Whenever you think of a DVR you automatically think of a grey box sitting in your front room hooked up to your TV. But digital video recorders are aren't just restricted to the living room, for example those sturdy surveillance DVRs.
But according to All DVR News Fast Forward Video Inc, a company that specializes in DVR technology for broadcast, industrial video, presentation, and military applications, has announced its Outrider CF DVR.
This DVR fits into the helmet of a SuperCross racer and is used for used for on-body recording while fitted with a camera, and has been worn by Ryan Clark.
Now this is cool! Control electronic devices in your house from the comfort of your couch using a TiVo remote control. That means you can now annoy other family members by turning off their lights from the comfort of your couch!
Once you have Homeseer installed there seems to be no limit on what devices can be controlled. If its got a button, a setting, a switch or anything like that then its likely that you could control it from your TiVo.
Check out the Vista-ready OMS-GX300 Media Center from Okoro Media Systems. This beast of a media center will set you back $4,995 but includes some mouth watering specs:
A silver and sleek SilverStone LC18 case which comes with a little 7" Touch Screen display featuring a 15:9 wide display with HDTV transcoder for 720p
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 quad-core processor
2GB of Crucial's Ballistix memory
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card
1TB of hard drive space (2x 500GB) – can be upgraded to 2TB.
16x Dual-Layer +-RW DVD Writer
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX PCIE 768MB HDTV & HDCP
Saber 2020 TV Tuners with hardware MPEG-2 encoder.
PCI Over-The-Air HDTV Tuner
Optional USB HDTV Tuner
Microsoft Media Center Remote Control w/ IR Blaster
Snapstream Firefly Remote Control
You may be thinking this is a little over the top for a Media Center PC unless you want to do gaming. But as CrunchGear points out, a great feature of Vista is that it works seamlessly with the Xbox 360 controller making living room gaming from the couch much more appealing.
The new TiVX 5010-P HD TV recorder is one unique and sleek PVR from DViCO. To start off this futuristic grey cylinder does not contain an internal hard drive but requires you to add your own external one via a USB port.
I actually quite like the option of being able to add my own external hard drives as it makes for easy upgrades. But wait there's more; this HD TV recorder is more than just a weird looking PVR, it's also a media extender.
It can record videos in 1920 x 1080 resolution and stream files to and from a PC in a variety of video formats including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, (VOB, ISO and IFO), AVI, TP, WMV9. It can also send pictures and movies around the house too. Other features include:
An Electronic Program Guide to use on your TV
ATSC hi-def television tuner
DVI, component, S-Video and composite video outs
2x USB 2.0 ports for adding external disk drives
A third USB port for other storage devices (e.g digital camera, MP3 player)
fixed 10/100Mbps Ethernet or 802.11b/g WiFi
It is currently being launched in Korea and will cost $352. There is no word on releases in other territories, but hopefully there will be.
Anyone who reads this site most likely understands and appreciates the many features of a PVR: pausing, commercial skipping, program guide, etc. Well a fella in Salt Lake City has found a new, and somewhat ingenious use for his PVR.
Matthew T. Jarman hopes to be able to build a system that actually censors the language in programs that you are watching through the use of the closed captioning text. When it finds a word that you 'blacklist', the PVR will mute the audio for the duration of the word.
Other uses for the PVR will include the ability to lock out programs or channels depending on any number of things like title, rating, station, etc. As pointed out in his patent papers, this would be more versatile than the current V-Chip (does any one actually use theirs?) since you will be able to use your own discretion when it comes to blocking different shows with the same ratings.
Although I know I would have no intention of buying one of these, it could potentially be great for public places that have TVs (e.g. waiting rooms, store fronts, etc).
SageTV, the popular provider of PC PVR software, has announced support for AMD LIVE! Home Cinema And Home Media Server.
An AMD LIVE! PC is much like a Windows Media Center PC offering a complete solution for video, music and photo access through an easy to use interface. With SageTV an AMD LIVE! Home Cinema will also provide the popular complete PVR functionality from SageTV too.
STMicroelectronics has announced its Dual HD Chip, the STi7200. This is the worlds first Dual HDTV Decoder Chip to be manufactured in 65nm Technology which means it can offer lower power consumption and competitive pricing.
The STi7200 chip supports HD inputs from HD DVD and Blu-ray formats, as well as high-definition satellite and cable TV standards. The chip is designed to be used in set top boxes, PVRs, and DVD electronics.
It will basically allow you to watch HD material on two TV sets, one channel in high definition and the other downscaled on-chip to standard definition. This means you can have a single HD PVR for two TVs.
The STi7200 Dual HD chip will be available to consumer electronics manufacturers and priced at $30 in high volume.
The Trinion L7 is a well packed Home Theater PC (HTPC) with a nifty 800 x 480 resolution touch-screen LCD monitor that can be controlled by an IR remote. It features easy playback of DVDs, photos, TV episodes etc and can even launch games and office applications from the LCD screen itself.
Features of this sleek looking HTPC include:
A silver chassis
1.66GHz Intel T5500 processor
1GB of DDR2 RAM
250GB hard drive
8-channel onboard audio
Gigabit Ethernet
Combo drive
Windows XP Media Center Edition
Front-panel flash card readers
USB / FireWire connectors
Audio in / out ports
The Trinion L7 should be available in South Korea sometime soon although no release details are available.
The CM Media 280 is a Home Theatre PC (HTPC) case with a difference. While being a very capable housing that can support the innards of a pretty brawny HTPC, it also allows you to switch between tower and desktop styles.
The CM Media 280 comes with two different style front bezels for the case which can easily be removed to give you either a tower or desktop setup.
While it's a very nice option it's probably not that useful in real life. How many times to you feel the need to change from a desktop to a tower setup? You either buy a desktop case or a tower case depending on which will be suitable.
In addition to the ability to switch between a tower or desktop setup the aluminum CM Media 280 also features:
An interior capable of supporting have full-length cards such as NVIDIA SLI or ATI CrossFire configurations
Holds up to five Hard Drives
Compatible with RAID configuration
Removable Hard Drive cage
One soft closing and dual hidden optical 5.25″ drive bay
NDS is the company that is majority owned by NewsCorp and previously replaced TiVo to create the DirecTV PVRs. While these PVRs have not had the best of times, NDS has today announced some very innovative IPTV products.
The first is what NDS call the "Distributed DVR" which allows users to use hard drives from anywhere on a home network instead of being restricted to a hard drive on a single PVR. This itself is brilliant and will give users a lot more freedom when it comes to storing content.
The second is ShareTV where users can share content stored on their PVRS with other subscribers over a P2P network making the world's first Peer to Peer PVR (from what I'm aware of).
It sounds like the recordings will be protected by DRM and only available to other subscribers to the IPTV service, but it does sound like you will be able to download TV shows that you haven't even recorded.
This effectively allows you to get huge libraries of videos and TV shows, which you can then store anywhere on your home network. I very much like the sound of this.
I wonder if this will end up being rolled out as a DirecTV service given the close ties NDS has with DirecTV already.
While many TV companies are attacking new technology and seeing it as a threat, CBS seems to be one company that is beginning to stand out as making the most out of new technology for promotion.
CBS recently received press coverage for signing a deal with YouTube to allow some of its content to be legally shown on YouTube. CBS was subsequently happy with the increased promotion for its shows.
Now CBS has cut a deal with TiVo to actually encourage TiVo users to record its shows. That's pretty extreme considering most TV networks cringe at the idea of having their programs recorded and the adverts skipped.
From February 6th TiVo will embed interactive tags for two weeks to encourage TiVo users to record CBS' entire new Monday-night lineup. In addition to this TiVo users can view sneak previews of new CBS comedy Rules of Engagement and crime drama Criminal Minds.
We've all got pretty used to using a PVR to time shift, fast forward and rewind TV but we've never really done it with radio. We've seen PVR radio functionality on PCs but the place where we really love to listen to radio is in our cars.
Now the European Space Agency (ESA) will be bringing PVR functionality to in-car radios. It will store recorded audio most likely on a solid state flash memory which can withstand the bumpy rides in your car, like when you might accidentally run over Celine Dion for example.
The ESA will be using a new satellite radio system that will require little changes to your car in order to receive it, while also allowing for PVR functionality. The satellite radio system will differ from existing satellite systems in that it will be a lot cheaper.
But would anyone actually use it? I'm not sure I would, especially in the days of podcasts.
For many people a TiVo box has pride of place in the living room, but I don't think it crossed many peoples minds to stick a TiVo in the bathroom.
RotoRooter is giving you the chance to turn your toilet into a luxury lazy man throne making it more of an entertainment center than the average household's living room.
Included in the Entertainment Toilet Center setup is an Xbox 360, flat screen TV, laptop, a baseline resistive pedal exerciser, beer fridge with beer tap, iPod dock with toilet roll holder, DVD Player, a Series 2 TiVo, and a comfortable toilet seat.
With all that in there you thought they would have included a Series 3 TiVo and not a Series 2!
A user in the TiVo Community forum stated that upon contacting Time Warner the company said that you cannot use a TiVo with Time Warner Cable.
You might remember back when the Series 3 was launched how difficult cable companies were trying to make it so that for users to use a TiVo Series 3 with their service. In fact Time Warner first of all refused outright to use the Series 3 TiVo with their service before later changing its mind.
If your Cable Company says they don't support TiVo then you might like to remind them that it is an FCC regulation to provide CableCards for TiVo.
If anyone else has been having these problems with Cable companies please let us know.
Everyone likes to customize their PC with some pictures and themes, if its not a picture of some hot girl or a desert island on your desktop, it's a load of fishes swimming around on your screensaver.
The Snapstream community has created a nice set of skins for the BeyondTV PVR interface meaning your TV experience can now be that little more personalized too.
A selection of the skins available can be seen here including dolphin, desert island and pirate themes. Installing a skin is easy and requires simply replacing one file in the BeyondTV directory.
Anyone fancy making a PVR Wire theme? You know you want too!
Whenever you think of a DVR you automatically think of a grey box sitting in your front room hooked up to your TV. But digital video recorders are aren't just restricted to the living room, for example those sturdy surveillance DVRs.
The new TiVX 5010-P HD TV recorder is one unique and sleek PVR from DViCO. To start off this futuristic grey cylinder does not contain an internal hard drive but requires you to add your own external one via a USB port. 
SageTV, the popular provider of PC PVR software, has announced support for AMD LIVE! Home Cinema And Home Media Server.
STMicroelectronics has announced its Dual HD Chip, the STi7200. This is the worlds first Dual HDTV Decoder Chip to be manufactured in 65nm Technology which means it can offer lower power consumption and competitive pricing.
NDS is the company that is majority owned by NewsCorp and previously replaced TiVo to create the DirecTV PVRs. While these PVRs have not had the best of times, NDS has today announced some very innovative IPTV products.
We've all got pretty used to using a PVR to time shift, fast forward and rewind TV but we've never really done it with radio. We've seen PVR radio functionality on PCs but the place where we really love to listen to radio is in our cars.
A user in the 
