Am I the Only One....

[TorontoSage]

Does anyone have any thoughts on why the HD PVR is the only game in town? Is the demand for this product too low to attract more than one manufacturer to the space? I am wondering as successful products always attract competitors.

Or, does it not have a competitor yet because the technology is so complex that the lead time on developing a competitive product has kept competitors out of the market so far?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by TorontoSage

Does anyone have any thoughts on why the HD PVR is the only game in town? Is the demand for this product too low to attract more than one manufacturer to the space? I am wondering as successful products always attract competitors.

Or, does it not have a competitor yet because the technology is so complex that the lead time on developing a competitive product has kept competitors out of the market so far?

Probably because it's a niche product. There's just not that much demand for such a product in among regular consumers.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Probably because it's a niche product. There's just not that much demand for such a product in among regular consumers.

I don't know that I buy that. I would think that there is more demand for a component capture device, like the HD-PVR, than for a QAM tuner. Why would you want a QAM tuner when it only gets some of your channels vs. an HD-PVR which can get all of your channels. And QAM tuners are useless here in Canada which shrinks the size of the potential North American market by 10% for QAM tuners. And there must be dozens of QAM tuners on the market.

Certainly most people who are in the market for tuner cards for a PC will have a HDTV. (Less than 50% of the overall population has HD but I am making an assumption that those in the market for a TV tuner are (1) wealthier than average and (2) geekier than average which means they think it is cool to have stuff like HDTVs) And if you have a HDTV you want everything in HD - and there are only a limited number of options for all HD channels in a HTPC - an R5000, a CableCard tuner (which means a new PC with Wista or Win7) or the HD-PVR or a similar device.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by wayner

I don't know that I buy that. I would think that there is more demand for a component capture device, like the HD-PVR, than for a QAM tuner. Why would you want a QAM tuner when it only gets some of your channels vs. an HD-PVR which can get all of your channels. And QAM tuners are useless here in Canada which shrinks the size of the potential North American market by 10% for QAM tuners. And there must be dozens of QAM tuners on the market.

Certainly most people who are in the market for tuner cards for a PC will have a HDTV. (Less than 50% of the overall population has HD but I am making an assumption that those in the market for a TV tuner are (1) wealthier than average and (2) geekier than average which means they think it is cool to have stuff like HDTVs) And if you have a HDTV you want everything in HD - and there are only a limited number of options for all HD channels in a HTPC - an R5000, a CableCard tuner (which means a new PC with Wista or Win7) or the HD-PVR or a similar device.

Look at it this way. The percentage of consumers who have the desire to run an HTPC is quite small. Then take the number of those people who have HTPC software that can be used with the HD-PVR. The number gets even smaller. Granted, once Win7 comes out the market for the HD-PVR will be larger but that doesn't make the HTPC any less of a niche. Whether you like it or not wanting to record TV on your computer is a niche market.

[TorontoSage]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Whether you like it or not wanting to record TV on your computer is a niche market.

I still don't buy that argument because there are a lot of niche markets that have more than one competitor.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by TorontoSage

Does anyone have any thoughts on why the HD PVR is the only game in town? Is the demand for this product too low to attract more than one manufacturer to the space? I am wondering as successful products always attract competitors.

Well, I think there's probably a few reasons. First of all, of course the HD-PVR is a very niche product. So, those kinds of devices aren't going to attract a lot of attention from manufacturers. Related to that, I think the companies that have been making tuner cards see this as a shrinking market. No H.264 support in MCE means a large percentage of potential TV tuner customers won't be interested in the HD-PVR. Even if MCE had support, fewer people are going to be willing to go through the installation and setup.

And, I think available technology is limiting things too. Apparently there just aren't cheap hardware mpeg2 encoders out there capable of HD, and there's a limited number of HD-capable hardware mpeg4 encoders. There actually is a consumer device in Japan that can go real-time mpeg2 encoding, but apparently Leadtek has no interest in bringing it here.

Which brings me to the final reason- I suspect companies are more hesitant to bring products like the HD-PVR to market due to piracy reasons, and objections from the MPAA, TV and cable networks, and potentially cable companies. Some of the companies that might be interested in creating HD-PVR devices are also companies that make video cards, which need HDCP keys. Maybe they don't want to piss off the MPAA out of fear that they won't get the keys they need.

And I'm not convinced there's a bigger market for HD-PVR devices than QAM tuners. The number of people potentially interested in the HD-PVR might be higher, but the percentage of interested parties willing to buy one and set it up is much, much higher for QAM tuners. Actually, most of my college friends that had a PC-based DVR were just guys that had a computer with MCE and an Xbox. Since TV tuners are relatively cheap, they were mostly just messing around with it for fun rather than looking for an actual TV/DVR setup. Most of them didn't even have cable TV.

I did convince one of my friends to buy Sage. He used it for a couple years until RCN went all-digital and he didn't want to mess with capturing from a digital cable box.

[mayamaniac]

First of all, the HTPC market is a niche market, you can't argue that. As much as Microsoft wants people to use MCE, adoption is very slow and so it is still a very small niche market. I think most people use the providers DVR boxes, which is a lot more hassle free and they are happy with it despite the limitations compare to a HTPC.

Let's not forget the HD-PVR has only been out for less than a year, and Hauppauge is one of the biggest name in this niche market, they make tuners and nearly nothing else. So it's not surprising they are the first to come up with it. Given a little more time, the competitors will come out with similar products.

[TorontoSage]

Originally Posted by reggie14

First of all, of course the HD-PVR is a very niche product.

Being niche is not the reason. Being not a big enough niche might be though. Sonos is a niche product, yet it has competitors. Recently the niche got big enough for Linksys/Cisco to jump in.

I think the market is only going to get larger as more software becomes available to record off cable boxes and the intermediary hardware required becomes more stable. Every physically external and closed system hardware/software solution eventually migrates inside the computer.

Originally Posted by reggie14

Apparently there just aren't cheap hardware mpeg2 encoders out there capable of HD, and there's a limited number of HD-capable hardware mpeg4 encoders.

But if Hauppauge can do it then it's not a limitation unless they bought up the entire supply of chips.

Originally Posted by reggie14

Which brings me to the final reason- I suspect companies are more hesitant to bring products like the HD-PVR to market due to piracy reasons, and objections from the MPAA, TV and cable networks, and potentially cable companies. Some of the companies that might be interested in creating HD-PVR devices are also companies that make video cards, which need HDCP keys. Maybe they don't want to piss off the MPAA out of fear that they won't get the keys they need.

Possibly.

I wonder if there's any reason Hauppauge doesn't create an HD PVR on a card that you can install inside the PC.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by TorontoSage

I wonder if there's any reason Hauppauge doesn't create an HD PVR on a card that you can install inside the PC.

What would be the advantage of an internal card? You'd still need some sort of external dongle or breakout box to accommodate all the inputs and outputs (S-Video, component, audio, IR blaster, etc). USB seems like a simpler solution.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

What would be the advantage of an internal card? You'd still need some sort of external dongle or breakout box to accommodate all the inputs and outputs (S-Video, component, audio, IR blaster, etc). USB seems like a simpler solution.

Maybe it would reduce the cost, that's my assumption. I think they will make a PCI-Express card version in the future.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by TorontoSage

Being niche is not the reason. Being not a big enough niche might be though. Sonos is a niche product, yet it has competitors. Recently the niche got big enough for Linksys/Cisco to jump in.

First of all, I didn't say that was the only reason. Second, the PC DVR market has become a very low-margin business. You might be able to pin some of that on Microsoft, but it was low-margin before that. Niche and low-margin means there are very limited financial incentives to get involved.

Now, a better question might be why high-end multi-room DVR systems haven't really developed. I'm not entirely sure, but I'm guessing it's because the consumer ones are "good enough". But, what I do know is that if high-end systems ever came around, they wouldn't be based on the HD-PVR, or anything like it. It would be cablecard-based with all the DRM that comes along that sort of thing.

I think the market is only going to get larger as more software becomes available to record off cable boxes and the intermediary hardware required becomes more stable. Every physically external and closed system hardware/software solution eventually migrates inside the computer.

We've had this discussion before, but I think that sort of thing will basically happen when we move to Internet TV. Of course, I also think things like the TPM chip will eventually make DRM more viable and nearly impossible to get around in a practical way.

But if Hauppauge can do it then it's not a limitation unless they bought up the entire supply of chips.

Actually, my understanding is that Hauppauge has an exclusive deal the chipmaker, at least when it comes to using it in video-capture devices. But yes, there are other options. Leadtek's device, which as I've said is already selling in Japan, uses cell processors.

My point was a lot of things are coming together to make it less likely that companies would want to create HD-PVR competitors. None of them are insurmountable on their own, but together they scare companies off.

I wonder if there's any reason Hauppauge doesn't create an HD PVR on a card that you can install inside the PC.

I suspect it was an engineering thing. They probably just decided it was easier to make it on an external board. Maybe for power requirements. Maybe because things didn't quite fit as well on a PCI(e) card. Or, maybe because they only wanted to make one type of HD-PVR, and USB is a bit more versatile.

[sandor]

http://www.myhava.com/product_hava_titanium_hd.html

The HAVA unit (from my understanding through people within this forum) will capture HD, albeit record it in SD...