At CES last week, PVR pioneer TiVo announced several new products that will take its digital video recording capabilities into the DVD and HD sectors.
Toshiba and TiVo are set to develop a combination DVD/DVR player to debut in the second half of 2003. The product will be able to play DVD's and incorporates TiVo's TV recording capabilities, but does not record to a DVD.
The partnership targets the growth of the DVD/DVR market, which Toshiba predicts will replace some of the DVD market. Toshiba plans to give technological resources to TiVo to help create the new product, as well as marketing and promotional campaigns to support it.
For HDTV fans, TiVo and DirecTV introduced the DirecTV HDTV DVR, which lets consumers record and playback DirecTV HD and SD programming as well as terrestrial broadcasts.
The product, available by the end of 2003, will apply TiVo functionsto DirecTV and ATSC HD programming. The DVR features a larger recording capacity with component and digital video outputs for audio and video. The DirecTV HDTV DVR also incorporates a DVI connector with high bandwith digital content protection (HDCP) and can be configured for all HD and SD formats.
DirecTV currently offers four HDTV channels: HBO HDTV, Showtime HDTV, HDNet and an HD pay-per-view channel.
