

Google acquires SageTV - andreyf
http://www.sagetv.com/index.html

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zdw
I, for one, would love for Google to make a serious DVR.

In that space, you basically have two DRM enabled players (Microsoft and TiVo)
who sell hardware/software that can be used with any cable provider for pay
channels, and a variety of 3rd parties that don't have DRM support and thus
have to resort to hacky methods like IR control, reencoding from analog, etc.

If Google could turn their GoogleTV into a DVR, and give it some
new/interesting features (Streaming ala Slingbox to Android?) beyond the
social stuff they're trying now, it could be a hit.

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mikeryan
Right now its virtually impossible to create an HD DVR without DRM support.
The only way to do it economically is via a cable card, the cheapest HD on the
fly encoder I've seen is around $1000.

For GoogleTV to really take off they need to bring the price _down_ at around
$300 its way too expensive.

~~~
fryguy
Didn't the Hauppauge HD PVR do that like 5 years ago for $250?

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erik_p
I think you're right... as someone who was very much involved in the whole diy
pvr scene, I was pining away for that card to come out (That hauppauge card
was even the last "news" post on my site byopvr.com).

By the time the card did come out, I no longer cared. I hate DRM with a
passion, but it seems I wanted to spend less time screwing with HTPC and more
time enjoying content. A PS3 and netflix streaming serves the need for me
nicely, along with _cough_ usenet _cough_ ;) for HD content.

I haven't seen it in ages, but I used to really like SageTV's UI, so maybe
GoogleTV will get a better interface out of this...

~~~
fryguy
That's the avenue I came up with as well. I hated running out of hard disk
space, and the HD PVR kept overheating and not recording stuff. Of course, I
kept the htpc, but moved to netflix and _cough_.

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runjake
I used to have a SageTV DVR, back in the days of analog cable in the USA. It
mostly worked pretty well, and had a good UX.

It is (was) written in Java (but was responsive and nice to look at), so I
imagine this is pretty attractive to Google.

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jamesgagan
off topic, but i find i often go right to the comments on HN because there's
more insight to be found than in the articles themselves and i can get the
gist of the article from the comments. i wonder what value there might be in
mining the discussion to determine the meaning of the stories?

~~~
ljlolel
I do this too. Also, the comments don't have ads and the page loads much
faster.

I think it'd be a great idea to mine the meaning of stories from the article.
It might be similar to what Yelp does with their reviews and summaries of
what's good about a restaurant.

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CraigRood
Most of the problems associated with DVRs are the ties with carriers. Think
outside the box guys, think about what a phone was then (hint: just a phone)
and what they are now, pocket computers. I believe this is what will happen to
DVRs. You will soon forget that they where just tied to specific providers, be
it cable or sat. In the future ou will have a DVR thousands of internet
streams, apps, downloads, on demands, whatevers (Heck, we are getting close to
this now with Boxee, Rokus, etc).

One thing I hope that doesn't change too much is the current discovery model
(Streams of curated channels pumped into the box). A lot of what is watched on
TV is through channel flipping, and 'discovering' content that you would not
other wise watch if it was purely on demand.

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yoavfr
Yahoo also bought a PVR/Media center software once... Anyone remembers Meedio?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meedio>

