DirecTV’s DVR will be delayed, again
An article at Forbes is reporting that DirecTV’s DVR solution is going to be delayed, yet again. It was originally supposed to be released earlier this year but has since been pushed back until at least the fall. The article also goes on to speculate that this could cause an exodus from HD users on the DirecTV dish network.
I’m going to be moving into a new house very soon and I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t looking at HD TVs. I know that if I got one I would have to heavily think about using a satellite or cable provider who did not offer a HD compatible DVR. Although I have built a few PVRs / DVRs (non of which were HD) in the past I would want to know that if I want to go with a retail solution I could. For their own sake, I hope DirecTV gets their act together.
Edit: Thanks to MegaZone who pointed out in the comments that DirecTV already has an MPEG-2 TiVo based DVR (the HR10-250). The DVR in question that is being delayed is DirecTV’s own attempt at making an MPEG-4 DVR.
Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, HD, HDTV, DirecTV
DirecTV already has an HD DVR - the HR10-250, which is TiVo-powered. The ‘problem’ is that it is MPEG-2 only, it will not support the new MPEG-4 HD channels that DirecTV is rolling out.
This is just another issue caused by DirecTV dropping TiVo in their new products. Had they stuck with TiVo it wouldn’t have been hard to add MPEG-4 to the existing products. TiVo already added MPEG-4 for the Series3 anyway. Instead DirecTV decided to go and reinvent the wheel, and it is turning out to be harder than they expected it seems. First the SD R15 was repeatedly delayed, finally coming out many months late - to universally poor reviews. Now the HR20 HD model is delayed, again.
They should’ve just stuck with TiVo.
Thanks for the clarification about the fact that they already had a HD DVR. It seems like this is just another case where someone thought that they could do something better than TiVo and now they are realizing that its not quite as easy as pie.