Patent Office upholds Tivo's "time warp" patent, EchoStar not so happy
- Thread starter Scott Greczkowski
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I have also heard that Dish has a software fix which then can put into place on the older DVR's. Again I currently don't see this being an issue.
Of course if what I am hearing is wrong then... THE SKY IS FALLING.
Worry not friends. Tonight's Weather Forecast is Mostly Dark, tommorow morning a chance of brightness.
Of course if what I am hearing is wrong then... THE SKY IS FALLING.
Worry not friends. Tonight's Weather Forecast is Mostly Dark, tommorow morning a chance of brightness.
Dish will work there way out of this as they always have. Dish is not stupid and as Hall pointed out still has options. I am SURE Dish isnt going to say, aww crap well we lost lets take our satellites and go home, nope they will be here to play in this game for awhile, this game and the HD game. They arent just sitting back drinking corona's on a beach somewhere, I am sure they are getting plans together to STAY competitive.
Yep, as we keep saying, Charlie enjoys playing high stakes poker. He has lost a couple of big pots recently.
Read the article. This isn't over yet, as the court of appeals still needs to hear it and rule. However, the price to settle just went way up. A year ago, he could have bought TIVO for next to nothing.
I won't say that the DVRs won't be turned off, but I bet they will be turned back on within weeks. It is the same situation as distant networks, OLN/Versus, and Speedvision (the older members will remember), not to mention various LiL stations. He will play hardball, but will eventually settle and this will all die down. It always does.
Tivo already has software to work on the Motorola platform on Comcast systems. Comcast already started rolling it out slowly. So, I would guess that Tivo has a similar agreement with Moto and Comcast that they have with D*.
My understanding is that the 622 and 722 aren't mentioned in the suit because they did not yet exist. I am pretty sure they use the same "technology" as the 522 and 625.
you hit it on the head, the price just changed a bit, and also I want to point out that while the DIstants didnt work out like many expected, charlie still had an ace up his sleeve with the selling distants through someone else (or whatever it was.)
If E* is forced to shut off the recording capabilities of the 50x series DVRs then I will be getting nothing but grief as soon as it happens. My wife is the only one still using our 508 and she is already upset over the recent NBR upgrades.
On second thought, this may not be a bad thing. I have been trying to convince her that we should upgrade that thing and get a second 622 anyway. This might be just the excuse we need!
On second thought, this may not be a bad thing. I have been trying to convince her that we should upgrade that thing and get a second 622 anyway. This might be just the excuse we need!
If what Scott wrote is true, then this could be the excuse I need to convince my wife we need to upgrade to a 722.
Since the suit is against a hardware technology- how would a move to split the companies affect any shut down.
Scenario-
I buy an independent cable modem for subscribing to Comcast Broadband. Comcast doesn't own it and doesn't own the company that makes it. A court finds that the modem violated some patent. Can the court order Comcast to shut off a service to that Modem costing them my business? Now if Comcast owned the company or developed the Cable modem on their own internally and lost a patent suit, the court could definitely order them to shut me down.
Just speculating out loud.
BTW- I have the Tivo too and the 622. The 622 works for me just as well as the Tivo WRT the UI. Frankly, if Dish buys out Tivo, I would hope they make the Tivo software optional or make it only available on some different hardware. Just because the Tivo works well on their own box doesn't mean it will work well on the 622. For starters, what about the ext USB hard drive. I'd hate to give that feature up just to use TIVO.
Either way, there is never a dull moment in the life of a Home theater Enthusiast.
So this weekend, I was planning to call D* and cancel my account altogether as I haven't watched them in months and still pay $53 for the service. Ugh! now I don't know if I should maintain it and get upgraded to MP4 or just sit tight. I really dread upgrade path to D* until their DVR hardware gets better reviews.
PS- I don't watch any live TV anymore. Everything is time shifted so I won't stay with E* if they lose this battle and try to work without DVR technology.
Scenario-
I buy an independent cable modem for subscribing to Comcast Broadband. Comcast doesn't own it and doesn't own the company that makes it. A court finds that the modem violated some patent. Can the court order Comcast to shut off a service to that Modem costing them my business? Now if Comcast owned the company or developed the Cable modem on their own internally and lost a patent suit, the court could definitely order them to shut me down.
Just speculating out loud.
BTW- I have the Tivo too and the 622. The 622 works for me just as well as the Tivo WRT the UI. Frankly, if Dish buys out Tivo, I would hope they make the Tivo software optional or make it only available on some different hardware. Just because the Tivo works well on their own box doesn't mean it will work well on the 622. For starters, what about the ext USB hard drive. I'd hate to give that feature up just to use TIVO.
Either way, there is never a dull moment in the life of a Home theater Enthusiast.
So this weekend, I was planning to call D* and cancel my account altogether as I haven't watched them in months and still pay $53 for the service. Ugh! now I don't know if I should maintain it and get upgraded to MP4 or just sit tight. I really dread upgrade path to D* until their DVR hardware gets better reviews.
PS- I don't watch any live TV anymore. Everything is time shifted so I won't stay with E* if they lose this battle and try to work without DVR technology.
How much bandwith would be freed up if all programming went to MPG4? Replacing all the old receivers could be cheaper than a new bird.
Tivo was worth about $732.20M at the end of trading today. So, that means they will ask for $1-2B from E*.
BTW For everyones FYI Comcast also has an agreement with Tivo, infact they are now installing Tivo DVR's in the north east, and soon coming to a comcast office near you!
Here is the article
Here is the article
The issue of the patent infringement is where you can "skip forward" and "skip back", or as it's specifically called in the lawsuit, "time warp". This feature is software controlled. So it could be worked around or re-engineered to work differently. If I were Charlie, I would have had my engineers working on this months ago to get ready in the event that we lost the suit. It should simply require a software overhaul.
Ummm, as a former LEGITIMATE distant network subscriber who got turned off and then got a piss poor consolation prize of very poor feeds of Altanta and San Francisco distants, I'd call the outcome not so good. After weeks of waiting for All American to deliver a watchable, much less even stable picture, I dropped the distants and then E* all together. If Charlie hadn't played fast and loose with the DNS qualifications, E* would of not been sued, found guilty and sanctioned to be forbidden from offering DNS to anyone at anytime. Don't believe for a second that this egotistical maniac won't do the sam thing to your DVR's. Many, many argued that DNS would never be taken away either.
