To record in HD is a step closer to techie heaven
There's probably at least one in your circle of friends, the guy who loves his gadgets, who needs to have the latest home-entertainment toys first, whose pulse quickens at the mention of acronyms like DSL and DBS.
Two of these gadgeteers' most lust-inducing acronyms are HDTV, the television format that offers startlingly clear pictures and sound, and DVR, a class of VCR-like devices that record content digitally on hard drives, skips over commercials, and enables live television pausing.
Until recently, the twain did not meet: You could watch high-definition shows when they were broadcast, or you could use DVRs to watch whenever you wanted, but only in the pale-by-comparison standard format. Yet these two technologies are now converging, and in the place where these guys hang out -- online, of course -- the fervor is overflowing.
The activity on the TiVo Community Forum, a blog linked to, but not operated by, the company, illustrates the frenzy. There are over 60,000 registered bloggers, 167,000 threads, and 1.8 million posts. A recent thread that suggested Best Buy might have some units that work with satellite TV in stock elicited over 1,800 postings. There are even more potential HD DVR owners lurking on other blogs like DBSForums.com and DBSTalk.com (DBS stands for Digital Broadcast Satellite). And these numbers represent only those users who get their HDTV from satellite or over the air. Units that work with cable-TV signals are not yet available.
Basic economic theory explains the situation, of course. Units were supposed to be on sale in December, but they began appearing only in April. "There's a huge pent-up demand, which is certainly exceeding supply, because you can't currently record in HD. What you have now is a ravenous consumer base because there's a void in the marketplace. There is an HD VCR, but once you have a DVR you can't go back to a VCR," says Sean Wargo, director of industry analysis at the Consumer Electronics Association.
Some impatient buyers reacted to the delay of the coveted DirecTV HR 10-250, which retails for $999, by getting in line wherever they could, even at the risk -- and potential cost -- of ending up with several of the machines. "Some folks went a little nuts and got on five, six, or more pre-order lists to get a unit as quickly as possible. If DirecTV manages to ship in volume, they may end up being charged several thousand dollars," says Todd Healy, 34, a TiVo blogger from Old Saybrook, Conn.
Then again, some DVR devotees might not mind getting more than one. Healy has one HD unit already and has another on the way for more storage. The DirecTV HD DVR can store up to 100 hours of regular television, but only 30 hours of HD programming because high-definition provides so much more data for every pixel.
Those that end up with two units could even recoup some of their expenses: "It's not that risky to have multiple orders, given the demand for the units right now. Several have sold on eBay for up to 100 percent profit," says HD DVR owner Sean Squire of Bristol, R.I. That's not typical, but recent postings were asking as much as $1,600 through the "buy it now" feature.
With this much demand, what has taken DirecTV so long to release its HD DVR? Jade Valine, DirecTV's PR specialist, blamed it on the device's complexity. "Some of the testing took longer than we had originally anticipated," she said.
Meanwhile, there's no saying when cable customers will be able to record with their HDTV. "Cable companies are developing HD DVR systems. . . . We're just at the beginning of this market. Sales volume should peak in five to seven years," says the CEA's Wargo.
Based on their Forum postings, the early HD DVR owners have noted a few minor glitches, but nothing that will slow the demand.
"This looks like the future of television to me. It combines two of the most important television advances in the last 20 years: DVR and HD," says Healy.
