Well, this is disturbing. Russian security researcher Vladislav Yarmak is warning of a backdoor that exists in firmware for digital video recorder (DVR) and network video recorder (NVR) powered by HiSilicon system-on-chip (SoC) hardware. This is a zero-day vulnerability that could allow an attacker to gain root access...Read more...
Each year for the big game, hordes of people around the U.S. that care nothing about football watch the teams fight it out. The people aren’t watching out of some fascination with which team will win; they watch for the commercials. The big game is probably the only time people want to see commercials when watching...Read more...
Plex has confirmed a new feature has been added to its DVR system that cord cutters will really appreciate. The new feature allows the watcher to skip over all the commercials in a TV program and sounds very similar to the Dish AutoHop feature that drew rage and legal action when it debuted back in 2012. Plex's...Read more...
There has been an explosion of set-top boxes, streaming sticks, and media casting dongles over the past few years. To keep up with the times (and an ever growing field of competitors), TiVo has gone and refreshed its product lineup with a couple new DVR products, the Bolt Vox and Mini Vox, and a new TiVo Vox Remote...Read more...
If you have FiOS service from Verizon, things just got a bit more interesting when it comes to your DVR content. Customers that have both Quantum TV and FiOS Internet service will have the capability to watch all of their received content outside of their home (as long as you have an active Internet...Read more...
Attention binge watchers, TiVo invites you to "give commercials the finger" with its new Bolt set-top DVR. It's a play on words that describes Bolt's ability to skip entire commercial breaks with the single press of a button, at least in some cases. It's part of TiVo's new "SkipMode" feature, which allows Bolt to...Read more...
Game consoles sure have evolved over the years. My earliest console was the Atari 2600, a comparatively simple machine to today's game systems with even simpler controls -- a joystick and a single red button. That's all you needed to play titles like Pitfall and Asteroids. Now we have consoles that not only play games, but purport to be in Read more...
Finally, there's a DVR to pair with that 100-inch television you've been eyeballing. It's the TiVo Mega and it matches the TV's obscene nature by serving up a massive 24 terabytes of storage space in a hot swappable RAID 5 configuration. There's enough storage in the TiVo Mega to record 26,000 hours of standard...Read more...
It’s hard to imagine what else the CEO of a company that makes streaming media boxes would say, but Roku CEO Anthony Wood boldly claimed that it’s just a matter of time before DVRs become a thing of the past. “To me, it's pretty clear that all TV is going to be streamed. It's either going to be streamed to a smart TV, a gaming...Read more...
Just yesterday, a report emerged that TiVo was laying off much of its hardware design team, leaving only a skeleton crew to support existing devices, and getting out of the hardware business altogether to focus on the cloud. According to comments made by TiVo VP of corporate communications Steve Wymer to The Verge, the notion that TiVo is...Read more...
TiVo has been high on cloud technology lately, enabling its Roamio Pro and Roamio Plus DVRs to stream to mobile devices, talking up an initiative to put its Roamio DVR in the cloud with a Network PVR, and demonstrating its TiVo nDVR network DVR prototype at CES, and accordingly, its time as a hardware maker may be...Read more...
This summer, Comcast announced a plan to run trials of a cloud-based DVR service called X2, which it is now doing, and there’s also a tweener option at play with the X1 mobile app. The app, which is available in the iTunes store, allows those with access to the X1 cloud DVR trial to watch their recorded content...Read more...
Of all the wonderful entertainment-related technology that has emerged in recent years, perhaps none is better than the DVR. Being able to record and watch your favorite shows whenever you want without having to sit through commercials is a true game-changer, but TiVo, often the proprietary eponym for “DVR”, is pushing things further...Read more...
It only makes sense, really. Netflix has taken over the content world in many ways, even going so far as to fund original programming of its own and buck the usual trend by making entire seasons available at once. That journey has led it to an enviable position, but to date, getting to Netflix still requires something that many American households...Read more...
Google is shaking up the ISP field in a big way with its Google Fiber service, and some of the fruit it has shaken loose pertains to AT&T launching a competing service in Austin, which Google has slated as one of the cities to get its gigabit Internet and TV service soon. AT&T is launching a 100% fiber network...Read more...
Those commercials for the Dish Network Hopper, the monster whole-home DVR service that lets users record up to 6 channels simultaneously and store up to 2,000 hours of content, make the whole thing seem too good to be true. In reality, it’s not, but the major networks certainly feel like it should be. Multiple...Read more...
Like it or not, the cloud is the future. So, you best get an Internet connection (and perhaps a data plan) to deal with it. While local storage will always have its place, being instantly accessible anywhere where there's an Internet connection obviously has its benefits. Now, the biggest name in recording television has debuted its Network...Read more...
With most tech-related mergers and acquisitions, there's generally a bit of excitement surrounding the news. But there's also some amount of fretting. In a lot of cases, companies will acquire another and then immediately shut things down. Yahoo recently did this with task-management app Astrid, for example. But in...Read more...
Boxee has steadily added to its portfolio of streaming hardware and software over the last few years, from its quirky Boxee Box streaming appliance to the Boxee Cloud DVR (which are actually made by D-Link) to software that runs on a number of devices. Now, the company is reportedly being acquired by Samsung. Techcrunch reports that Samsung...Read more...
As we've talked about before, the cloud is a great innovation...so long as you have access to a solid and quick Internet connection. But for much of the world, offline needs are still very real, and when you're talking about hour-long programming in high-definition, one has to wonder if we're really and truly ready to migrate those recordings...Read more...
TiVo has won more than its share of patent disputes pertaining to its DVR technology over the last few years, winning settlements from AT&T ($215 million), Dish Network and EchoStar ($500 million total), and Verizon ($250.4 million). The latest companies to lose against TiVo are Cisco and Google-owned Motorola...Read more...
Hate ads? Wish you could just skip 'em all, the Super Bowl notwithstanding? Get ready for your DVR. DISH just announced nationwide availability of the all-new Hopper DVR with built-in Sling whole-home HD DVR functionality. Outside of being able to placeshift content anywhere due to the integrated Sling capabilities, users will also be able...Read more...