Las Vegas (NV) - Philips plans to put another digital video recorder in the market, offering more features than most of its rivals.

One of Tivo's defining features, Tivo Suggestions, is mirrored in the new Philips DVR.  It takes that concept and expands on it, though.  According to Philips, it has engineered technology that tracks preferences of each individual user instead of grouping all shows together.  It creates its own series of channels based on user preferences.

The Philips device will also be able to download videos from Youtube and other sites, as well as podcasts.  Tivo offers similar features, but content providers must create a specific agreement with the DVR service before users are able to download video from the providers.

Philips also plans to have a multi-faceted advertising strategy.  By tracking user preferences, advertisers will be able to target ads to people who match certain criteria.

The technology will initially be put to use in the form of a PC software application, and will later be embedded into a TV set-top box.

High Def Recordings?

Sep 04, 2007 15:57     

A new low def component would be a huge disappointment. In fact some one should be fired immediately... if that's the case...
Enlighten report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

But I want to skip ad's!

Sep 04, 2007 22:17     

I don't want a product to help advertisers find me! I want a product that helps me skip past those ad's and enjoy my entertainment! Yes, I am a ReplayTV 5040 owner, and love the automatic commercial advance in this system. My only complaint about ReplayTV is that the 5040 is not future proof and I won't be enjoying HD anytime soon with it.
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I'll Stick with my ReplayTV

Sep 05, 2007 06:56     

And for HD content, I'll use Replay's PC application. Sounds like this is the way Philips is going at first anyway. If you don't know about ReplayTV, DVArchive & WIRNS, you've really missed the DVR boat.
Bob report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

???

Sep 05, 2007 09:32     

so replay is similar to tivo 2? tivo 2 had the pc interface turned on so you could store and convert from tivo's format to something else. Can you do the same with replay?
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Philips misleading on TiVo Suggestions

Sep 05, 2007 10:12     

Longer versions of the article state that "TiVo offers a similar feature, TiVo Suggestions, but users must tell the system explicitly whether they like a program, and it learns and makes guesses about what else they could like based on that." This is false. Any show you record automatically gets one thumbs-up, without user intervention. You can optionally improve TiVo's suggestions by manually rating shows from 1-3 thumbs up/down, but that's not required.

Charles Blaquière report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

re: ???

Sep 05, 2007 13:00     

Oh yes, Replay can hook up to your computer network, and with a third party software called DVArchive, you PC emulates another Replay on the network. You can offload content to the PC very easily. Replay has the ability to send a show you recorded, over the Internet to another friend with a Replay. And the AUTOMATIC commercial advance is far better than Tivo's 30 second skip. On Replay, the commercial starts, blip... commercials are over and the show is starting again. No need to even touch the remote.

Bob report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

re: ???

Sep 06, 2007 13:14     

That's pretty cool... What format is the video in? Do you know the bit rate etc? Tivo 2 did the same thing, but they cut it off in tivo 3 which is why I wouldn't purchase it. I currently use the plextor recorder. It cost about 50 after rebate, and if a little cumbersome. But it records and works excellent. It performs hardware encoding directly to the pc in many different formats.
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