NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
DirecTV is getting ready to unveil a digital video recorder (DVR) service in mid-2005 that could duplicate virtually every feature now available from current partner TiVo, a published report said Monday.
The new device will also provide a "video on demand" feature similar to what's offered on cable, USA Today said, citing executives of DirecTV (Research).
About the only TiVo (Research) function the new service will not have, they say, is the ability to jump over commercials, according to the newspaper.
NDS Group, the company behind the new technology, plans to deliver its DVR software to DirecTV by April, USA Today said. But DirecTV remains tight-lipped about the NDS-powered DVR.
Spokesman Bob Marsocci told the paper that DirecTV plans to introduce "an alternate DVR product and service in the first half of next year."
But the company won't disclose who's making decoders - the satellite receiver/DVR combo box-equipped for the new DVR service, although South Korea's Humax is known to be one company on the list.
The article said the new DVR system will offer pay-per-view (PPV) viewing. For current TiVo users, they must agree to pay for a PPV movie before recording it for subsequent viewing. But the NDS system will enable DirecTV to signal a user's DVR to record several movies, making each available for viewing at any time.
More than 61 percent of TiVo's 2.3 million DVRs belong to DirecTV subscribers who pay an extra $5 a month to get the TiVo service from the nation's largest satellite company, the paper said. And that's one main reason that TiVo stock fell sharply last week after disclosing that 75 percent of its new subscribers in the third quarter came from DirecTV.
"I think we have got a fairly clear runway with DirecTV that we certainly want to take advantage of," TiVo CEO Mike Ramsay told USA Today. "When it is time to compete, we will focus on that, too. And I think we'll do very well," he added.
|
