July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Set-top box and media streaming service startup Boxee is seeking out buyers or a fresh round of funding, according to an AllThingsD report that cites unnamed sources familiar with the situation.

The company started life as a software company and eventually a set-top box maker (Boxee Box) that wanted to provide an open-source media software anyone could utilize to stream media from their TV or computer. It’s set-top box was intended as a of video codex Swiss army knife that would play pretty much any format, which was good for the nontechies that just wanted to watch their buddy’s ripped collection of sci-fi TV show DVDs using a USB drive, as well as those who wanted streaming services like Netflix, Spotify, and others.

However, the company made an unsuccessful “pivot” away from open-source development to focus on a new cloud-based DVR service to capture shows on cable and broadcast television and a new set-top box, Boxee TV (aka Boxee Cloud DVR as it’s now called). VentureBeat’s Devindra Hardawar certainly didn’t think much of it when it first went on sale last year. It looks like consumers share that sentiment despite several new features for the box.

ATD’s Peter Kafka notes that Boxee hired banking firm Allen & Co. to help it secure another $30 million or so in funding but eventually branched out to the idea of an acquisition. The New York-based company has previously raised $26.5 million in funding to date.

The shift to acquisition-mode probably had something to do with all the cable TV providers already offering their programming (both live broadcast and whatever was stored on DVR) via streaming devices. For instance, Comcast customers can now stream its Xfinity TV service through the Xbox 360, and Time Warner Cable has added live streaming channel feeds to the Roku as well as its own mobile applications and website. And when it comes to recording the freely available HD broadcast content, the biggest mover is definitely Aereo, even though its only available a handful of cities right now.

It’s kind of tragic to see Boxee’s slow death, especially because the company has done a lot of good in the early cord cutting movement — not to mention its lobbying congress for standards on how consumers can legally record broadcasted TV programming.

If Boxee is able to either secure new funding or a buyer that wants to revitalize the company, I’d expect even more drastic changes to its business model. Hopefully that includes less emphasis on a service-related products in favor of going back to its roots in enhancing the overall TV experience. For example, Boxee could shift its software development to Google TV cheerleader, with its DVR services as purely complimentary. (And lord knows Google TV could use a cheerleader.)

We’re reaching out to Boxee for further comment, and will update the post with any new information.

Stay on top of all our E3 2013 coverage here.

LOS ANGELES — Microsoft revealed a partnership with livestreaming site Twitch during its pre-E3 briefing today. Xbox One is capable of instantly streaming gameplay through Twitch.

Players can immediately engage Twitch with a single voice command. That will instantly bring up the Twitch menu.

As an example, Microsoft streamed a match of its new fighting game Killer Instinct. One of its producers brought up the Twitch interface just by asking for it via Kinect. It was very impressive how fast the app loaded, which is apparently thanks to Xbox One’s operating-system optimization. (We’ll find out, of course, how fast this is when we get some time with the Xbox One ourselves.)

Additionally, Microsoft debuted its Xbox Upload Studio. This uses the Xbox One’s built-in DVR to record gameplay. Players can then quickly jump back and upload a specific clip. Upload Studio doesn’t just simply upload the clip. It can add cutting and dissolve effects that add extra pizzazz. The presenters also added voice-over.

These video offerings are on par with what Sony debuted with the PlayStation 4. Streaming and video-sharing is a growing part of modern-day gaming. Fans watch millions of hours of livestreaming games on sites like Twitch every month.

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

As disappointed as I was in the Boxee TV during my review, it’s still hooked up to my HDTV in the hopes it will eventually get better.

Today, Boxee announced that it’s rolling out a major new update, and it looks like this upgrade addresses many of my initial issues. You can now schedule and manage cloud DVR recordings right from the Boxee TV (previously it required that you log onto a website with your phone or tablet), play back files from DLNA servers on your network, and resume playback from DVR recordings.

The update also includes a number of bug fixes, which hopefully means I won’t have to rely as much on Boxee TV’s hand reset button.

In my brief testing of the update this morning, I was able to start recording an episode of a show while watching it, and I also scheduled a recording for a show airing later directly from Boxee TV’s on-screen guide. While it’s nice to have the flexibility to choose and manage recordings on the device now, Boxee TV’s cloud DVR feature is still lacking when it comes to basic DVR features.

You can’t pause or rewind live TV, and you also can’t immediately access a recording until it’s processed by Boxee’s servers. Basic DVR features are complicated by the way Boxee TV handles recordings — instead of storing them locally on the device, it sends them directly to its servers. That allows the company to offer “unlimited DVR” capabilities with no storage limits, but it makes working with recordings far more difficult.

I didn’t have a chance to test out the DLNA streaming feature, but that should be a nice addition for Boxee’s existing fans. It lets the Boxee TV play back videos, music, and photos from DLNA servers on PCs. It’s not something average users will likely deal with, but for the techie crowd that felt slighted by the Boxee TV’s lack of hardcore media streaming features, it’s a nice addition.

I’ve only had about an hour to test the update, but I’m hoping it fixes the shocking instability issues I noticed with the Boxee TV. I’ve often had to reset the device several times during viewing sessions over the past few months, which was surprising for a device that’s been in stores since last November.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Within five minutes of turning on the Boxee TV, I was ready to return it.

It’s Boxee’s second stab at building a set-top box for the living room, but it’s far more focused on mainstream consumers than its predecessor. The $99 Boxee TV includes the usual apps, like Netflix and Vudu, as well as the ability to receive free over-the-air TV channels. But its real claim to fame is the cloud DVR, which allows you to store unlimited television recordings on Boxee’s server.

[Update: Boxee rebranded Boxee TV to simply "Cloud DVR" on April 9th, 2013. This review's title and tags have been updated to reflect the change.]

It’s a device that promised to reshape the way we view TV, a device that Boxee is basically betting its future on — and I couldn’t even navigate its menus without some sort of frustrating glitch or crash.

In its quest to conquer the next big thing, Boxee made a product that failed to get the basics right. The cloud DVR lacks simple features, like scheduling a recording from the channel guide. The remote is a nightmare. And it crashes, a lot.

This review was among the hardest I’ve ever had to write. I’m a huge fan of Boxee, from its hacker roots as a media player for modified Xbox consoles, to its rise as one of the most interesting media startups in New York City. (Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently made a major announcement at Boxee’s office, which former Google CEO Eric Schmidt also attended.)

When Boxee first announced this product, we called its unlimited storage “insane” and dubbed the product “amazing,” because it seemed so promising.

But after living with the Boxee TV for almost two months now, it’s time to call this thing a dud.

The good: Cloud DVR is an intriguing concept

It’s not hard to see why the promise of Boxee TV’s cloud DVR was so exciting initially. Instead of dealing with storage limits on a hard drive, Boxee’s cloud DVR promises an unlimited amount of storage on Boxee’s servers for $10 a month (it’ll eventually go up to $15). The cloud DVR subscription is optional and month-to-month, but as you’ll see, there’s practically no reason to get the Boxee TV with out it.

While you’re probably used to just recording new episodes of your favorite shows with a typical DVR and losing the oldest recordings as it fills up, Boxee’s service lets you record every episode as it airs, for as long as you want, across multiple devices. For media addicts who can’t wait for new show episodes to hit Hulu Plus or Netflix, but who don’t have time to watch everything in their queue, it sounds like a dream come true.

Unfortunately, Boxee TV is limited to recording over-the-air and basic cable channels. That means you’ll only be able to watch and record shows from major networks like ABC, NBC, and Fox — but not shows on regular and premium channels like FX, HBO, and ESPN. You could receive around a dozen channels, or just a handful, depending on availability in your area. Boxee includes a simple antenna inside the box, but upgrading to a more powerful antenna could net you more broadcast channels.

The limitation of free over-the-air channels is something cord-cutting aficionados are used to, since it’s a free alternative to costly cable or satellite subscriptions. And since Boxee TV includes Netflix and Vudu apps, you can augment the limited television channels with those larger content libraries.

Tuning between TV channels is fairly quick on the Boxee TV, at least compared to the way my Samsung HDTV handles tuning.  The device includes two tuners, so you can watch one channel while recording another, or have two channels recording at the same time. In theory, Boxee TV feels like it’s getting close to unifying traditional television and web video, an ideal first sketched out by Google. Google TV still wins out though, since it supports cable and satellite subscriptions, and it has a much stronger selection of apps.

You can stream live television to your computer’s web browser or your iPad with Boxee TV (iPhone and Android support is on the way, even though the company still advertises that it supports “any screen”). I found that cloud DVR recordings looked almost as clear as when they originally aired, while the live TV streaming looked a tad worse. It takes about 10 to 15 seconds for cloud recordings to begin, while tuning into the live stream takes around a minute. (But hey, at least Boxee warns you it could take that long.)

Boxee TV builds upon the interface developed for the Live TV stick, a USB dongle that brought TV functionality to the company’s previous device, the Boxee Box. The interface shows you an attractive display of shows currently on-air, as well as shows scheduled to appear over the next few hours. On your computer or iPad, you can view a more traditional channel guide by logging onto Boxee.tv. The company assumes you’ll be using an iPad or computer as a secondary screen — and you’ll need to, since it’s the only way to schedule DVR recordings.

Boxee has clearly built up an impressive amount of features around its cloud connectivity, it’s just a shame that it gets so many simpler things wrong.

Filed under: Business, Gadgets, Media

Pages: 1 2 3

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Satellite television provider Dish Network unveiled its plans today to let subscribers start using the Dish TV service beyond the boundaries of their home.

Dish’s plan addresses one of the biggest complains people have about the often expensive traditional TV subscriptions: you can’t use it if you leave home. This is contrary to many of the much less costly services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime, which allow its respective subscribers to access the entire streaming video services from a variety of mobile devices, smart TVs, and set-top boxes.

At last year’s CES event, the company tackled a different major complain about traditional pay TV subscription by allowing customers to skip over long-winded commercial breaks on all recorded programs via the Hopper feature on its DVR TV boxes. This year, the company is improving the Hopper box by partnering with Sling Media, a company that produces its own line of devices enabling consumers to live stream their cable TV service when away from home.

Much like the Slingbox 500, the Hopper with Sling will let Dish subscribers stream both live television channels and watch saved shows on their DVR. (Right now you can access the “TV Anywhere” feature via iOS devices and through the web, but I’m assuming support for Android devices will come in the near future.) The box has built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth support, a remote control finder, and the fastest processor available from any satellite TV provider box, according to the company. As for storage, the Hopper with Sling contains a two-terabyte hard drive, which equals about 500 hours of HD video or 2,000 hours of standard definition video.

Another cool thing the box does is allow you to send shows recorded on your DVR to your iPad, which can be downloaded for offline viewing. The feature should come in handy for anyone who travels often, and doesn’t want the added expense of renting or buying a movie to download beforehand. And while not exactly new among TV service providers, Dish is also launching second-screen apps to help people discover new content on their smartphones and tablets.

Creating a consumer-friendly pay TV service

The push to make Dish a “TV anywhere” experience is part of the company’s strategy to be the only pay TV service that actually gives customers what they’re asking for, said Dish CEO and President Joseph Clayton at a press event today. I managed to catch the live stream of Dish’s presentation, which included several references by Clayton about this being “the year of the Kangaroo.”

Other cable providers are starting to come around to the idea that their subscribers want more for their money, but thus far, have been slow to offer anything remotely close to what Dish is doing with the Hopper Sling box. For instance, Time Warner Cable recently announced a new TWC TV app on Roku set-top boxes that essentially brings live TV channels to the streaming web, but doesn’t offer DVR playback or the ability to watch content anywhere. Even more backwards are cable providers like Comcast, who refuses to allow its customers to use services like HBO Go (except for on Xbox Live), even after authenticating that they pay for a HBO package as a Comcast subscriber.

Photo credit: Dish Network, CNET

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

It seems that television service providers are finally coming around to the hard truth that most people avoid the long commercial breaks between programming whenever possible.

Largest U.S. satellite television provider DirecTV said today it may allow its subscribers to automatically skip commercial breaks whenever they record a show on their DVR. The company obtained commercial-skipping tech when it purchased Replay TV about five years ago but has declined to roll out the functionality. So, what’s holding it back?

“We haven’t chosen to use it. It’s not clear to me there’s a raging demand from consumers for it,” DirecTV CEO Mike White said during a media event hosted by Reuters. I think we can all agree that he’s either playing dumb to appease TV networks or really out of touch with his viewing audience. Because, let’s be honest, some people purposely miss the first live-air broadcast of a TV show so they can watch it on DVR and skip through the commercials. If they can’t do that, people will play on their smartphones, or flip through channels until the show comes back on air.

Still, the fact that DirecTV is toying with the idea of an auto commercial skipping feature should say a lot about the TV ad industry’s failure to evolve with its viewing audience. If it does end up deploying the commercial skipping feature, it won’t be the first.

Last month, rival satellite TV provider Dish Network rolled out a “Hopper” DVR box that automatically skips through commercials on all recorded content. The company contends that people are already skipping through commercials, and that features like this give Dish an edge over competitors. The Hopper functionality prompted major broadcast networks Fox NBCUniversal, and CBS to file lawsuits against Dish, claiming that the company was now making illegal copies of programs. (Dish then filed a counter suit, asking judges to affirm its right to offer commercial skipping technology). Basically, it’s just the latest symptom revealing that the TV ad industry is sick — and on its way to a slow death if nothing changes.

White said DirecTV is monitoring Dish’s legal situation as it continues to evaluate whether or not to deploy its own commercial-skipping boxes.

Photo via scyther5 /Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

What if your ads watched you while you were watching them? Microsoft is set to debut its new motion-sensitive advertising project NUads next month, which the company says will revamp the TV ad industry by doing just that.

The company’s natural user-interface ads, or NUads, use Xbox Kinect’s motion sensing technology to transform TV commercials into something you can actively participate in with minimal effort. For instance, people can vote in real-time for a product or service by waving their hand, schedule a calendar reminder for an upcoming TV show, or say “Xbox Near Me” to see a map of locations for whatever retail store just advertised to them. Microsoft first showed off its NUads project at the Cannes International Advertising Festival last June.

“During the Super Bowl, you’re watching TV, some great ads pop up,” said Microsoft manager Lyn Watts in a recent Cnet report. “You say something like, ‘Xbox share,’ it’ll share automatically, on Facebook or Twitter, whatever you like. Advertisers are really impressed by this.”

Essentially, the NUads platform has the potential to start producing commercials that “watch you” while your watching them. In doing so, Microsoft thinks it can lure people away from DVR devices that permit skipping through the commercial breaks that play throughout a TV show. Satellite television service provider Dish Network is even making new DVR boxes (the appropriately named “Hopper” box)  that automatically “hops” through those commercials.

The NUads launch couldn’t have come at a better time for the broadcast television industry, which has recently spoken out about how traditional advertising is failing to keep up with audience behavior.

Monday, Chairman of NBC Broadcasting Ted Harbert said “we can no longer ignore time-shifting” within the business model to drive ad revenue. The problem with “time-shifted” (a.k.a. DVR) devices is that the industry doesn’t have enough control to make sure those commercials will play for an audience the way they do for live broadcasting. With NUads, there might be a compelling reason for people to watch commercials willingly and prevent them from skipping through.

NUads could replace Nielsen TV ratings

Harbert also criticized the industry’s standard for content ratings through Nielsen, saying  “We’re participating in many initiatives to try and crack the measurement code because we just can’t wait — and wait some more — for Nielsen to do it.” This puts Microsoft as well as its new NUads platform in the perfect position to step up.

Using the Kinect device, NUads have a far greater means of measuring how people react to a piece of content as well as advertising. It can detect a person’s facial expressions, record/sense audio reactions, and even transmit pieces of video. If done right, Microsoft developers could anonymize this kind of data through the Kinect SDK, and give them an incentive to make sense of this information for advertisers. Basically, a person’s unique private data wouldn’t be shared, but their collective reactions could be turned into important analytics. For example, a laundry detergent commercial that evokes an emotional response in the form of “aww” along with positive facial expressions — not, “Sally from 505 Nowhere Street laughed and cooed obnoxiously at the puppy.”

Microsoft’s Watts did, however, warn all developers to stay mindful of potential privacy intrusion features by adding disclosure statements when appropriate as well as knowing what you’ll do with the data before its collected.

Cnet’s report indicated the NUads interactive advertising platform will launch in late Spring. My guess is that Microsoft will probably coincide the launch with its Xbox announcements at the E3 event in June.

Update 5/17/2012: Microsoft reached out to VentureBeat in regards to the roll out of NUads, clarifying that it hasn’t made any announcement regarding Kinect’s ability to capture data from its users for ad targeting purposes.

The Kinect can capture user data, but Microsoft isn’t enabling this functionality right now. The company did, however, conduct an entire presentation at the PII conference discussing issues of privacy related to this kind of data capturing technology.

Microsoft’s statement to us is pasted below:

To be clear, the presentation at the PII conference did not announce targeted advertising features. The focus of the presentation was the future of advertising and the potential privacy issues managers at other companies must consider as technologies such as Kinect transform the industry. Microsoft takes the privacy of its consumers very seriously. Internally, Microsoft has strict policies in place that prohibit the collection, storage or use of Kinect data for the purpose of advertising.

Image via Microsoft

The resignation became final on Saturday March 16, though TiVo hasn’t officially released a statement on the news. Tom Rogers, TiVo chief executive officer, issued a statement to Deadline.com saying, ”We are extremely grateful to Jim for his years of dedication and his commitment to innovation that he has provided to TiVo since its founding. We are pleased that he will remain on in an advisory capacity and look forward to working with him in this new capacity in the future.”

TiVo spokesperson Jessica Loebig Monney was also quoted saying that, ”Jim is headed off to pursue his next ‘big idea,’” so perhaps he’s got something in the works.

Barton will become a consultant for the DVR company, receiving $25,000 per month for his services, according to the SEC filing.

Barton and co-founder Mike Ramsey incorporated TiVo in 1997 after launching at DEMO. A year later, trials of the service began in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the service officially launched to the public at the 1999 Consumer Electronics Show.

TiVo gained a lot of popularity in the early 2000s for its digital video recording (DVR) set-top boxes. TV viewers could record TV shows to watch later and fast forward through commercials. TiVo built its own software that will also record shows it thinks the viewer may enjoy. The original TiVo DVR digitized and compressed video from antenna, cable, and satellite broadcasts. The company later released a DVR that worked exclusively with satellite provider DirecTV, called the DirecTiVo.

Hat tip Deadline.com

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Aereo, the New York startup that is building a new system for streaming and recoding live TV, is countersuing the big TV networks that filed a lawsuit against it at the beginning of this month. The company, which is backed by local investors like First Round Capital and Barry Diller’s IAC, says that the courts have already ruled in favor of their technology, just not in this innovative new form.

Aereo allows anyone to rent a tiny antenna, about the size of a dime, that captures TV signals out of the air and streams them over the web. It also lets users record those shows and play them back anytime they like on any device. ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS and others have sued Aereo, saying that the service is rebroadcasting their programming without paying the appropriate licensing fees.

In a statement emailed to VentureBeat yesterday, Aereo highlights the legal history of the VCR and DVR in arguing its case:

This case involves nothing more than the application of settled law to updated technology — settled law that establishes conclusively that Aereo’s business is entirely lawful. Plantiff’s Complaints fails because Aereo merely provides technology that consumer may use to what they are legall entitled to do: (1) access free and legally accessible over the air television broadcasts using an antenna; (2) create individiual, unique recording of those broadcasts for personal use, see Sony Cor. of America vs Universal Studios, Inc, 464 U.S. 417 (1984); and (3) record and play back those unique recording utilizing a remotely-located digital video recorder (“DVR”) to personal devices, see Cartoon Network L.P. vs CSC Holdings Inc., 536 F.3d 121 (2nd Circ. 2008). 

The big studios have been fighting recording technology for decades, and technology companies, from Sony to Aereo, have been trying to find ways to improve the consumer experience. Barry Diller, who helped create Fox, USA and QVC, is no stranger to the world of television and not shy about getting into it with the traditional media companies. “It’s going to be a great fight,” Diller told the audience during a panel at SXSW.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Boxee may be planning to launch a new DVR subscription service aimed at users who’ve purchased its new Live TV stick, according to a new survey the company sent  to users over the weekend.

The Boxee Box is a streaming set-top box featuring Boxee’s open-source media software, which transforms televisions into internet connected media centers. The company launched its Live TV tuner stick back in January, which is a $49 add-on that acts as a high-powered HD antenna to give Boxee Box owners access to local channels like ABC, CBS, Fox, CW and NBC with no monthly fee. The stick currently doesn’t have any DVR capabilities and Boxee has openly discussed the possibility of adding it in the future.

If Boxee does launch a subscription based DVR service, it would likely extend beyond just the local free HD broadcast stations and include TV channels from cable and satellite services. The survey released this weekend indicates that the DVR subscription service could cost anywhere from $5 to $15 per month. Specifically, the survey asked owners of the new Live TV stick “How much would you be willing to pay for the ability to record 300 hours of TV.”

There are two very big factors that make me believe Boxee could followup its Live TV stick offering with a DVR subscription service. First of all, the company isn’t afraid to adjust its business strategy to create a successful and profitable product, which is why it’s ceased providing the Boxee software to PCs. Second, the company recently started asking its users to contact the FCC in regards to a rule change that would encrypt the free HD broadcast channels that allow its Live TV stick to provide live television to the Boxee Box.

Boxee is definitely interested in exploring the DVR space, but it’s unknown at this time whether it will move forward with a DVR subscription service.

[Via Gigaom]

Security camera maker Dropcam released its newest camera today, with new features to help you stalk your own house.

“Dropcam HD [is] a product that introduces quality hardware and intuitive user experience to a space that has missed it completely,” said Greg Duffy, Dropcam’s chief executive officer and co-founder, in a statement.

Dropcam lets you monitor your home from a wall-plug-in camera that can record up to 30 days of video without running into battery issues. The flagship camera connects to the Internet via a wireless connection and stores this video in the cloud, making it accessible through a DVR player or streaming. The company, which originally employed a third party to create its cameras, has taken on the process itself now and has added ways to not only watch your house, but interact with it from afar.

The new camera, Dropcam HD, has a totally new look to it. The lens is round, small and black in comparison to its clunkier, white forefather. The lens can fit in your palm, and comes with a removable stand. It’s power source is still a wall plug, which is inconvenient for ceiling fixtures, but at least the camera should never die on you in the middle of the day.

Before, the camera could pick up audio and movement, but now it can also pick up light change and can toggle between a night vision and daylight. The camera also lets you zoom in from afar. Some may find this more useful if they want to zoom in on a particular door, or keep an eye on the jewelry box. The weirdest, but perhaps best feature, however, is the new two-way audio.

Robbers in your house? No big deal, just yell “GOTCHA, PUNK!” That would be my choice, at least.

Dropcam was founded in 2009 and has raised $5.8 million from Accel Partners and a number of angel investors including Bradley Horowitz. The camera is priced at $149 and is available for pre-order.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Satellite provider Dish Network might unveil a broadband satellite service and a new home DVR solution called the “Hopper” at CES Monday, according to leaked reports.

The Hopper DVR will work across multiple rooms, allowing you to stop a show in one part of your house, and pick up where you left off in another. It will have three tuners: the 2 terabyte main unit acts as a server, and two extender units, called “Joeys,” stream recorded content to other sets in the home.

In addition to a revamped user interface, the Hopper will have a feature called PrimeTime Anywhere that can automatically record primetime programing on ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox.There’s a placeholder set up for the Hopper on Dish’s website, that touts a “Whole new animal in whole-home entertainment.”

Dish’s new broadband satellite service would serve 8 million customers, mostly in overlooked markets currently lacking broadband or fiber optic coverage.

The DVR rumors first surfaced when blogger Dave Zatz wrote about an article that appeared on TWICE early, before being removed. The broadband details were in an article in the January issue of Dealerscope magazine, which has also been yanked.

Zatz also says Dish will announce a rebranding effort at CES, dropping the “Network” from its name and getting a new logo.

Dish’s CES press conference is scheduled for Monday, Jan 9.

Via the Verge

Kangaroo thumbnail via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

AT&T is getting into a bad habit of paying out millions of dollars just to continue operating various parts of its business.

AT&T will pay digital video recording service TiVo a total of $215 million over the next seven years to settle patent disputes, TiVo announced yesterday. TiVo first filed a lawsuit against the telcom giant in 2009 after accusing AT&T of infringing on its DVR patents.

As part of the settlement, AT&T will pay an initial $51 million upfront, and an estimated total of $164 in quarterly payments there after. However, those quarterly payments could grow larger if its number of DVR subscribers exceeds a certain number of subscribers.

In addition to the TiVo settlement fees, AT&T is also paying out a $3 billion breakup fee to T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom (one of the highest break-up fees ever) after failing in their bid to acquire the wireless carrier.

As for TiVo, the settlement represents an important source of revenue in spite of the company’s dismal efforts to add new customers to its DVR service. In July, the company made similar deals with Dish Network, which gave TiVo $500 million to settle disputes over patents with Dish’s Echostar service.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

MediaMall, the company behind the popular PlayOn video streaming service, is today launching a new service, PlayLater, that lets you download streaming video from any website to view later. Yes, it’s effectively a DVR for online video.

PlayLater seems like the perfect solution for Web video addicts who travel with their computer and aren’t always on a reliable Internet connection. But as with PlayOn, the service is basically a hack, so there’s always a chance that particular channels of content could stop working without warning.

PlayLater includes access to online video from TV networks like CBS, TBS, and SyFy, and it also hooks into Hulu, Netflix and YouTube. The service is simple to use — so much so that it’s easier to navigate than most Web video sites. Simply choose a channel, locate a program and select a particular episode to download. PlayLater will download the episode in the background, and all you have to do afterwards is hit play. It appears to download video in in real-time, so don’t expect BitTorrent speeds. (If it downloaded video faster, you can be sure Web video sites would quickly ban the service.)

At the moment, PlayLater only works on Windows PCs. And don’t expect to easily share downloaded video, as PlayLater’s videos are only viewable on the computer they were downloaded on. You can also view downloaded videos on your iPhone and iPad by going through MediaMall’s PlayOn service, which streams the files from your computer. The service will cost $4.99 a month or $49.99 per year. Signing up for the beta will snag you a free month of service.

In my brief testing, PlayLater appears to be well designed and organized. I downloaded an episode of How I Met Your Mother (watch it, seriously) from CBS and it played without issue. Quality-wise, it looked about the same as it does online, with the occasional added blockiness.

The DVR set-top boxes can consume as much as 446 kilowatt-hours a year. The boxes are typically running because they are recording television shows while the owner is away from their home. There is at least one set-top box for every two television owners, according to the study.

An average home in the United States consumes around 10,896 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. That means that the set-top box, which sits inconspicuously on top of most televisions without generating any noise, accounts for around 4 percent of an average U.S. resident’s electricity consumption. The device is usually running full steam, even though it is left unused around 66 percent of the time, according to the report.

That idle time costs consumers around $2 billion every year, according to the report.

More energy-efficient options are available, although not from U.S. manufacturers, according to the report. A U.K. manufacturer has created a set-top box that powers down into sleep mode — reducing its electricity consumption by half — when the device is not in use. The device powers up briefly every half hour to check if the owner has requested a new show to record through a smartphone, and then powers back down if it doesn’t have to record anything.

The report also suggests that manufacturers create more intelligent ways to program and use the set-top boxes — such as using smartphones to manage the devices instead of leaving them on all the time. It would tie set-top boxes into the “smart grid” — an electrical power grid that is managed by advanced computer algorithms to promote better energy efficiency and reduce electricity waste.

The report indicates that Energy Star, a government-backed program that encourages manufacturers to create energy-efficient appliances, should drop the hammer on cable companies that are distributing the set-top boxes. The next phase of the program, Energy Star 4.0, will have much stricter standards for energy efficiency.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

After five years of legal back and forth, Dish Network and its former parent company EchoStar have settled their ongoing litigation with digital video recording (DVR) company Tivo that centered on Dish’s DVR implementation, for $500 million.

Now that the dust has settled, the news means we may end up seeing Tivo technology in Dish’s DVR boxes (which are sorely in need of an update).

In addition to netting Tivo a healthy lump of cash, the settlement also grants Dish and EchoStar licenses for Tivo’s Time Warp patent, which is the heart of the company’s DVR technology. Additionally, EchoStar has granted Tivo a license for “certain DVR-related patents for TiVo-branded, co-branded and ingredient-branded products.” Tivo will also help Dish promote its Blockbuster video streaming service, following Dish’s Blockbuster purchase in early April.

Tivo will receive an upfront $300 million payment in cash from Dish and EchoStar, and the remaining $200 million will be paid out between 2012 and 2017. Tivo still has litigation up in the air with AT&T, Verizon and Microsoft over their DVR implementations.

As ZDNet points out, the settlement isn’t a huge win for Tivo, as the company has lost money every fiscal year (except for 2009 when it landed $200 million in damages from EchoStar). Tivo could have locked in future revenue with recurring licensing fees, but that doesn’t appear to be part of the current deal. Dish’s Blockbuster buy may have convinced Tivo to play nice with the company, and I suspect Tivo will fight for recurring licensing fees with AT&T, Microsoft and Verizon.

Photo via Phing on Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Michael Robertson, who already participated in one reinvention of the music business by founding MP3.com, is launching a new way to listen to talk radio and music.

His startup is called DAR.fm (DAR stands for “digital audio recorder”) and he demonstrated on-stage at the Launch conference in San Francisco today. Robertson compared the new service to what DVR does for television. Just as DVR lets you record many TV shows at any time, he said DAR.fm will allow you to record the radio shows that you care about.

The service browses radio stations that already broadcast their content online and lets you search that content by station or by show. Then you just select the shows that you want to hear, hit “record”, and at the appointed time DAR.fm makes the recording for you. DAR.fm allows you to listen to the recording when you want, either in your Web browser or on applications for iPhone, Android, and other phones.

It isn’t just a single, undigested recording either — Robertson showed that if you recorded a music station, DAR.fm would allow you to navigate between each song. In other words, it’s Internet radio with control that you won’t find in an application like Pandora. (Pandora, by the way, may be adding talk radio features in the future.)

But aren’t there legal issues with these recordings? Robertson said there’s legal precedent in the cable industry, with court cases protecting the right to make these recordings as long as viewers hit the record button, even if it’s a virtual record button hosted on a company’s servers.

Still, Robertson did close his presentation with a little speech about how the music industry hasn’t changed. Or at least the legal departments haven’t — they still want to sue everyone. (MP3.com was one of the first companies sued by the record industry.) Robertson said he’s hopeful that there will finally be some changes as CD sales “crater”.

“I swore to myself I’m not going to do another digital music thing, and here I am,” he said, turning to conference organizer Jason Calacanis and adding, “Thanks, Jason.”

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

All of a sudden, the Apple TV seems a lot less appealing. Confirming our report from yesterday, Roku just announced that its video streaming set-top boxes will have access to Hulu Plus this fall.

Additionally, Hulu announced that it will be bringing Hulu Plus to Tivo Premiere digital video recorders.

The announcements are great news for all the companies involved, as well as consumers. Roku just recently announced a new line of set-top boxes, which start at $59.99 and support high-definition video across the board. The addition of the $9.99-a-month Hulu Plus service make Roku’s boxes even more compelling — especially when compared to the $99 Apple TV, which doesn’t have Hulu access yet. Hulu Plus may not be a huge draw for Tivo’s expensive Premiere boxes, but for existing customers it will certainly be welcome.

Hulu is clearly taking the Netflix approach by bringing Hulu Plus to as many devices as possible, but it remains to be seen if it will find the same amount of success. Hulu Plus offers users access to a deeper catalog of Hulu content, including entire seasons of popular shows like Glee and The Office. Hulu still offers new episodes of shows for free for a limited period, which may be all many users need.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

If you’re excited about Google TV, you owe it to yourself to watch this video demo which gives us the most polished look at the service yet. Specifically, it shows off how seamless Google’s universal search is and how Google TV integrates into a Dish Network digital video recorder. It was recorded by the blog Stuff We Like at San Diego’s Comic-Con last month.

Universal Search was one of the more intriguing elements of Google TV when it was first shown off. It allows users to search for live TV, online content, and DVR content all from one convenient search box. In the video, the representative shows how easy it is to search for a YouTube video, move to a DVR video, play some live TV, and then view a video podcast. The YouTube demo, in particular, was interesting because it was the first time I’ve seen Google TV running 720p high-definition video in full screen. It appears to play flawlessly.

Alternatively, the Google TV home screen offers up a variety of ways to get at content. It houses bookmarks for web pages (in a format resembling the Google Chrome new tab page), applications (it showed Pandora and Netflix), and something called the “Queue”, which compiles audio and video podcasts, as well as DVR content, in a single easy-to-consume list. There’s also a recommended podcast screen that will make it easy for users to find new shows.

Logitech expects to release its Google TV set-top box, the Revue, in the coming months. We’re still waiting for word on other Google TV devices, including when we’ll see it integrated in actual Dish Network boxes.

Check out the video below:

via Engadget