June 29 - 4:15pm EDT   The US Supreme Court today rejected an appeal by film studios and television networks of a New York court ruling that would allow a new type of digital video recorder service from Cablevision. A report says the justices refused to review a ruling made by a US Court of Appeals in New York that said Cablevision's proposed service would not directly infringe the copyrights of the media companies that produce the recorded movie and TV programs. No reason for the rejection was given. [full story]

June 22 - 2:20pm EDT   Fresh from a win against EchoStar, TiVo is set to tie directly into pay-per-view systems as well as Time Warner's cable network, according to two sources. The DVR producer is said by Bloomberg to be talking with more than one pay-per-view provider to either allow its recording directly or else to license out the technology for third-party hardware or software. Details are vague, but it would be separate from online-only support for Amazon VOD, Netflix and other services. [full story]

June 3 - 12:35am EDT   A federal judge in Texas has awarded TiVo approximately $190 million in damages in the continuing legal battle with DISH Network and EchoStar, according to Reuters. The conflict involves infringement of patents for technology used in the company's DVR set-top boxes. The judge previously ordered an injunction to prevent the accused companies from using the patented technology in their devices, although TiVo claims the products continue to replicate its Time Warp features. [full story]

May 29 - 4:10pm EDT   An expected replacement for DirecTV TiVo DVRs that would allow them to record HD programming has been delayed yet again, as revealed by TiVo's CEO Tom Rogers in the company's recent quarterly earnings call. Instead of sometime in 2009, the new expected date for the upgraded products is early in 2010. No specific reason was given for the delay, though it is likely tied to TiVo's loss of $4.1 million during the past quarter. [full story]

May 12 - 4:20pm EDT   Researchers NPD Group today said that 88% of the money consumers spend on home entertainment goes towards purchasing and renting movies on DVD and Blu-ray discs. Of the $25 each US consumer spends on average in a given month, 63 percent was found to be spent on DVD purchases, 7 percent on Blu-ray discs, and 18% went towards renting DVD and Blu-ray movies. The remaining 12 percent was split between video on-demand (VOD) services (9 percent) and digital downloads and online streaming (3 percent). [full story]

April 20 - 7:40pm EDT   Alleged screenshots from an online TiVo survey appear to contain questions involving potential names and features for new hardware, according to Engadget. The tested names include TiVo eVO, TiVo OmniBox, TiVo Series4 and TiVo OnDemand. Most of the services on the survey are already available, except for on-demand video. [full story]

April 17 - 9:15am EDT   If accurate, a rumor floated today will see Best Buy leap into its own online movie store. Entertainment magazine Variety claims to have heard from movie studio executives that the retailer is talking to CinemaNow and "other online movie services" to establish a link between itself and one of these services. While what's involved is uncertain, Best Buy is likely to arrange for a cut of the revenues for each movie viewed and may promote hardware with that movie service's features built-in. [full story]

April 9 - 9:05am EDT   Digeo on Thursday rolled out an update to its Moxi HD DVR that significantly expands its role as a media hub. The new version adds DLNA support to stream music, photos and videos from nearby PCs and other devices on the local network, such as PlayStation 3s. It also takes advantage of new paid software from PlayOn that will push web video from Hulu, Netflix and other sites from a PC to the Moxi without needing to visit the web. [full story]

April 7 - 9:05am EDT   Blockbuster yesterday submitted a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing that reveals the company doesn't believe it can continue business. The video store is no longer certain that it can remain a "going concern" and may have to stop operations and close its doors if its financial situation doesn't improve in the near future. The warning comes in spite of a $250 million refinancing loan having been put in place just last week; Blockbuster now says there is "no assurance" that it can meet the requirements of the transaction before it's completed on May 11th. [full story]

March 30 - 3:50pm EDT   Rent-by-mail and online video rental company Netflix on Monday notified its subscribers that it would raise prices by nearly 20 percent for its Blu-ray library. Prices for standard-definition offerings on DVD will remain the same, with the new prices coming into effect on or after April 27th. Subscribers who do not wish to get their fees hiked need to disable the Blu-ray preference on their online accounts, Netflix says. [full story]

March 25 - 7:45am EDT   Blockbuster today said it would start delivering movies and TV shows over TiVo's DVRs. The tie-in will give users about 10,000 combined movies and TV shows that can be purchased or rented from any Series 2, Series 3 or HD series device. The company is offering movie rentals for between $2 and $4 and permanent movie purchases between $15 and $20. As part of the deal, Blockbuster says it will also start selling TiVo units in its retail stores. [full story]

March 9 - 5:00pm EDT   According to several unnamed and unofficial sources, Amazon will soon add HD content via their Video On Demand store, though it seems that this will be offered on TiVo set-top boxes only. The unofficial sources also say the progressive downloads include surround sound information for a Blu-ray HD movie-like viewing experience. Last week, Amazon began offering its VOD library via the Roku Player, though no HD content is available. Mention of HD Amazon videos on TiVo has been kicking around since last year, when unused shortcuts to HD content in the TiVo menu were discovered. [full story]

February 12 - 11:55am EST   Netflix on Thursday passed a symbolic milestone and said it obtained its 10 millionth subscriber overnight. The number was achieved after adding about 600,000 new users in the month and a half since the start of 2009 and is growing faster than already seen in the large fall leap, when the movie rental firm added about 718,000 new regular users over the space of the last three months of 2008. The company expects to add between 100,000 and 300,000 more by the end of March. [full story]

January 5 - 12:00am EST   Sonic Solutions' Roxio has updated its stalwart Toast Titanium and Titanium Pro disc burning and media conversion software, adding enhanced iPhone streaming, TIVo support, an audiobook creation tool and archiving support for AVCHD video. The Pro version comes bundled with a plug-in for Blu-ray support, SmartSound Sonicfire Pro, BIAS SoundSoap, LightZone and FotoMagico. Both versions of Toast are available now. [full story]

December 9 - 11:20am EST   TiVo today implemented the potentially controversial step of introducing ads to its Pause Menu interface. The move lets advertisers buy text spots that will appear whenever the user either pauses a live or timeshifted show. The ads can appear either cued to a particular show or can be automatically flagged for when certain keywords appear or even for entire genres. Fox and Mercedes-Benz are among the early companies planning to advertise. [full story]