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Tech PING! Thinking I need a camera security system. Has anyone looked at them? Thoughts? I want a stand alone camera system with night vision and recording capacity. Something that would work with my wifi? Something that works in the dark? (we live in the woods) Is there such a duck?

It’s no surprise that the use of DVRs is increasing as more and more people become used to time-shifting instead of watching television on the networks’ schedule. DVRs are compared to competitors so that customers can find the best fit for their lives. Now the New York Times is reporting something that may surprise many people: Your set-top boxes consume more energy in a year than your refrigerator. Initially you might assume that the main culprit is the hard drive spinning in the device, but according to the article, it only accounts for an additional 104 kilowatt-hours a year;...

I'm interested in buying a DVD recorder. My main reason is to allow me to record certain programming for easy reference. After recording a program on my cable company's DVR and it's saved, you get the options, and one of those options is "record to VCR"....are there DVD recorders out there that allow you to record SAVED DVR programs? The reason I ask is you get people saying it's difficult because most DVD recorders don't have tuners. That's not my problem, or inquire, I don't want to record "live" broadcasts, just the ones I've saved digitally on the cable DVR.

This is what happened when a Raritan, New Jersey woman programmed Glenn Beck's 5:oop.m. show on her Cable DVR Program,...she documents the results with a handheld camera...

When buyers and sellers finally kick off this year’s upfront, several broadcast networks could well see pricing increases over last year, despite the weak economy and network television’s sinking ratings. But if they do, it's almost certain to be the last year for such gains. The networks have done a good job of explaining away the impact of DVRs on ratings, noting that in fact few users actually bother skipping through commercials. But that is about to change, according to one top researcher. As more and more users acquire and begin to use DVRs, ad skipping will become a far...

The Supreme Court Monday declined to review the challenge by CNN and some major studios to Cablevision's use of a remote DVR service. The decision paves the way for Cablevision to deploy the service later this summer, according to the company. The Solicitor General had recommended the court not take the case. ‘We are very pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear a challenge to Cablevision's Remote Digital Recording Service," said Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn. "From a common-sense point of view, the lower court, and the U.S. Solicitor General, were correct in their interpretation of the...

The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to consider a legal challenge by television networks and Hollywood studios to Cablevision Systems Corp.'s next-generation digital video recorder, clearing the way for the cable company to offer the new service this year. The networks and studios argued that Cablevision's new remote-storage DVR violated federal copyright laws. Cablevision's service would allow customers to record and store television shows on central computer servers maintained by Cablevision instead of having to record them on expensive DVR cable boxes installed in their homes. Cablevision says the system would allow it to provide DVR services at lower costs,...

WASHINGTON - A three- judge appeals court panel signaled Thursday that it is likely to rule at least partly in favor of TiVo Inc. in its patent dispute with Douglas County-based EchoStar Communications EchoStar is seeking to overturn a lower court decision last year that ruled the satellite broadcaster had infringed on patented TiVo technology that allows viewers to record one program while watching another. The court awarded TiVo $89.6 million in damages. TiVo sued EchoStar in 2004, alleging that its digital video recorders infringed on TiVo's "time warp" technology. TiVo, based in Alviso, Calif., pioneered digital recorders that allow...

I'd like to buy a used TiVo (or some similar) box on eBay, but there are literally hundreds there for sale, and I don't know what to look for... I don't want a DirecTV one. I want one that I can use WITHOUT subscribing to the service. Would also like to be able to burn DVDs, and perhaps watch a program while recording another. Can the techies out there please recommend some models to look for, as well as (used) price ranges? TIA!

LONDON (Reuters) - Niche men's channel FX plans to show what it calls the first UK advert specially designed to combat viewers using digital recorders to avoid commercials. The advert for its new drama "Brotherhood" will show a single image on the screen for the entire 30-second slot, and therefore retain its "sales message" when viewed even at the 12-times speeds enabled by Sky+ and other digital recorders, also known as personal video recorders, or PVRs.Advertisers have been racing to find ways to get messages through as higher numbers of consumers watch TV programs when they want using such recorders,...

An East Texas judge has ordered the parent of DISH satellite television to stop selling and turn off about 4 million of its digital video recorders within 30 days. U.S. District Judge David Folsom also ordered DISH parent EchoStar Communications to pay almost $90 million in damages. The Thursday decision comes after a federal jury in Marshall in April determined that EchoStar willfully infringed on TiVo's "time-warp" patent. That applies to the way a DVR simultaneously records one program while playing back another.EchoStar is the country's second-largest satellite television provider with about 12.5 million subscribers.

ABC HAS HELD DISCUSSIONS ON the use of technology that would disable the fast-forward button on DVRs, according to ABC President of Advertising Sales Mike Shaw, with the primary goal to allow TV commercials to run as intended. "I would love it if the MSOs, during the deployment of the new DVRs they're putting out there, would disable the fast-forward [button]," Shaw said. While MSOs risk losing some of their DVR customers if fast-forwarding were blocked, Shaw said the cable operators--who are beefing up their own local ad sales operations--"are in the same business we're in." "They've got to sell...

TiVo Won http://www.fool.com/news/mft/2006/mft06051143.htm By Tim Beyers (TMF Mile High) 05/11/2006 When I read Wednesday that News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Fox brokered a deal to make available several of its shows at Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iTunes music store, my mind immediately went to TiVo(Nasdaq: TIVO). "So, this is how it ends," I thought. What I mean is that the bigwigs at the networks know that live TV, save for sports events, is over. TiVo won. Not that couch potato surfing will go away immediately, of course. Television advertising remains a $100 billion-plus business, after all. But The Carmel Group reports that...

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- In this era of easy ad skipping with TiVo-like video recorders, could television viewers one day be forced to watch commercials with a system that prevents channel switching? Yes, according to Royal Philips Electronics. A patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said researchers of the Netherland-based consumer electronics company have created a technology that could let broadcasters freeze a channel during a commercial, so viewers wouldn't be able to avoid it. The pending patent, published on March 30, said the feature would be implemented on a program-by-program basis. Devices that could carry the...

Lawyers for TiVo Inc. were expected to tell a federal court jury Wednesday that satellite-TV broadcaster Dish Network stole the technology used in TiVo's popular device for recording and replaying live television. Lawyers for EchoStar Communications Corp., the parent of Dish Network, planned to argue that their client didn't infringe on TiVo's patent for a ``multimedia time warping system'' and instead invented their own digital video recorder.[snip]TiVo changed the way many Americans watch TV and made the company name a verb for recording programs. It has never translated its status in pop culture into profits, however. The company has lost...

Neuros Technology International CEO Joe Born in his open letter to congressmen James Sensenbrenner Jr. and John Conyers on HR 4569, the Digital Transition Content Security Act (aka: Analog Hole Legislation): …we believe the proposed bill will not only do nothing to protect against piracy, it will actually reduce legitimate media sales, unnecessarily harm consumers, and have a chilling effect on innovators of new media technologies…Today, we make a next generation digital VCR of sorts that would effectively be outlawed if HR 4569 becomes law….This device is meant to make it easier for consumers to adapt content they have already...

November 29, 2005 - Apple's Mac mini will be reborn as the digital hub centerpiece it was originally conceived to be, Think Secret sources have disclosed. The new Mac mini project, code-named Kaleidoscope, will feature an Intel processor and include both Front Row 2.0 and TiVo-like DVR functionality. While the specific model and speed of the Intel processor in the new Mac mini is unknown, sources are confident the system will be ready for roll-out at Macworld Expo San Francisco, in line with other reports Think Secret has received that Intel-based Macs will be ready some six months sooner than...

Anyone have any experience with the LG LST-3410A unit? I have an old Replay and a Samsung OTA HDTV receiver which are basically incompatible. Any thoughts or experience would be appreciated. I love the OTA HDTV, ( on a Sony pfm42b2 plasma display) which up converts as necessary to 1080i 16x9 format. Off-air HD is amazing, and almost as good as the satellite based HD I get from a motorola 4DTV (c-band) dish and the HDD200 add on unit. Any comments or suggestions are appreciated.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- TiVo has been synonymous with digital video recording since it pioneered the industry five years ago, controlling an estimated one-third of the market in 2004. That lofty perch is now beginning to crumble. Competition in the growing and lucrative industry is intensifying as cable providers, satellite operators and consumer electronics companies push ahead with models of their own, giving consumers more choices while threatening to significantly blunt TiVo Inc.'s edge. "They're facing a very, very difficult year this year. It'll be increasingly difficult for them to sign up new subscribers," said Josh Bernoff, an analyst...

It's acceptable for consumers to use software that edits out nudity or bad language from a DVD movie -- but they had better leave the commercials and promotional announcements in, according to legislation adopted by the House of Representatives this week. The main thrust of House Resolution 4077, also known as the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2004, is to make it illegal to smuggle a camcorder into a movie theater, surreptitiously record a film and then circulate the homemade production on the Internet. But when it came time to vote, lawmakers did a little editing of their own...