DirecTV

The battle between DirecTV and Viacom continues.  This is not good news for our TV lift customers who have DirecTV.  Viacom claims DirecTV won’t work with them to renew contract terms.  They claim that the renewal plans put forth our fair.  It is evident they wish to increase DirecTV’s fee structure.  Viacom states the fee increase is consistent to what their other distributors have to pay for Viacom Channels.  According to Nomura Analyst Michael Nathanson, he estimates that most distributors pay a fee of $3 per subscriber per month whereas DirecTV only paid $2.25 per subscriber per month up until last week.  Viacom wishes to increase their fee to what they claim is only “a couple of pennies per day per subscriber”.

However DirecTV states, when added up, this is a 30% fee increase.  They also state that Viacom’s renewal plans force them to add channels they don’t want. "Viacom insists that we carry the EPIX channel at an additional cost of more than half a billion dollars,"

DirecTV and TiVo are now launching their new TiVo HD DVR across the United States.  The partnership that started in 2008 between DirecTV and TiVo has finally created a strong product to offer to DirecTV subscribers.  The new TiVo HD DVR (THR22) can fit into all TV lift cabinets, record up to 100 hours of HD programming or 400 hours of standard definition shows.  The THR22 also has the ability to record two shows at a time and can access 7,000 movies on demand.

The two companies did a soft launch of the THR22 in December to select markets for its trial period.  The trial markets included New York, Denver, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.  Now after two months of test trialing, both companies feel comfortable with releasing the TiVo HD DVR to the rest of the United States.  Clearly, the trial period produced positive results.

It seems that all the tech giants are introducing set top boxes. The purpose of most of these boxes is to allow the viewer to stream online content to their TV lift cabinet. Taking a different approach is DirecTV in their partnership with Miso.  Miso has developed an app for iPhones that allows you to share and follow commentary on Twitter about whatever show is playing on your TV.

Although it is becoming more common to see a Twitter hashtag in the corner of your screen while tuning in to certain shows, movies or channels, you sometimes have to actively search for the commentary when the hashtag or Facebook page are not advertised on the screen. However, the Miso app allows you to check in to whatever it is you’re watching and instantly join in on the commentary provided by social media.

Simply download the app, connect your iPhone to the same network as DirecTV and open Miso. Miso then detects the remote control you’re holding. Press sync and Miso connects to the remote. This allows