At the start of this year, TiVo announced a standalone HD TiVo prototype although they announced no plans on to release a HDTV PVR. Instead it was believed they would wait for the OpenCable standard to take effect (likely around July this year) before they would produce and release a HDTV PVR. However, DirecTV aUS satellite TV provider has recently started shipping its DirecTV HR10-250 PVR with TiVo. This PVR features a 250GB hard drive for ~30 hours of HDTV recording, ~200 hours of regular broadcast quality recording or a mixture of both.
As expected, the DirecTV TiVo PVR supports the broadcast flag and copy protection measures. Its functioning Ports include component video out, HDMI (with high-bandwidth content protection) out, SVHS out, composite out, stereo audio out, optical SPD/IF out and a phone connection. It comes with a cable HDMI -> HDCP-DVI cable although protected content may not viewable if connected to a display with a regular DVI-input. The PVR will output or convert content for display on 480i, 480p, 720p or 1080i compatible displays.
FCC's Broadcast Flag
When the FCC had announced its broadcast flag rules for digital content, many had the assumption that the rules where there to prohibit recording altogether on marked content such as PPV channels. However, this is not the intent of the broadcast flag. Even the MPAA which is very strict about anti-piracy measures even agrees that consumers should be allowed to record or copy for personal use; unlike the RIAA. Even the FCC cannot enforce something that prevents us from recording or copying for personal use.
The broadcast flag does enforce the following on all output connections: When protected content is output on a non-secure digital medium such as regular DVI and Firewire, the resolution will need to be reduced down to 480i/p. For a secure output digital medium, the content must be encrypted and retain the broadcast flag. For analogue-output no resolution changes need to take place, so an analogue capable HDTV set will still be able to show HDTV content from a digital device as long as the HDTV box supports HD-analogue out. This is much like how Super-audio and DVD-audio players are still compatible with analogue amplifier and speaker systems.
For PVRs, the FCC announces the following: Programmes containing a broadcast flag must be stored in an approved encrypted format and must retain the flag while stored and during playback. Although content can be marked as 'copy never', 'copy once' and so on, the worst case situation 'copy never' will still allow up to 90 minutes of buffering such as when a user presses pause during a protected pay-per-view movie.
Analogue to Digital change-over
Finally although an announcement had been made that all TV programs must be broadcasting in digital by 2006, it is actually not a requirement. A government requirement is that all TV analogue transmissions would be switched off in 2006 once at least 85% of households can receive digital TV, although this deadline is unlike to be met.
First Impressions of the DirecTV HDTV PVR
Despite the hype of the broadcast flag, there are no complaints on the TiVo community forum about this flag. Quality wise, users are really impressed with its HD PVR capabilities and ease of use when connected to a HDTV set. However, quite a number of users reported 'line-flickering' issues when using certain format conversion features such as up-converting from a 480p broadcast to a HDTV resolution compatible with their display.
More Information
More information on high definition TiVo can be accessed on the TiVo Community forum here. The first end-user impressions of the DirecTV PVR can be found here.
It looks like after all, that the broadcast flag issue does not turn out to be much of an issue, at least when it comes to HDTV PVR's. However, this may be a different issue when it comes to DVD recorders, future High definition optical disc recorders and most likely PC based PVRs.
Feel free to discuss more on the broadcast flag and copy protection issues on our Copy Protection Discussion Forum. Discuss and read more about PVRs and related recording equipment on our Stand Alone Devices & Home Entertainment Forum.
Source: Slashdot.org News
