DirecTV to Offer DVR Based on NDS's XTV Technology

NDS has revealed that its News Corp.-stablemate, satellite-TV provider, DirecTV, will begin offering a DVR based on NDS's XTV technology (which also powers the Sky+ DVR offered by News Corp.-owned BSkyB in the UK) in the first quarter of next year.

DirecTV currently offers a DVR service based on the TiVo set-top box; however, 2 recent moves by the satellite-TV provider--its sale of its entire 3.4 million-share stake in TiVo and the resignation of its vice chairman, Eddie Hartenstein, from TiVo's board--have led to speculation in some quarters that it might end its relationship with TiVo altogether, which, of course, would be a major setback for the latter.

(Note: in its most recent earnings announcement, TiVo revealed that 900,000 of its 1.6 million subscribers are customers of DirecTV's "DirecTV with TiVo" service, as were 196,000 of the 264,000 new subscribers the company added in its fiscal first quarter.)

However, as TiVo's contract with DirecTV runs through 2007, and as nearly a million DirecTV subscribers are already using TiVo boxes, it seems much more likely that DirecTV is simply trying to gain some of the benefits (e.g. lower vendor prices across the board) that normally ensue when an operator has a secondary equipment vendor in place. DirecTV, which has in fact stated publicly that it will continue to offer TiVo alongside a new XTV-powered DVR, would probably position the latter as a low-priced, bare-bones alternative to TiVo.