# The term "PVR" is now trademarked by TiVo



## rtt2 (Jan 27, 2003)

Attention marketers: the phrase "Personal Video Recorder" and its acronym "PVR" are now trademarked by TiVo in the U.S. That prompted C Cubed's The PVR Monitor to be renamed The DVR Monitor, according to C Cubed principal Jennifer Choate. Another no-no, in TiVo's law books: using the expression "TiVo-like" in describing digital video recording functionality, a phrase that has been creeping into the vernacular, much to the company's dismay. So stick with the term "DVR" for marketing and make a lawyer happy.

http://cableworld.com/ar/vod_buzz_ctam/index.htm
(Taken from third paragraph on page)


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

PVR
PVR
PVR

So sue me. :shrug:


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## Scott Greczkowski (Mar 21, 2002)

Huh thats why all Dish Receivers are now known as DVR's.

Although if you look at DirecTV's website they call their DirecTivo's "DVR's"


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## James_F (Apr 23, 2002)

Nick said:


> PVR
> PVR
> PVR
> 
> So sue me. :shrug:


Try and make money using PVR Nick...


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

It's like a Digital VCR! No, that won't work...

It's a Digital Program Shifting Device. Doesn't work either...

It's a PDVR.... your own Personal Digital Video Recorder. No, Tivo won't like that either. 

sigh... It will change how you watch TV....


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## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

A Hard Drive Video Recorder = HDVR, lucky it dosen't sound similar to a High Defintion Video Recorder = HDVR, ...DARN!!! That won't work either!!! 


Is a Hard Drive still technially called a "Winchester Drive", my first MIS class in 1985 and the first time I heard of an Internal Drive it was called a Winchester Drive = WDVR???


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

Legal Notice: I am registering the following trademark -

*HDDDVRaTSD - Hard Disk Drive Digital Video Recording and Time Shifting Device*

and

*TNBTTTT - "The Next Best Thing To Time Travel"* _Copyright © 2003_

*_Said trademark will be licensed to suitable entities upon payment of a license fee of $10,000 per annum._
.
.


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## Randy_B (Apr 23, 2002)

I believe Winchester drives were a particular brand of removeable drives. Eons ago, when I was posted overseas, all our Zenith 286's had Winchester drives which we removed nightly and locked in the safe.


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## Cyclone (Jul 1, 2002)

I used to use a 9" (or so) bernolli box from Iomega. It held 20MB and was removable. Now their zip drive holds 100MB has is likely 1/3 the cost, and will fit in your pocket.

Dish needs to start copywrighting some lame accronyms.


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## James_F (Apr 23, 2002)

Stop it with these old names! I can't stand it. I actually still have an optical syquest media with my thesis on it, but now drive to get it back.


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## sampatterson (Aug 27, 2002)

PCSDVR

Personal Commercial Skipper Digital Video Recorder


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## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

For the mimimally literate (like myself)

*T*hat *T*hing *I* *W*atch *S*tuff *W*ith = *TTIWSW*


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

Will the 501, 508, and 721 continue to be called PVR's since thats what they were when they were manufactured and labelled as? I am wondering if I should keep the PVR name on my website or change it to DVR or just use the DVR for the new receivers being released.


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## James_F (Apr 23, 2002)

You are not making money off of the PVR in your site are you? Isn't DBS trademarked by DirecTV? Heck Scott could be sued for those thongs he had made....


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## davhol (Oct 29, 2002)

Going off topic:



Randy_B said:


> I believe Winchester drives were a particular brand of removeable drives. Eons ago, when I was posted overseas, all our Zenith 286's had Winchester drives which we removed nightly and locked in the safe.


Actually, "winchester" was the code name of the type of flying read head/media architecture invented by IBM (where the head rested and remained on the disk surface). Like "kleenex", the name came into widespread (mis)use. There is some speculation as to where origin of the name.



> The Winchester name has stuck with disk drives from many companies until now and carries with it any number of legends about its origin. Some possibilities for the origin include an IBM facility named Winchester in England, a scientist named Winchester, and an IBM lab on Winchester Road in the San Jose area. The most likely origin actually carries some significance because it was a key precursor to today's common practice of assigning code names to products in the high-tech industry. According to Hoagland, the term "Winchester" was derived from the expectation that most customers would purchase two 30-Mbyte 3350 drives with each system, and a certain manufacturer of firearms had recently introduced a "3030 rifle."


Now back to the topic on hand....


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## markh (Mar 24, 2002)

I think D* has DSS trademarked but not DBS. 

IMHO, PVR is a generic term for TiVo or the Dish DVRs. I think I'll try to get a copyright on DOHC (dual overhead cam) and start charging the car companies for using that term. 

I don't see how they did it since Dish has been using PVR for their DVRs for some time now.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

I think I'll register "Apple". the fruit, not the computer. :lol:

Apple©


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## dinkster (May 14, 2002)

I'm not so sure about this claim about PVR trademarked by TiVo.

I've been doing a bit of research on TiVo products in the wake of the Dish DVR Fee uproar, and lo and behold, on the TiVo page....'What is TiVo', their answer is......

"TiVo is a DVR"

http://www.tivo.com/1.0.asp


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

Then maybe this means that Dish is going to upgrade the software in their receivers similar to what Tivo is since they want to call it the same thing that Tivo does.


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## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

Jacob S said:


> Then maybe this means that Dish is going to upgrade the software in their receivers similar to what Tivo is since they want to call it the same thing that Tivo does.


Wishful Thinking...


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

Hey, we can all dream can't we? I guess right now we are all having a bad nightmare. I wonder when we will all wake up. When you get a Tivo or PC PVR?


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

DSS = Digital Satellite System, a term that was used by DirecTv and USSB when they started out. Used by them that is until they got stomped on by the owner of the copyright for the term DSS (not in anyway related to satellite, but stomped anyway).

DBS = Direct Broadcast Satellite, a much more generic term that is now used to describe small dish satellite television systems. I believe the term was coined by the government when they were letting licenses for the technology, and therefore can be used by anyone with that kind of product. Some also use the term for consumer BUDS (Big Useful, or Ugly, Dishes depending on your POV [point of view]).


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## raj2001 (Nov 2, 2002)

Hey, at least TiVo was generous enough not to patent the idea of charging a monthly DVR fee. 

*ducks and runs*


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## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

raj2001 said:


> Hey, at least TiVo was generous enough not to patent the idea of charging a monthly DVR fee.
> 
> *ducks and runs*


 !rolling :icon_lol:


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

Rking401 said:


> DSS = Digital Satellite System, a term that was used by DirecTv and USSB when they started out. Used by them that is until they got stomped on by the owner of the copyright for the term DSS (not in anyway related to satellite, but stomped anyway).
> 
> DBS = Direct Broadcast Satellite, a much more generic term that is now used to describe small dish satellite television systems. I believe the term was coined by the government when they were letting licenses for the technology, and therefore can be used by anyone with that kind of product. Some also use the term for consumer BUDS (Big Useful, or Ugly, Dishes depending on your POV [point of view]).


<thinking> Hmmm? Where's my DSS glossary of DBS acronyms? IiRC, it's on top of my POS IRD rack, right next to my DP PVR, or is that DVR? OK, now it's raining. Looks like I have LOS at my LNB! :grin:


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

from 501 review no longer available online said:


> The 501 purports to be a Personal Video Recorder (PVR), one of the new generation of highly personalizable digital recorders, along with TiVo and ReplayTV. It is not. ... The 501 is not a PVR at all (although the manual and advertising claim it is).


Blame the Dish marketing folks for identifying a trend and latching on to it.. I think they should have used a more generic term instead of the one TiVo and RePlay are promoting for recorders that can learn viewing habits. The Dish recorders can be called DVR (Digital Video Recorder) or DSR (Digital Satellite Recorder).

So TiVo gets to use the term PVR but the other PVR maker, ReplayTV, can't?


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

Randy_B said:


> I believe Winchester drives were a particular brand of removeable drives. Eons ago, when I was posted overseas, all our Zenith 286's had Winchester drives which we removed nightly and locked in the safe.


Winchester was the code name IBM used when the were developing their, then, new high capacity drives. The first released to the general public, the 3340, announced in 1973 and generally available in 1974.

They were quite large physically and small, by current standards, in capacity. Some early winchesters were truly removable, but had the disk with built in heads and filter, but most for many years thereafter were not.


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