LAS VEGAS -- The PVR is rapidly evolving beyond just a recording device, but broadcasters remain concerned about content protection and advertisers still view the technology as a serious threat, speakers said at the NAB convention here. A major milestone, due to ship in the next several days to dealers, is the first HD-PVRs for DirectTV, which will retail for about $1,000, said Skip Pizzi, Microsoft mgr.-technology policy. But, with such evolving technologies, “there are lingering concerns on content protection and ad-skipping,” he said.
The PVR is rapidly evolving beyond just a recording device, but broadcasters remain concerned about content protection and advertisers view the technology as a threat, speakers told the NAB convention in Las Vegas.
Qwest said it had lost $307 million in the 4th quarter, reversing its $2.7 billion profit a year ago, and said its revenue fell 5.6% to $3.5 billion. It said growth of long distance and business and consumer data revenue had partially offset continued competitive pressures in local voice and wireless services, as well as the de-emphasis of some non- core services. Qwest said in the 4th quarter it had lost access lines at the same rate -- 0.9% -- as the 3rd quarter. Excluding 145,000 MCI lines disconnected 2nd quarter, it said total access lines decreased 3.9% year-over-year. However, Qwest executives told investors in a conference call they expected slower access line declines in 2004 vs. 2003. They said line losses typically declined with Qwest entry into long distance. Qwest said it had strong growth in its long- distance and DSL businesses. It said it had increased its long distance subscriber base by 36% in the 4th quarter to 2.3 million customers. Since introduction of Qwest Choice, which bundles local, long distance and high-speed Internet services, in mid-Dec., Qwest said it had more than doubled its daily net subscriber additions. It said in the first 8 states it offered long distance, more than 26% of consumer lines included that service, exceeding the company’s 25% year-end target. Qwest said the number of DSL lines increased 10% in the quarter to 637,000. It said 80% of 2003 DSL growth came in the 2nd half, as the company expanded service to more than 1,000 additional neighborhoods and communities. The company said Qwest Choice had driven a 30% increase in weekly DSL line additions in early 2004, compared with a year earlier. Qwest said it planned to further expand DSL coverage to more than 60% from 45% of total access lines by year-end, making DSL available to more than 6 million homes. An AT&T spokeswoman said Qwest’s growth in long distance and DSL lines had made “crystal clear the wisdom of the Congress in pushing for a competitive telecom market… The Telecom Act is working and it’s vital for regulators and policy-makers to stay the course.” However, Qwest Chmn. Richard Notebaert said in the conference call: “There is no need for UNEs, and we have seen some of our utility commissions actually… put on pause hearings [on] UNEs.” Qwest said deployment of additional DSL facilities boosted capital expenditures for the quarter to $615 million from $561 million in the 4th quarter of 2002. For the full year, it said capital expenditures were $2.1 billion, compared with $2.8 billion in 2002. The company said total cost of sales plus other expenses for the quarter were $2.6 billion, compared with $2.5 billion for the 4th quarter of 2002, with investments to support products launches and increased pension and retiree healthcare costs driving the increase. Qwest Vice Chmn.-CFO Oren Shaffer said he expected the company to improve its free cash flow in 2004 by focusing on cost management; a $2 billion capital program; and lower interest expense. In 2003, Qwest recorded free cash flow from operations of $87 million -- a $463 million improvement over 2002. Qwest also said it had reduced total debt by $5 billion during 2003. During the quarter, the company said it completed the purchase of $3 billion of outstanding debt and cut its credit facility by $500 million. Qwest said it planned to expand VoIP coverage throughout the Minneapolis/St. Paul consumer market and introduce its business VoIP offering in the first half of 2004. It said it expected to offer VoIP services in all major metropolitan markets within its local region by the end of the year. In the call, Notebaert said VoIP would probably not become “truly significant” this year, but said: “As we are going forward, getting in there, being prepared, especially as cable competitors are going VoIP, is very important for us.” Qwest also said it continued to work with Sprint to introduce national wireless calling plans and said it planned to roll out the services March 1 to customers in its 14-state local service area.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Warner Bros. is willing to significantly alter its “windowed business” by allowing home viewing of movies very soon after theatrical release, subject only to considering them protected against piracy, said Senior Vp Dean Marks during an Intel Developer Forum panel here on digital copy protection. He said the studio would stop short of taking up Intel’s suggestion that such releases could be simultaneous.
While Intel is confident it can overcome the Achilles heel of LCoS and produce chips in high volumes and acceptable yields, the company is still 3-4 months away from making any further statements about the technology’s suitability for manufacture. So said Louis Burns, vp & gen. mgr. of Intel’s Desktop Platforms Group, after his keynote Tues. at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, in which he outlined his company’s vision for LCoS and other future products in the “digital home.”
Warner Bros. is willing to alter significantly its “windowed business” by allowing home viewing of movies very soon after theatrical release, subject only to considering them protected against piracy, said Senior Vp Dean Marks during an Intel Developer Forum panel in San Francisco on digital copy protection. He said the studio would stop short of taking up Intel’s suggestion that such releases could be simultaneous.
TiVo was granted its summary judgment by U.S. Dist. Court, Boston, in its PVR patent dispute with Pause Technology (CED Feb 12 p5) because the court found TiVo had “the better argument with respect to at least 2 disputed claim terms,” a text of the decision said.
TiVo won a favorable summary judgment ruling in a patent infringement suit filed in 2001 by Pause Technology. The ruling that TiVo PVRs don’t infringe on Pause’s patent was entered by U.S. Dist. Court Judge Patti Saris in Boston. TiVo said it will file a motion asking that the court declare the dispute an “exceptional” case, which would require Pause to repay TiVo’s
The CBS telecast of the Super Bowl halftime show in which singer Justin Timberlake tore off part of Janet Jackson’s costume, exposing her breast, drew “the biggest spike in audience reaction TiVo has ever measured,” TiVo said Mon. TiVo, citing an analysis of “aggregated data” from a sample of 20,000 households, said viewership of the halftime incident jumped 180% “as hundreds of thousands of households used TiVo’s unique capabilities to pause and replay live television to view the incident again and again.” The incident drew protests from parent’s group and prompted FCC Chmn. to promise a quick investigation. Powell called it “a classless, crass and deplorable stunt.”
The first hardware using Digital Interactive Systems Corp. (DISC) technology, which allows gamers to play PC games on their TVs without the need for a compute, as expected was unveiled by Apex Digital and Alienware at CES late last week. Apex’s hardware, scheduled to ship in March, is the ApeXtreme DVD player/DISCover Game Console, while Alienware’s is the Media Center PC and DISCover Game Console.