Dish Network DVRs may be Clobbered

[Bearly]

TiVo has prevailed entirely in a patent-infringement suit against Dish Network. Conditions of the judgement (unless Dish Network chooses to appeal to the Supreme Court) could force Dish Network to not only stop selling digital video recorders, but also to disable those already in place. An out for Dish is to pay damages and to license the technology from TiVo.

[fulltiming]

Interesting Mike. Dish has not done well in legal cases. They lost their right to provide DNS (Distant Network Services) to RV's and those not within reach of over the air broadcasts of major network stations about 18 months ago and now this. In the case of DNS, another company stepped up and started providing DNS service to Dish users. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

FWIW, I love my DirecTiVo unit (no longer manufactured) from DirecTV. It is unfortunate that DirecTV decided to go with a different DVR which, at least to me, isn't as good as the TiVo units.

[encantotom]

in my home i have both tivo and the scientific atlanta hd dvr.

the tivo is hands down the best user interface. tivo has struggled to be financially viable as the cable and satelite companies have made it cheaper to use their DVR's. the hd tivos have come down a ton in cost but require cable card (although i have not looked at if that has changed lately)

i hope tivo survives. thier GUI rules supreme.

i have hacked my tivo to have multiple hard drives for increased storage. the cable dvr is able to add an external eSATA HDD if you are handy with researching what will work depending on what operating system your cable provider uses....or satellite.

i also plan on using an apple tv in my coach. it allows me to stream video from my laptop wirelessly and watch it in HD on my tv's

tom