On Dec 1, 5:50*pm, mm wrote:
On Wed, 1 Dec 2010 07:31:25 -0800 (PST), wrote:
On Dec 1, 10:13 am, George wrote:
On 12/1/2010 4:24 AM, mm wrote:

In the last 4 years, up to this day, the cable companies have made a
big deal about a multiroom DVR.

Why? I"ve had multi-room VR since 1984 -- would have had it earlier
if I'd had a VCR earlier -- when there was only VCR, and it plays in 7
rooms, plus my attic or porch if I want, not just 3 or 4 rooms like
they advertise. And it cost about 40 dollars in parts. With a
fancy signal amplifier and using only home runs, I guess parts could
cost 150. Either way, no monthly charge.

Just in the last month, from Verizon, and advertised on TV "The Home
Media DVR service is an upgrade to the FiOS TV DVR and provides the
multi-room DVR feature that is an excellent choice for people who have
more than one TV in their home. With Home Media DVR, you can watch a
program recorded on your DVR from other TV sets in your home that are
connected to a regular (non-DVR) set-top box. Requires one or more
Verizon-provided set-top boxes that are connected to TVs in other
rooms in your home."

2009 This one is from a columnist at ZDNet, Sean Portnoy, who nowhere
mentions that you can do this yourself, or hire a guy for an afternoon
to do it. I guess he doesn't know or woudln't get press-releases if
he didn't back up their marketing.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/home-theat...e-to-offer-mul....
"Time Warner Cable to offer multi-room DVRs.... With competition from
satellite and fiber-optic TV competitors coming from one side, and the
Internet from the other, the cable industry needs to deliver new
products to keep their subscribers from defecting to the
alternatives." "Multi-room DVR capabilities are definitely at the top
of many cable customers wish lists, as having a recorded show
tethered to just one TV is an inconvenience for us lazy viewers who
may want to watch something recorded downstairs in their bedroom
instead." "Fellow set-top box provider Echostar will deliver a
slightly different Tru2way unit later this year" "Of course, these
next-gen services will cost subscribers more in monthly fees, just as
DVR and HD programming often do."

2006 " Verizon adds multiroom DVR The new multiroom DVR, made by
Motorola, lets customers view recorded programs on up to three
televisions at once."

You have to use one to appreciate the difference. With a VCR you are
constrained to doing one thing at one time with manual intervention
required to change the tape.

I barely use my VCR anymore, but when I started having remote tvs in
1984 and other-room remote control later, there were no digital
recorders, so I used VCRs for a starting point in time.

A DVR records onto a hard drive and can
record multiple programs and playback multiple programs at the same time
without any need to load or monitor a tape. Also it catalogs what it
recorded and since a hard drive can almost instantly seek to a location
you simply need to review what is in the catalog and press play without
having to sort through a stack of tapes and then needing to advance the
tape to the start point.

I think his point was not about DVR relative to VCR, but getting multi-
room capability with either. * I think he's proposing that you can
extend one of either device to other rooms via an amp and cable.

Yes, exactly.

But as James pointed out, the Verizon and similar offerings are a lot
more sophisiticated than that. *

But their commercials and the webpages don't mention those other
things, so at the very least they are stupid commercials. *

If you do it mm's way, you have to
start the movie in the main room and then while it's playing on that
TV, you can also see the same recording simultaneously on other TVs.
However, you can't control it, start, stop it, back it up, choose
another recording, etc, *from the other rooms and you're limited to
the one recording playing everywhere.

Like I say, the commercials don't mention any of this. When they had
the famous football player walking from room to room for months, he
didn't say a word about it.

And it's a separate thing. *I've had that set of features too, going
back about 15 years, using a Leapfrog IR-45 transmitter and that clips
on in front of my remote control and has a receiver/IR-transmitter in
the room with the equipement. * For some reason, the range has finally
decreased, even with new batteries, a new-in-box transmitter, and
new-in-box receiver** (this model that needs only one transmitter,
that sticks to the remote, is not sold retail anymore), so I'm
switching to the Powermid pyramid***, or a competitor, which requires
an IR-receiver/RF-transmitter in each room where one is, but it's 45
dollars for the first set, and 20 additional for each
IR/RF-transitter, a total of 105 dollars for 4 rooms, no rental
charges. *They've sold these things for 15 years or more I think, and
yet Verizon and Time-Warner are crowing about their johnny-come-lately
features.

**I have to test it with the new-in-box receiver, and with still
another new battery, but for some strange reason, I'm not optimistic.
***Which a poster in another group gave a hearty endorsement of.

My understanding of the Verizon product, you could be watching a live
or recorded show on the one TV and then watch different recorded
program in any of several other rooms that are equipped with the
service.

That too, their advertising and those and other webpages don't
mention. *- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -



Here's a link to Verizon's description of their multi-room DVR
offering:

http://www22.verizon.com/residential...entdetails.htm


It's pretty clear there that you can watch and control different
recorded programs from 3 different rooms. I did have to do a bit
more looking for it than you'd expect. First few pages at Verizon
were not clear, so I agree they could do a better job of explaining
it. For some reason, they seem to like to focus on the fact that you
can start a program in one room, like the living room, then continue
to watch it in the bedroom.