Never enough time…

• Cable giants sued for VOD patent infringement. (Engadget)
• DirecTV to launch $7500/yr everything-and-the-sink high roller service. (DirecTV)
• The EFF smacks down Apple’s embrace of DRM. (Boing Boing)
• Free DivX codec adds “sharpening” feature. (DivX)
• XM to develop crank radio and I don’t know why. (Orbitcast)

In honor of Father’s Day (and publicity), TiVo has partnered with Minor League Baseball and will be giving away up to 1,000 S2 units (via voucher) per market. Agree to a year of service, get a single tuner TiVo free. Add 30 bucks and upgrade to a dual-tuning model. Additional promotions (TiVo raffles) seem to vary by team website — so you may want to contact your stadium before making the trek. I’m not much of a baseball fan, but I could be rooting for the Potomac Nationals this afternoon.

UPDATE: It may be possible to get in on this without attending a game. See www.tivo.com/baseball for details.

The USPTO has just published TiVo’s Method and apparatus for secure transfer of previously broadcasted content and Method and apparatus for secure transfer and playback of multimedia content patent applications. Within the documents TiVo describes several methods to authenticate customers and securely distribute content via the internet for DVR and portable device playback. I’ve been pleading for some sort of VOD/PPV functionality, so the subscription and billing scenarios are particularly exciting. Content can be flagged by type (free, subscription, PPV), which in turn may specify or limit distribution and viewing. Interestingly, TiVo differentiates their DVR service from the content service/provider. Also of interest… it looks like they’ve documented the TiVoToGo MPEG-2 encryption/decryption keys as SHA-1 of your DVR network adapter’s MAC address.

In another embodiment, whether through the DVR interface or through the website of Service Provider 106, a payment structure can be built into the system such that the user is charged each time a previously broadcasted program content is received by DVR 101. Thus, an additional screen requesting billing or payment information may be displayed to the user to enter in the appropriate information. This information is then supplied to the Service Provider 106 as part of the request for content. Alternatively, the billing or payment information may have been previously supplied to and stored by the Service Provider 106, such that any subsequent request for previously broadcasted program content is automatically processed without presenting another screen to the DVR user.

(more…)

TiVo’s KidZone software update (client & server components) includes a new feature to repair personal settings should they get out of whack. How would those settings lose sync, you ask? Hard drive upgrade. While it’s unofficial and unsupported, if you’ve opted in to KidZone or Guru Guides and upgrade your hard drive, TiVo will repopulate your Season Passes and Wishlists on that new drive. Awesome! I’m more than willing to trade a little privacy (I can’t be the only one with a Paris Hilton Wishlist, can I?) for an “online” backup of my recording preferences.

My French is pretty bad (or non-existent), but it looks like Archos is refreshing their line of PMPs this summer. Not a whole lot of details are available at the moment, though screen sizes appear to run ~3.5″ - 4.5″ in a slimmer, lighter design than current models. Like some current Archos devices, the higher-end models can directly record video. The AV500 has been my favorite portable, so I’m interested in checking these updates out if they get a US release… under the Dish name or otherwise.

(via Gizmodo)

Never enough time…

• CinemaNow to offer television show downloads. (Reuters)
• Blu-ray player released early? (Engadget)
• HDMI upgraded to support deep color. (Extreme Tech)
• Nielsen to integrate television and web metrics. (Washington Post)
• Mac < -> PSP PIM and media sync software released. (Mark/Space)