<B>EchoStar Infringed On TiVo's Patents, Court Rules</B><BR>
EchoStar, which operates DISH Network's satellite TV service, was ruled by a federal district in Texas to have infringed on several patents held by TiVo, and ordered to halt the use of the bulk of the DVRs its subscribers use. A subsequent injunction blocked the order, which would have affected millions of EchoStar's subscribers.

<B><I>M:I3</I> Hitting Stores In Three Formats</B>
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On October 30th Paramount will release the Tom Cruise blockbuster <I>Mission: Impossible 3</I> on not one but three separate formats- DVD and the competing Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD high-def formats. While retailers certainly aren't enthused to be carrying triple inventory, this is unequivocally the highest profile release on either of the rivaling next-gen HD formats.

In these TiVo-centric times it's tough for advertisers to figure out how to get their expensive to produce and place commercial messages in front of people. The burgeoning DVR market allows more and more users to not only time shift their content, but to zip right past those commercials the advertisers have paid millions of dollars to place on your favorite show. While the TV networks keep coming up with studies showing that their customers' ads are still buying them some impact with the DVR- generation, a recent survey from DIGDIA shows viewers would pay more for on-demand movie content to avoid commercials entirely.

On July 17th is was announced that Movielink and Sonic Solutions have teamed up to allow users of the <a href="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/news/040606industrynews/index.html">Mo... VOD (Video-On-Demand) service to burn downloaded movies onto DVDs that will playback in standard DVD players when the download has been <I>authorized by for use by content providers</I>. In somewhat related news, Warner Bros agreed (like everyone else) to sell its shows on Apple's iTunes Music Store for $1.99 per episode.