myself, out there.

It’s only a matter of time before someone comes up with MythBaseball as a plugin.

(HatTip: LostRemote)