The PVR, Reloaded

Earlier this year I detailed the plans of Cablevision and WOW to introduce personal video recorder (PVR) technology to Bermuda.

Back in May, WOW became the first company to offer a PVR here. At $850 each, however, they’ve not been very popular. “We have sold only about 20 PVRs,” admitted WOW’s founder, Gavin Wilson. However he said that their owners have generally been very happy with them, the only complaint concerning the stability of the Electronic Programme Guide (EPG). As one of the PVR’s advantages is being able to record from the EPG with a single click of the remote, Mr. Wilson conceded that addressing this is essential to allow WOW's PVR customers to take full advantage of the device.

WOW is also looking at ways to boost adoption of its PVRs. A marketing push may follow the resolution of the EPG issues and the company is currently exploring the possibility of offering a consumer finance deal on the purchase of the equipment. A new standard set top box is also likely to be available soon. This will be convertible into a PVR, for an additional $200, through the addition of an external hard drive of up to 160 GB, hopefully providing a more affordable option for customers.

Cablevision had originally hoped that its PVR would be available by the end of June, once it had finished digitising all of its channels to make them available on the device. This took the company a little longer than it was expecting, however, and this process has only recently been completed. General Manager Jeremy Elmas now hopes to start selling its PVRs to customers by the end of the year, once the Ministry of Telecommunications has approved the company’s pricing. Like WOW, Cablevision now plans to sell its PVR outright, for around $800 plus an additional monthly fee.

One advantage of the delay is that Scientific Atlanta, the manufacturer of all of Cablevision’s set top boxes and PVRs, has now stopped making the Explorer 8000, the PVR model that the company was originally trialling. As a result, customers will now get the Explorer 8300 (pictured). The new model is 16% smaller, features faster channel change times, allows external hard drive storage and includes an indicator that shows how much recording space remains. Scientific Atlanta is also currently engaged in field trials of a multi-room version of the 8300 which would allow other standard set top boxes in the home to watch the shows recorded on it.

Cablevision is also adding more High Definition content to its line-up. By the end of October the company hopes to have an HD version of both The Movie Channel (TMC) and the NFL Network. Although Cablevision is not yet offering a HD set top box, Mr. Elmas expects this will also be available by the end of the year and hopes that providing the Island’s first HD sports channel will help drive the adoption of the technology.

In the meantime, Cablevision is looking for more people to help test its HD set top boxes. If you’re interested – and you have an HDTV – you may want to get in touch.

Comments

[Eric on 13.09.04 at 08:53]

I have never heard anything good about the Scientific American boxes. That said, it does appear that the 8300 addresses many of the problems the 8000 had - so hopefully that is indeed the case (I believe the 8300 is fairly new and therefore not much as been written on it from what I have seen).

Matt Haughey's PVRBlog.com (Matt is the same guy that started MetaFilter) is always a good place to look for these things. One of the BoingBoing authors has a review of his S-A 8000 here and says it is awful and why (later in the comments someone else speaks of the 8300 update).

[Eric on 13.09.04 at 08:56]

Sorry, clearly got the name wrong - s/American/Atlanta/

[Michael on 13.09.04 at 09:11]

It is interesting that our local media providers are trying to sell their own PVRs. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all use TiVo & Replay?

It would be much easier if Cablevision & Wow submitted their channel line-ups to Tribune Media which could then be included in the channel line-ups for TiVo, Replay and the other range of commercial PVRs on the market.

I've been using a TiVo Series 1 in Bermuda for the last 2 years. Granted in needed quite a bit of hacking but it has been great. I just bought two Tivo series 2 boxes at $99 each ($100 rebate), and they are even better.

Much cheaper than $800!

[Eric on 13.09.04 at 09:46]

What sort of hacking does it take to get Tivo working here? Do you use it with Cablevision or WoW?

I had Tivo in the States and miss it dearly and would gladly pay to get it back (PVRs are great, but the Tivo interface is so much better than the other ones that I have played with).

[Michael on 16.09.04 at 12:43]

Hi Everyone,

I've received a few requests for info on TiVo enablement in Bermuda, so I figured I would share all my info at:

http://www.michaelbranco.com/tivo/

I'm happy to share everything I've learned about it so far. I won't be able to post the info until this weekend.

The only info I won't give out is hacking to bypass the TiVo service. If you float around the TiVo forums you'll see that this is a cardinal sin. :)

[Somers on 21.09.04 at 08:48]

Michael,
Great start to the page. I have been thinking about Tivo for a while, now maybe I will get my act together and get it all setup.
Cheers.