Firms Try to Spark Interest in Net Video

In the latest effort to bring the Internet to the living room, electronics companies are unveiling a new breed of digital recorders that can download video from the Web and play it on TV sets.

Today, Sonicblue Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., is expected to revive the defunct ReplayTV brand with four new digital video recorders that can tap into the Web as well as conventional TV broadcasts. A similar device was announced earlier this year by Echostar Communications Corp., operator of the Dish Network satellite TV service. Others are expected in 2002.

If this new generation of recorders wins over consumers, it could hasten the Net’s development as an alternative pipeline for movies, sporting events and other programs. That’s because the boxes answer two of the main problems with Internet video: They connect to a TV set instead of a computer, and they can deliver as sharp and steady a picture as viewers get from conventional broadcasts.

The new Replay and Echostar boxes are the latest additions to the emerging field of “personal video recorders,” which are digital cousins of the VCR. These recorders use a high-capacity disk drive that can record and play back simultaneously, enabling them to pause, rewind and replay live broadcasts.

But with initial prices as high as $2,000, the new devices aren’t likely to fly off the shelves. They also will have to overcome the public’s apparent indifference, which stunted sales of earlier digital video recorders and Internet-on-TV devices.

Nevertheless, at least one Hollywood studio--Walt Disney Co.--is in talks to use the Replay recorders for a new Internet-based movie service, said technology analyst Richard Doherty of Envisioneering Group.

Disney is attracted to Replay’s boxes because they are easier to program than others on the market, Doherty said.

“Replay would be at the vanguard,” Doherty said. “It’s the first generation of set-top boxes that can do what Disney is looking for.”

A Disney spokeswoman declined to comment Tuesday. The company has said it would announce an Internet-based video venture shortly, offering an alternative to the joint Internet project launched by five rival studios last month.

One reason the studios are moving to the Internet is the expected arrival of an entire line of devices that bridge the gap between the Net and TV, said R. Jordan Greenhall of DivxNetworks, a company that delivers video through the Web. He predicted that a more affordable wave of set-top boxes will arrive by mid-2002, aimed at consumers with high-speed Internet connections.

As a start-up in Mountain View, Calif., Replay Networks helped pioneer the personal video recorder industry in 1998 alongside rival TiVo Inc. Disappointing sales led Replay to discontinue its models last year and concentrate on licensing its technology to other companies, but Sonicblue decided to jump back into the market after acquiring the firm this year.

The four new Replay units, scheduled to begin shipping Nov. 15, will store up to 320 hours of programming, with prices ranging from $700 to $2,000. In addition to inputs for cable, broadcast or satellite TV, they will be able to connect to a high-speed Internet line or home network.

Steve Shannon, a marketing executive for Sonicblue, said the company will take an open, standards-based approach to Internet video, enabling anyone with programs to make them available to Replay users. In fact, he said, programmers will be able to list their online offerings as “iChannels” in Replay’s electronic program guide.

Luke McDonough, an executive vice president of IFilm, a Hollywood-based company providing links to movies and film news online, praised the way the Replay units present online programming to consumers. They combine the Web’s power to search and retrieve with TV’s ability to display video where consumers want to watch it, McDonough said.

One potentially sore point for programmers, though, is that the Replay recorders can transmit copies of the recordings they make to other Replay boxes over the Internet. A single program can be copied 15 times, Shannon said, although broadcasters could use standard anti-piracy technology from Macrovision to block duplication.

On the other hand, Lynn Claudy, senior vice president of science and technology for the National Assn. of Broadcasters, said technology-savvy Internet users have long been able to pirate TV programs over the Internet.

The broadcasters’ main concern is to prevent TV piracy from going mainstream, he said, adding that the studios, broadcasters and electronics companies have been trying for several years to agree on a technological solution.

The Replay boxes have one other feature that won’t win friends among the broadcasters: Users can automatically skip all the commercials in recorded programs.

The new Echostar recorder, due by the end of the year at an as-yet-undetermined price, probably will be able to record 70 hours of video, music and photos from the Web, a home computer or the Dish Network, Echostar spokesman Mark Lumpkin said. Among other things, the device will be able to download music from the Net and, when connected to a CD recorder, burn it onto disc, Lumpkin said.

Officials at the two other leading PVR companies, TiVo and Microsoft Corp., said they are exploring ways to connect their devices to the Internet. But both said they were holding off in part because of concerns about piracy.

Gary Arlen, an independent media and technology analyst, said the Hollywood studios and other programmers may welcome an alternative way to reach consumers. But he predicted that it will take several years for the new devices have much of an effect on video programming.

“The reality is, the relationship that the major program suppliers have with the networks is so tight and so long-lived that it’s going to be hard to break,” Arlen said.