First the patent infringement has nothing to do with HDTV at all, but the use of Tivo's patented "Multimedia time warping system" as described in these two pages:
www.taletyano.com
www.freepatentsonline.com
A multimedia time warping system. The invention allows the user to store selected television broadcast programs while the user is simultaneously watching or reviewing another program. A preferred embodiment of the invention accepts television (TV) input streams in a multitude of forms, for example, National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) or PAL broadcast, and digital forms such as Digital Satellite System (DSS), Digital Broadcast Services (DBS), or Advanced Television Standards Committee (ATSC). The TV streams are converted to an Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) formatted stream for internal transfer and manipulation and are parsed and separated it into video and audio components. The components are stored in temporary buffers. Events are recorded that indicate the type of component that has been found, where it is located, and when it occurred. The program logic is notified that an event has occurred and the data is extracted from the buffers. The parser and event buffer decouple the CPU from having to parse the MPEG stream and from the real time nature of the data streams which allows for slower CPU and bus speeds and translate to lower system costs. The video and audio components are stored on a storage device and when the program is requested for display, the video and audio components are extracted from the storage device and reassembled into an MPEG stream which is sent to a decoder. The decoder converts the MPEG stream into TV output signals and delivers the TV output signals to a TV receiver. User control commands are accepted and sent through the system. These commands affect the flow of said MPEG stream and allow the user to view stored programs with at least the following functions: reverse, fast forward, play, pause, index, fast/slow reverse play, and fast/slow play.
[Some] Other DVR makers have been utilizing a different approach and only being able to use a single tuner on a single stream (dual tuners utilize this twice) that directly access that same stream that is being recorded, and not buffered. This is one of the sticking points many SA users have complained about - when trying to view a current recording, it brings you in at the live point in the same stream and summarily ends as the recording does and kicks you to live viewing. Recent developments in DVR technlogy have enabled SA to start at the beginning of that same stream without infringing on this specific Tivo patent.
DirecTV tried to implement their own approach, but long after the patents were given and have used similar technology to Tivo, that could be envisioned as a patent infringement. Rather than going through a court battle and possibly losing, like Echostar has, DirecTV made an agreement with Tivo that puts them in a situation where they will not get sued over patent rights.
Make no mistake, Echostar did lose the lawsuit many months ago. What they have been doing is trying to delay the proceedings as long as possible. What Tivo just did was to bring that fact back up to the courts and get a 30 day ruling to get things moving. Echostar was able to get a "TEMPORARY BLOCK ON THE INJUNCTION" to buy some time and to keep selling equipment. This does not mean they won any court battle, just delayed the injunction.
