really stupid question

[Lkr]

what exactly is the patent E* is infringing on according to TiVo? The DVR concept in general? In that case, why isn't D* in trouble? These are probably really dumb questions, but I am confused.

 

[navychop]

DirecTV knuckled under and paid Tivo a licensing fee. They're sort of subsidizing the lawsuit against Echostar.

And remember- Replay had a DVR on the market before Tivo, so Tivo's claims seem, shall we say, "a bit thin."

 

[Lkr]

So other companies pay TiVo a fee? That is a bit ridiculous. I guess I'll have to side with E* for once :O

 

[TNGTony]

It's not the DVR concept that TiVo is suing over. It's a specific software process. Essentially

Stupid analogy time:
TiVo patented the process of using a hammer to stike a nail in order to fasten things together. As long as you don't use a hammer to drive nails you can build anything you want. But... if you make a staple gun that uses a striking mechanism to drive the staple, TiVo might sue you because a staple gun uses the concept of stiking a double nail and therefore infringes on their patent.

TiVo has expanded their legal terrorism. Hopefully the patent office will pull their head out of their proverbial asses and vacate the patent!

See ya
Tony

 

[JimK2]

One is the so called "media switch", a hardware bi-directional 3 port data switch which pipes data directly to and from the Hard Disk Drive bi-passing the CPU lowering the cost of a digital dvr by up to 50% by being able to use a much slower speed lower cost cpu.

 

[reddice]

Great analogy TNGTony.
I had a TiVo when I had DirecTV for a year and hated it for many reasons. I always liked Dish DVR's better. Never tried cable DVR's so I don't know how they are.

 

[crimpshrine]

Never tried cable DVR's so I don't know how they are.

You would hate them even worse than the Tivo DVR. I had a cable DVR before joining Dish and when I made the switch, the Dish DVR was like a breath of fresh air. I would hate to go back to a cable DVR..:down