You’ve probably seen it by now.

What looks like a commercial for a new TV show or movie, turns out to be a commercial for a line of HDTV sets from LG called Scarlet. (Check out the video below if you haven’t seen it already.)

It seems like it was a successful campaign, in that it garnered lots of press attention including a red-carpet fake premiere with (fake) celebrities and lots of mentions on the Internet.

However, I’m more interested in the fact that this is one of the first TVs that are branded. And it’s about time. Everything else around us has branded names. Think of cars (Toyota Avalon, Ford Taurus), MP3 players (iPod, Zune), cell phones (LG’s Chocolate, Motorola’s Razr or the iPhone)–heck even condoms have brand names (Trojan, Magnum). So it’s about time that TV sets are becoming brands that consumers can identify.

LG’s Scarlet line of sets don’t really push the bar as far as new or advanced features, it just has a good brand name. And the back of the TV is red, too. So it doesn’t take much beyond lots of advertising dollars, an online viral marketing campaign, and a new product to begin promoting a new brand.

Why aren’t other TV set manufacturer’s doing this? I mean, Sony, which came up with Walkman, and Vaio, should have a good TV brand. Panasonic does have the Viera line of TV sets, but it reminds me too much of Good Morning America’s Meredith Viera to really have a brand impact with me.

Having a name like Scarlet, also makes it easy for consumers to find reviews and prices on the Internet. You don’t have to remember that the Scarlet is product number AZTX-4208, for example. (I just made that up.) Just Google “Scarlet” and TV and up comes results to help you shop and compare.

Brands. It’s what people want. People share with others what brand their new cell phone is. And consumer electronic manufacturers should realize that people want to show off their new HDTVs also. And let’s include DVRs also. Tivo has done pretty well as the top brand of DVRs, but distinguishing different product lines is kind of tricky. Tivo’s Series 2, or Series 3 DVRs are boring names. Why not the Tivo Magum? Or um, something like that.

Technorati Tags: Tivo, LG, Scarlet, branding, advertising, HDTV, TV

A three-judge federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that EchoStar/Dish Network violated Tivo’s DVR software patent. Tivo is expected to receive about $94 million in damages and interest. As a result, Tivo’s stock soared 29% on Thursday. Naturally, EchoStar said it would appeal the ruling, which will extend litigation that has been ongoing since 2004.

Dish said in a statement:

We are pleased the Federal Circuit found for us on Tivo’s hardware claims, but are disappointed in the Federal Circuit’s decision on the software claims. The decision, however, will have no effect on our current or future customers because EchoStar’s engineers have developed and deployed ‘next-generation’ DVR software to our customers’ DVRs. This improved software is fully operational, has been automatically downloaded to current customers, and does not infringe the Tivo patent at issue in the Federal Circuit’s ruling.

So Dish customers will be able to use their existing DVRs without being affected much by this ruling.

For its part Tivo’s press release was full of joy:

“We are extremely pleased that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit unanimously ruled in our favor in EchoStar’s appeal of the district court judgment of patent infringement, full award of damages and that the injunction, which was stayed pending appeal, was ordered to be  reinstated. Today’s ruling is confirmation of the value of TiVo’s IP portfolio, which is in addition to the other benefits TiVo has to offer. TiVo can now continue to focus on its goal to drive greater distribution in both its stand alone and mass distribution efforts.”

So essentially Tivo won on software, but not on its hardware claims. That’s ok, I guess, since Tivo is discontinuing its Series 3 HD DVRs according to Megazone at Tivo Lovers.

Technorati Tags: DVR, Tivo, Dish Network, EchoStar, lawsuit, Series 3

According to In-Stat, the DVR market is growing by leaps and bounds worldwide. They estimate that DVR unit shipments will reach 31.6 million by 2011 worldwide, up from 19.5 million in 2007.

In-Stat also says that TiVo is the top DVR company as measured by total subscribers. The next top providers are EchoStar, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and BSkyB.

Apparently, lots of growth is happening in Europe and Asia. I think most of those are happening from IPTV deployments, since most IPTV services have DVR functionality and IPTV is
growing rapidly in Asia and Europe. As more companies around the world turn to IPTV, DVR usage and deployment will grow–both are intertwined.

Just to clarify, IPTV is commonly defined as broadcast TV delivered via broadband over a closed network, like phone lines (DSL) or fiber to the home. IPTV hasn’t made a big dent here in the U.S. since cable and satellite are the biggest TV providers. But AT&T’s U-Verse and Verizon’s FiOS TV are finally seeing subscribers in the hundreds of thousands here in the U.S. And those numbers will continue to grow. And many of those people will be using DVRs.

[Via In-Stat Press Release.]

Technorati Tags: DVR, In-Stat, IPTV, U-verse, FiOS TV, Verizon, AT&T, digital video recorder, research, analysis

The L.A. Times has an interview with Tom Togers, the CEO of Tivo. They discuss how Tivo has been evolving into a media/advertiser-friendly company and the future of Tivo. Here are some interesting highlights:

What’s TiVo’s ultimate goal?

What we’re aiming to do is build a dream that going back 20 years ago people in cable and television have been talking about — being able to get anything you want, when you want to see it on your television set. Now, there’s a lot of complications to that. There are different video formats. Some things on TV are sent directly to TiVo. Other things we have to grab off the Internet. Other things involve rights deals with studios. There have been many efforts to persuade people to connect their TVs to the Internet. Most have failed. Is this something people want to do?

People have said to us, “Well, OK, the content is distributed by broadband, but how are you going to get people to connect their broadband wires to their television sets? It’s an unnatural act. People are just not going to do that.” We said that’s just not the case. We have 800,000 TiVo users who have already directly connected their broadband through TiVo to their television sets.

When asked why you want the Internet on your TV, Rogers said that Tivo is working to move just being a recording only device, into something that opens up the “infinite choice in video”.  Plus, he answered the question about whether Tivo would merge or be acquired by another company by saying “…there seems to be just an awful lot of upside to drive as an independent company.”

Technorati Tags: Tivo, interview, LA Times, DVR, Amazon, RealNetworks

Just saw this on TechBargains. A Tivo Series 3 for $389.99 after a $200 rebate from Buy.com.

The rebate is good until January 26th, so check it out if you’re in the market for an HD Series 3 Tivo.

Technorati Tags: deal, Tivo, Series 3, DVR, Tivo Series 3