Highflyer,
Interesting discussion, because I live in the US and I have one of those Panasonic 150GB DVR SD only with no monthly fees you describe. I don't think its the movie industry or congress that is preventing Panasonic from producing an HD DVR with no monthly fees. I think its the fact of how poorly the the units sold in this country. I got minealmost half price with a 1 year old manufacturing date from Circuit City in 2004. In other words Circuit City was dumping them because they didn't sell. If I didn't get it half price I wouldn't have thought it was a good deal. My wife loves the unit, and won't let me put in HDTV until I get my HTPC working...
I think the units like the Panasonic were complex to operate compared to TIVO and the DVR rentals from the cable company. Their price point wasn't competitive with building a HTPC, and because of their complexity to operate they didn't appeal to a very big audience. The audience they appeal to were technologically savvy. The technologically savvy decided to build HTPC versus the Panasonic. So I think its more a supply and demand problem. There isn't enough demand for the standalone HD DVR to get their price point competitive with HTPC. The HTPC also does much much more then an HD DVR which appeals to the technologically savvy...
Interesting discussion, because I live in the US and I have one of those Panasonic 150GB DVR SD only with no monthly fees you describe. I don't think its the movie industry or congress that is preventing Panasonic from producing an HD DVR with no monthly fees. I think its the fact of how poorly the the units sold in this country. I got minealmost half price with a 1 year old manufacturing date from Circuit City in 2004. In other words Circuit City was dumping them because they didn't sell. If I didn't get it half price I wouldn't have thought it was a good deal. My wife loves the unit, and won't let me put in HDTV until I get my HTPC working...
I think the units like the Panasonic were complex to operate compared to TIVO and the DVR rentals from the cable company. Their price point wasn't competitive with building a HTPC, and because of their complexity to operate they didn't appeal to a very big audience. The audience they appeal to were technologically savvy. The technologically savvy decided to build HTPC versus the Panasonic. So I think its more a supply and demand problem. There isn't enough demand for the standalone HD DVR to get their price point competitive with HTPC. The HTPC also does much much more then an HD DVR which appeals to the technologically savvy...