Audio Video News

TiVo's stand-alone digital video recorders (DVRs) may not have taken the market by storm, but the core technology—a hard-disk recorder—has begun to appear in a range of new products now on the market or to be introduced soon.

On Wednesday, November 13, Toshiba announced that it would incorporate TiVo technology in a combination video recorder/DVD player to be released some time next year. The combo player will let consumers record TV shows and play DVDs on the same machine.

"I don't know if they will be bigger than DVDs or VCRs, but digital videorecorders will be a very important core technology" said Yoshi Uchiyama, vice president of strategic business development for Toshiba America Consumer Products, in announcing the TiVo-Toshiba alliance.

The Toshiba player will join Thomson Multimedia SA's RCA Scenium "Digital Media Recorder," a $599 DVD/DVR combo that plays DVDs and CDs, and allows TV fans to record their favorite shows. Satellite TV service DirecTV makes a receiver with a built-in TiVo DVR; rival EchoStar has a $299 combo receiver/recorder with 60-hour capacity, and another selling for $549 that holds 90 hours of recordings.

DVRs offer unprecedented recording quality, as well as the ability to skip commercials, but no way to permanently archive the recordings. The practical limitation is the hard disk's capacity—when it is full, it must be partially erased to make room for new recordings. Some DVRs allow the export of recorded programs onto VHS tape, but at present won't allow digital transfers, because of entertainment industry fears about piracy. It's unclear whether future combination DVR/DVD players/recorders will let consumers archive their recordings onto recordable DVDs.

Both TiVo and rival SonicBlue, maker of ReplayTV devices, have struggled to win customers. The incorporation of their technology in more versatile, user-friendly devices may be the key to their survival.