Word: replayer
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...much would you pay never to see another talking frog or battery-powered bunny again? To program your own all-Luke Perry channel? To add impromptu bathroom breaks to live broadcasts? Replay Networks and TiVo, creators of new digital-TV recording devices, are popping the question, working to persuade you to add yet another cube to the towering ziggurat of entertainment--cable box, VCR, DVD and video-game player--on your TV table. They say their new gadgets could just change TV itself in the process, a possibility that has the networks more than a little nervous. Lawyers have been...
...like a VCR, but there's a big difference: using a phone line, the players download program schedules that pop up on the screen, where you click on a show rather than punching in times and channels and hoping you have got it right. This feature is free with Replay, while TiVo charges $9.95 a month, $99 a year or $199 lifetime. The ReplayTV box, currently sold only online, starts at $699; TiVo, recently arrived in retail stores...
Analysts give TiVo, which plans to sell shares in an IPO, the early lead in the competition, noting that it has outstripped Replay in sales and investment partnerships. Last week, apparently to boost its dealmaking power with Hollywood, Replay named Kim LeMasters, former president of CBS Entertainment, as its chairman and CEO. "They have not brought me in for my ability to figure out what bugs are on the CPU," LeMasters says. "They brought me in for that portfolio I brought from Hollywood and for my different mind-set and my ability to examine the marketplace...
...cofounder Mike Ramsay. "We're going to build it into television sets and DVD players...It will eventually get embedded into every device." Ultimately, several companies will manufacture the boxes under license. Philips currently makes TiVo's box, and this month TiVo signed another deal with Sony; Replay has a similar agreement with Panasonic...
...Replay's LeMasters will also be helpful in negotiating peace with the networks, which are unsure whether to love the new technology or hate it. A number of media companies and TV networks have invested in TiVo and/or Replay. But many of the same players (including Time Warner, parent company of TIME) also formed the Advanced Television Copyright Coalition, which has threatened to sue the companies in the future for nonpayment of copyright license fees. No one, of course, is making such noises anymore about VCRs, which also record copyrighted material...