A case which has been running since all the way back in 2004, when the television business looked very different than it does today, has finally ended.

TiVo has emerged victorious, with Dish and EchoStar paying $500 million to end all ongoing patent litigation.

TiVo Vs. Dish, Echostar

In 2004 TiVo, then on the up and up, sued EchoStar (which owned Dish at the time) over its DVR patents for ‘multimedia time warping’. TiVo won the case in 2006, but thanks to endless appeals the case kept trudging on.

TiVo won every appeal possible, and in April 2010 a judge ruled that the two companies would not only have to pay damages but also cease their services. It’s taken another year for a settlement to be reached but that has now finally happened. To the relief of everyone concerned, I’m sure.

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The TiVo Premiere is being released this weekend, promising to bring TiVo bang up-to-date and integrate Internet TV programming to a greater degree than ever.

Does the new TiVo hardware succeed in this mission, or is there still work to do if TiVo hopes to stop the rot?

TiVo

TiVo has revolutionized the way many people in the United States watch conventional TV, enabling the recording, storing, pausing, and playback of live television.

However, there now a multitude of competitors, with each cable company offering their own DVR. And the emergence of online video which, by its very nature, offers viewing options galore, has meant TiVo has struggled to keep up.

But the new TiVo Premiere is the company’s big hope, boasting a new, redesigned user interface and the full integration of selected online video sources.

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The future may very well be Internet video, with a time when the Web is crucial to delivering video content not that far away. But until the questions remaining over advertising are answered, the industry cannot move forward.

Growing Industry

Internet video is an increasingly important part of the way media content is delivered to our homes. More companies than ever are seeing the benefit of at least having a Web video option in their line-up.

Just look at Hulu, which continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. Or the new ‘Game Rewind’ service from the NFL. Or even the increasing amount of deals being set up by Google to get professional content on to YouTube.

The Monetization Issue

But the big problem with all these new initiatives, along with all the other video start-ups you read about, is the question of how to monetize the content.

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Does the use of off-site DVRs, which work like a TiVo, infringe the copyrights of content providers such as American TV networks? A federal appeals court thinks not.

Here, Sherwin Siy of Public Knowledge discusses the case, the positive decision, and how the result is a victory for digital technologies and common sense.

Victory for Home Recording in Cablevision Remote DVR Case

On August 4, a federal appeals court ruled that Cablevision’s remote DVRs – which worked like off-site TiVos - didn’t infringe copyright. The decision, which overturns an earlier district court opinion, stated that there was no significant legal difference between the remote DVRs and a VCR. An all-too-brief summary of the history and findings follows.

The original case arose out of Cablevision’s creation and marketing of the “RS-DVR,” a service that, like a TiVo, let cable subscribers select different TV shows to be recorded digitally onto a hard drive. Unlike a TiVo, however, the hard drives of the RS-DVR are stored on Cablevision property. 

Each year during May, the television networks present their schedules to advertisers, a ritual which has become known as “Sweeps”.

The viewing figures during May determine the level of advertising revenue the networks can expect to get for the year ahead, and so all the big shows are débuted at this time.

However, this time there is a slight problem, as the sweeps have shown that prime time television in the States has lost six million viewers in a year.

Joint Reasons

There are two reasons for this, the first being the writers strike from the back end of last year and early this year which saw shows take an enforced hiatus and consequently made viewers make the switch to cable television and beyond.

However, the bigger and more important reason, is the increase of viewing options open to people now. From digital video recorders such as TiVo and on demand Web video, viewers now have more choice than ever before.

Revision3, the online video company headed by Digg’s Kevin Rose has reportedly inked a series of new deals which will see its original series being distributed in a number of new places.

The company is best known for Diggnation, a series all about Digg, and the stories which make it on the social bookmarking site, hosted by Rose himself.

The show has always been available on Revision3’s own site, as well as YouTube and iTunes, but will now also be available on Hulu, Joost, TiVo, Revver and Break.com as well.

Internet television is growing at a phenomenal rate, with services such as Joost, Hulu and Stage6 all providing more reasons than ever to turn to your PC or laptop rather than that square box sitting in your living room.

One of the biggest problems with watching television programmes, or movies online however, is the size of the screen you are being forced to watch it on. Unless you are rich, or an early adopter of future technologies, the chances are your PC or laptop screen just isn’t up to the job any more.

You do have an option though, and that is to hook your PC or laptop up to a projector, and have all your favourite video clips, and web episodes, in glorious full screen, home theater sized goodness. But, where’s the best place to begin?

Buying A Projector

First you’ll need a PC or laptop, and a home theater projector. There are plenty of places to find them, but I’d recommend reading through lots of projector reviews before you blindly purchase one which then doesn’t suit your needs.

Prices of projectors can vary wildly, but you’ll be looking to spend between $1,000 and $3,000 for reasonable quality and a good brand.

Be aware that there is a difference between a projector being HD Ready and actually outputting HD. HD Ready simply means it can accept a HD signal, but may output in standard definition so won’t look as crisp as you might expect.

If you want to make sure your new purchase is 100% HD then look at the output. An 800×600 output is not High Definition, whereas 1280×720 (720p) or 1920×1080 (1080i or 1080p) is.