DVR

On its Twitter feed this afternoon, FOX Broadcasting is spreading the word to heads-up DVR owners that tonight's season premiere of House will need a minute more of your hard drive space.

The broadcast will air tonight on WLUK FOX 11 from 7:00 PM until 9:01 PM.  Viewers who want to ensure their DVR picks up the very end of the show will need to double-check that their scheduled recording goes until 9:01.  Most DVRs allow users to manually adjust start and end times, however an extra minute on the end of House may conflict with other 9:00 PM hour recordings.

A similar situation happened a few years ago on Gilmore Girls when the network's scheduling the last act a minute over the hour caused DVR viewers headaches when the last moment of the show was cut off.

AT&T is again improving its U-Verse offerings, rolling out a handful of service improvements for all customers.

Perhaps highest among the anticipated improvements is the ability to schedule and manage DVR recordings from any other receiver in the home. This enhances the recently-launched Whole-Home DVR, which allowed customers previously to merely view DVR recordings from non-DVR receivers. The service still only allows one physical DVR unit per household.

Also on the docket for improvement is a speed increase for "Max"-tier Internet subscribers, raising the downstream speed from 10 to 12 megabits per second. The bump comes free to all residential and business subscribers on the "Max" package.

Other improvements include an on-demand "top picks" feature that recommends titles based on history, enhancements to the remote web scheduling of DVR programs, navigation improvements, and an unlimited access trial of Starz during the entire month of July.

It appears that set-top maker Motorola and cable operator Time Warner are collaborating on a Tru2Way multiroom DVR akin to those offered by the likes of AT&T, according to Motorola's website.

When and if it appears in Northeast Wisconsin is yet to be seen.  Time Warner locally uses primarily Cisco / Scientific Atlanta hardware right now.

The feature, which they are dubbing "Follow Me TV" will use MoCA (Multimedia over Coaxial Alliance) technology similar to AT&T's U-Verse to network multiple receivers in a home.

“Consumers expect more flexibility and control with today’s premium TV services and we are excited to be offering the whole-home DVR with Motorola,” said Louis Williamson, Senior Fellow, Engineering, Time Warner Cable. “This is the first OpenCable™ tru2way system with home network extensions. It is fully interoperable, providing Time Warner Cable more flexibility and choice in determining what equipment is made available in its footprint.”