Skip to Content

Exclusive: Rock Band Unplugged Track List
AOL Tech

dish posts

TiVo awarded $200m in damages in EchoStar case, consumers not awarded end to the Echostar case

by Nilay Patel posted Sep 5th 2009 at 7:28PM

Okay, so it's not the cool billion dollars in damages we'd heard TiVo was asking for, but $200 million ain't chump change if you're broke, you know? That's the amount in contempt damages TiVo will get if EchoStar loses its upcoming appeal in the endless time warp patent case, bringing the total amount of money on the table to nearly $400 million. As usual, that means virtually nothing for the average Dish or TiVo customer, but at least the lawyers involved can all buy new Audis for the winter now.

TiVo projects larger than expected losses, still taking the patent fight to AT&T and Verizon

by Richard Lawler posted Aug 26th 2009 at 8:13PM

We'll let the analysts make sense of TiVo's new projection that it will lose $8 to $10 million in the third quarter, larger than Wall Street expectations while projected revenues are lower -- we're too busy adding Verizon and AT&T to the patent battlemap. Today it filed complaints against both for violating three of its DVR-related patents -- Nos. 6,233,389 B1 ("Multimedia Time Warping System"), 7,529,465 B2 ("System for Time Shifting Multimedia Content Streams"), and 7,493,015 B1 ("Automatic Playback Overshoot Correction System") if you must know -- seeking damages for past infringement and a permanent injunction. We'd assumed it would wait until settling things with DISH to push forward against other companies, but it looks like we're not the only ones getting impatient. Beyond the legal slapfight there's a few nuggets for the bleep bloop faithful, with the Comcast TiVo on-line scheduler beginning to roll out in Boston plus further expansions on the way and the due-in-2010 DirecTV HD TiVo still on track -- we'll need a few seasons of Law & Order queued up before this mess ever gets resolved.

Read - TiVo Swings to Loss, Files Infringement Suits
Read - TiVo Reports Results for the Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2010 Ended July 31, 2009
Read - TiVo Files Complaints for Patent Infringement Against AT&T and Verizon Communications in United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas; Seeking Damages and Injunction

SlingPlayer 1.1 for iPhone promises DISH integration for US, 3G streaming elsewhere (maybe)

by Ross Miller posted Aug 10th 2009 at 6:31PM

As history tells us time and time again, iPhone apps / updates submitted to Apple aren't a sure deal for approval. Still, we can't help but like where SlingPlayer Mobile is going with the recently-submitted version 1.1. In addition to providing true 16:9 widescreen support that stretches across the whole screen, Slingbox owners with DISH Network can now navigate using a touch-supported native browser, instead of pushing through the TV-standard browsing screen being streamed in. That last bit's great for US customers, but it's what the rest of the world might get that has our interests very piqued. The company's submitted a version for use outside of AT&T's homeland that would finally allow for streaming over a 3G connection -- again, not a certainty for approval, but we'll be most interested to see if that one makes its way through the system.

Patent Office rejects some of TiVo's patent claims, battle vs. DISH to rage on

by Richard Lawler posted Aug 5th 2009 at 9:04AM

You knew it couldn't be over, right? The long running TiVo vs. DISH / Echostar patent case took a not-so-new twist yesterday when the Patent and Trademark Office issued a preliminary finding rejecting some of the claims of its Time Warp patent. While DISH was pleased, considering the PTO's conclusions as "highly relevant" to its ongoing appeal, TiVo issued a statement calling this step "not unusual" pointing out that the exact same thing happened when its patent was reexamined in 2005 (and subsequently upheld in 2007,) and that the next step in the process is where it will be able to present its explanation for the first time. All you need to know is that it will still be a while before anyone involved (except the two company's lawyers) are cashing any large checks, or gets their DVR taken away.

[Via Multichannel News]

Read - TiVo Statement on Developments in Lawsuit Against EchoStar
Read - DISH Network and EchoStar Statement Regarding Tivo

MSNBC HD launches on DISH Network

by Richard Lawler posted Jul 9th 2009 at 1:24PM

Turbo HD shenanigans aside, DISH Network's latest press release touts its exclusive -- nationwide -- carriage of MSNBC HD, conveniently sidestepping Cablevision and Time Warner customers that have had the channel since launch last month. Still, if you enjoy Morning Joe and the rest of the MSNBC lineup in high definition and are a Classic Silver 200 or higher subscriber it should be in your lineup as of yesterday, though we suppose you're probably more interested in finding out if your DVR will continue to work.

Ruling lets DISH customers keep their DVRs for now, TiVo says it's just a matter of time

by Richard Lawler posted Jul 2nd 2009 at 11:19AM

News of another delay should be absolutely no surprise to anyone that's followed the details of this case, as DISH was granted a stay by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit pending its appeal of a $190 million ruling in favor of TiVo which will allow its customers to continue using their DVRs, at least for now. For its part, TiVo repeated its praise of the "thorough and well-reasoned decision finding EchoStar in contempt of court for violating the injunction and awarding further damages" and is confident the ruling will be upheld, again. Did anyone really think this one would just end so easily?

Read - DISH Network and EchoStar Statement Regarding Tivo
Read - TiVo Statement on Decision by U.S. Court of Appeals to Stay Permanent Injunction Issued by District Court in Lawsuit Against EchoStar

Dish Network DTVPal DVR review

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Jun 29th 2009 at 3:39PM


For some reason almost all DVRs are like cell phones, they have lots of strings attached. You either need to pay a monthly subscription or you need to get a CableCARD from your provider and give up access to other features your provider offers that you pay for. There are a few exceptions and the newest one is from Dish Network in the way of the DTVPal DVR. It doesn't require a monthly subscription, or even a cable or satellite provider because it works with free over-the-air TV. It does HD, has two tuners, and a 250GB hard drive; all for the reasonable price of $250. If this all sounds good so far, then keep reading because like all things there's a catch.

Gallery: DTVPal DVR

Continue reading Dish Network DTVPal DVR review

TiVo coming to Time Warner Cable, potentially lots of other providers

by Nilay Patel posted Jun 22nd 2009 at 2:12PM


It's been a long, messy road, but now that TiVo's beaten a victory out of EchoStar in that seemingly-endless DVR patent lawsuit it sounds like the company is trying to exert some muscle -- it's already in talks to bring its service to Time Warner Cable, and sources have told Bloomberg the ultimate plan is to eventually collect royalties from every pay-TV provider in the US. That might sound bullying and even a little trollish, but keep in mind these patents have withstood pretty much every legal challenge EchoStar could throw at them, so TiVo's operating from a position of some certainty here -- especially since it's got license agreements with huge players like Comcast and DirecTV to use as leverage in negotiations as well. Of course, none of this solves any of TiVo's actual problems with its products, and the company's topsy-turvy balance sheet has some analysts thinking its ripe for a buyout by one of the bigs, so things could change dramatically at any minute, but for right now it sounds like your chances of getting the TiVo interface on your cable or satellite company DVR just went up, and that's almost certainly a good thing.

DISH still trying to navigate a way around TiVo's DVR patent

by Richard Lawler posted Jun 18th 2009 at 9:40AM


It's a longshot, but DISH mentioned in a court filing Monday that it is still looking for a workaround that would keep its DVR from infringing on TiVo patents, but admitting it "does not know whether a further design-around is even possible." Multichannel News pulled out the one sentence filing, although whether DISH seriously believes it can do dual tuner recording without violating the "Time Warp" patent or is just stalling for time while it looks for an antidote is still unclear.

[Picture courtesy one of many GPS accidents]

Is Dish considering swallowing TiVo's $7.5 billion poison pill?

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Jun 10th 2009 at 6:34PM

TiVo logsOne of our favorite rumors rides again, but this time it's Dish that might be interested in buying TiVo. The new twist this time though is the motivation, and we can totally see how Dish would love to make this happen. The problem of course is that TiVo isn't interested in any such shenanigans and has gone as far as to write a poison pill into its bylaws. Our friend Davis Freeberg has been writing about TiVo's poison pill for years and more recently, at about the same time as the latest court decision came down against Dish, he saw some interesting traffic in his web server logs from none other than a Dish Network IP. No clue who the user was, but they spent some time reading up on TiVo's poison pill. Davis is no lawyer, but it is his understanding that if Dish attempted to take over TiVo, it'd cost them about $71 per share -- which comes to about $7.5 Billion. This is about seven times what the stock is actually worth and although we'd be shocked if this happened, we have to admit that crazier things have.

DISH / EchoStar DVR injunction temporarily put on hold by court

by Nilay Patel posted Jun 3rd 2009 at 7:45PM Breaking News

It's the case that never ends -- the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has issued a temporary delay of the injunction and fine handed down yesterday in the EchoStar / TiVo lawsuit while it considers an appeal, meaning that DISH owners with older DVRs won't have to worry about losing their pause-and-rewind functionality at least for now. That pretty much means we're back in stasis with this one, with even more delay to come if the appeal is granted. That's cool, we needed a nap anyway.

DISH / EchoStar ordered to pay TiVo $190 million in patent infringement case

by Donald Melanson posted Jun 2nd 2009 at 8:23PM

We're a bit hesitant to call this one done given the history involved, but a federal judge in Texas has dealt DISH / EchoStar yet another serious blow in its long-standing dispute with TiVo, and this time he's taken a number of other measures that could cause EchoStar to finally rethink its workaround-litigate strategy. The big setback for EchoStar, however, is the one-two punch of $190 million in damages it's been ordered to pay TiVo and an order to disable the "infringing function" on all but 193,000 DVRs now in the hands of subscribers. The judge also found that EchoStar's recently-implemented workaround technology still violated the patent in question and, as a result, he's ordered EchoStar to inform the court before it decides to try its hand at another "design-around" of the infringing patent. For its part, TiVo says that it is "extremely gratified by the Court's well reasoned and thorough decision," while DISH / EchoStar would only say that it plans to appeal the court's decision and file a motion to stay the order with a federal appeals court.

Read - The New York Times, "Court Awards TiVo $190 Million in EchoStar Patent Case"
Read - TiVo Statement on U.S District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Decision

Is the future of Windows Media Center with Windows Home Server?

by Ben Drawbaugh posted May 22nd 2009 at 2:00PM

WHS and WMC
With all the bad news around Windows Media Center this week, many enthusiasts are wondering about the future of Media Center. To say that the past few years have had a few disappointments is an understatement, especially when you think back to the way CableCARD support was implemented and how poorly the Extenders have been supported. Although things look pretty grim for our preferred DVR platform, we're optimistic that things are actually about to get really good in the next year thanks to Windows 7 and some unannounced features and products. Part of the reason we think this is because over the years we've been watching Microsoft develop products that have taken years to catch on and gain dominance. But lets be honest, we're not on the inside and most of what we think will happen is based on rumors and conjecture. With that being said, we've convinced ourselves that the future of Media Center, and the key to wider adoption that we think it deserves, is with Windows Home Server.

Continue reading Is the future of Windows Media Center with Windows Home Server?

HD channel expansion roundup

by Richard Lawler posted May 16th 2009 at 9:06AM


Once upon a time, a smattering of new HD channels in one major metropolitan area was a huge deal. Nowadays, it's almost expected that one area or another will experience some HD expansion each week. In order to keep things nice and tidy around here, we deliver high-def expansions, market expansions and anything else dealing with HD channel growth right here. If we missed an area that you're familiar with, drop us a line in comments so everyone can catch up. The more the merrier, we say!

Read - DISH Network(R) Adds 30 HD Channels in Hawaii
Read - DISH Network(R) Adds 30 HD Channels in Alaska
Read - DIRECTV to Deliver Local HD Programming to Customers in Lafayette, Ind.
Read - Comcast digital switch update: Bellevue's next, Seattle in fall
Read - FashionTV(R) Introduces New 24/7 FTV(R) HD Channel in the U.S. on DISH Network(R)
Read - National Geographic Channels International Co-Produces Alaskan Killer Shark With Off The Fence Productions
Read - Cox Launches WRIC in HD to Customers in King and Queen County, New Kent, and West Point
Fox News Chicago switched to HD (Thanks, Garst)
Read - Time Warner Cable North East Ohio new HD Channels (Thanks, Justin)
Read - Special Preview: ABC Family HD, Disney HD, HBO2 HD and BET HD (Thanks, Gary)
Read - KMSP Fox 9 news in Minneapolis now in HD (Thanks, Nathan)

All DISH customers with 5 new national HD channels step forward -- not so fast Turbo HD subs

by Richard Lawler posted May 9th 2009 at 12:43AM

No sooner did DISH Network light up HD feeds for Speed, FX, Fashion TV, Logo and MavTV (as promised) than we started receiving complaints from left-out feeling Turbo HD package subscribers. It appears that being all-high definition with your channel choices means no Speed or FX for you, while the others are on the $10 extra Platinum package. Still, for those on the Classic Silver 200 package and above there's plenty of NASCAR practices, widescreen F1 and Rescue Me enjoyment to be had. DISH is still holding itself out as the HD leader with a claimed 140+ national channels (MSNBC HD confirmed launching in June) but with a price hike failing to gain access to the latest channel lineup additions we're sure there's at least a few customers with differing opinions.

[Thanks, J David]




AOL News

Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in:

Joystiq
Download Squad
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
BloggingStocks
Joystiq Xbox
Autoblog
Big Download
Fanhouse NFL Blog