It's been a long, messy road, but now that TiVo's beaten a victory out of EchoStar in that seemingly-endless DVR patent lawsuit it sounds like the company is trying to exert some muscle -- it's already in talks to bring its service to Time Warner Cable, and sources have told Bloomberg the ultimate plan is to eventually collect royalties from every pay-TV provider in the US. That might sound bullying and even a little trollish, but keep in mind these patents have withstood pretty much every legal challenge EchoStar could throw at them, so TiVo's operating from a position of some certainty here -- especially since it's got license agreements with huge players like Comcast and DirecTV to use as leverage in negotiations as well. Of course, none of this solves any of TiVo's actual problems with its products, and the company's topsy-turvy balance sheet has some analysts thinking its ripe for a buyout by one of the bigs, so things could change dramatically at any minute, but for right now it sounds like your chances of getting the TiVo interface on your cable or satellite company DVR just went up, and that's almost certainly a good thing.

It's the case that never ends -- the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has issued a temporary delay of of the injunction and fine handed down yesterday in the EchoStar / TiVo lawsuit while it considers an appeal, meaning that DISH owners with older DVRs won't have to worry about losing their pause-and-rewind functionality at least for now. That pretty much means we're back in stasis with this one, with even more delay to come if the appeal is granted. That's cool, we needed a nap anyway.

We're a bit hesitant to call this one done given the history involved, but a federal judge in Texas has dealt DISH / EchoStar yet another serious blow in its long-standing dispute with TiVo, and this time he's taken a number of other measures that could cause EchoStar to finally rethink its workaround-litigate strategy. The big setback for EchoStar, however, is the one-two punch of $190 million in damages it's been ordered to pay TiVo and an order to disable the "infringing function" on all but 193,000 DVRs now in the hands of subscribers. The judge also found that EchoStar's recently-implemented workaround technology still violated the patent in question and, as a result, he's ordered EchoStar to inform the court before it decides to try its hand at another "design-around" of the infringing patent. For its part, TiVo says that it is "extremely gratified by the Court's well reasoned and thorough decision," while DISH / EchoStar would only say that it plans to appeal the court's decision and file a motion to stay the order with a federal appeals court.

Read - The New York Times, "Court Awards TiVo $190 Million in EchoStar Patent Case"
Read - TiVo Statement on U.S District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Decision

It didn't take long for Echostar to turn its ViP 922 SlingLoaded DVR for DISH into a tru2way powered HD DVR for cable viewers ready to placeshift live and prerecorded TV, and now we've got a glimpse of what it will look like. The specs show off a 1TB hard drive ripped from its still-yet-to-launch predecessor, but new for the T2200S is a backlit capacitive touch control mounted up front, while that no numbers required touch remote the 922 flashed at CES is so far missing from the mix. It'll be at least Q4 before these go into production, but you can believe Echostar is pitching them to all willing to listen at Cable Show '09 this week, while interested customers are being advised to contact their cable provider and let 'em know they want a piece.

Well, just when it was starting to look like TiVo and DISH / Echostar may finally have put their seemingly never-ending patent dispute behind them, the two companies now look to be rekindling things in Texas this week, where they've landed in court once more to sort out that pesky patent involving TiVo's Time Warp software. As patent dispute junkies may recall, TiVo first wound up being awarded some damages in the matter way back in 2006, after which Echostar was forced to develop some workaround software that it claims no longer infringed on TiVo's Time Warp patent, which allows for recording of one channel while the user watches another. In the meantime, Echostar / DISH continued to fight back against TiVo, with things finally, apparently coming to an end when the Supreme Court ultimately denied DISH's appeal and awarded TiVo those aforementioned damages (plus interest) for real. Now, TiVo is alleging that the DISH's "workaround" software does still violate its patent after all, and it's asking a U.S. District Court Judge in Texarcana, Texas to sort it out. If this latest round plays out as TiVo hopes, DISH could be forced to disable most, if not all, of its DVRs, and potentially buy new DVRs that don't infringe on TiVo's patents.

Safe to say that satellite radio is far down the list of priorities for Uncle Sam's bailout bucks, so Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin pounded some pavement today, hitting up DirecTV and its parent company Liberty Media to try and save his bankrupted radio hydra. Apparently Smelly Melly isn't as hot for EchoStar owner Charles Ergan to buy Sirius XM out as was previously rumored, but there's a showdown brewing: Ergan's been busy taking control of Sirius XM's debt, so any deal with Liberty / DirecTV would result in feuding ownership interests. Making things even more interesting, it sounds like Ergan and Karmazin don't really get along, so this deal with DirecTV is basically his last shot at keeping his job. Desperate men do desperate things -- we'll see how this one shakes out.

Read - Reuters
Read - NYT

Sirius XM is preparing to file for bankruptcy and could do so within days, the New York Times reports. According to the article, the move might be a calculated act to pressure Dish Network and EchoStar owner Charles Ergen into making an offer for acquisition. The Wall Street Journal says he offered to purchase the merged satellite radio group late last year and was then brushed off. Despite previous rejections, he's recently reaffirmed his desire try again. If it wasn't before, the honeymoon is now officially over.

Read - New York Times
Read - Wall Street Journal

For the longest while, we couldn't figure out who let the standalone HD DVR die. To this day, we're still scrambling to find an answer, but thankfully DISH Network has stepped in to revive the niche while the search continues. The outfit's DTVPal DVR has been circulating for almost a century now (okay, just a year and change, but there's hardly a difference in the grand scheme of things), and Mr. Dave Zatz has done us the honors of unboxing one and setting it up. The unit actually doubles as a DTV converter box and an HD DVR, and Zatz found setup to be almost too painless. Everything seemed to be humming along just fine at last check, so feel free and have a look at the gallery in the read link below before pulling the trigger.

We just heard about the Sling Monitor, a quick way to move content from your Dish ViP 922 around your home, but we had to see it for ourselves. The display model at the Echostar booth was mounted way above eye-level, so we had to take some blind shots above the head. Look with your eyes, not your hands!

That funky angled screen is the just announced Sling Monitor (yes Virginia, it is HD), designed to work with the SlingLoaded ViP 922 DVR to take video anywhere in the house via WiFi. With 922, you can perform the usual Sling-type activities streaming video over the net and as many as three devices in the home, including HD over wireless. The model right now is 14.9-inch, but according to President Charlie Ergen nothing definite has been decided yet before the expected launch this summer.

At the Echostar press event today the new 922 UI and remote was unveiled and what do you know the number pad was replaced with a touch pad. So now instead of direct dialing a number you select the numbers on the screen (pictured after the jump) with a touch pad which is similar to a touch pad on most laptops. We're not sure how we feel about this, it has promise, but we admit it'll be hard to give up the numbers.

We actually pondered aloud where all the standalone OTA DVRs were in this wild world earlier this year, and at long (long!) last, we finally have a new entrant into the all-but-dead niche. DISH Network's DTVPal DVR, which was known in a former life as the EchoStar TR-50, has finally started to ship out to anxious buyers. For those who've forgotten, this box acts as a digital-to-analog converter and an HD DVR, capturing up to 30 hours of HD OTA material or 150 hours of SD content. Check the read link for a slew of in the wild / interface shots.

[Thanks, TOTA]

The timeshifting DVR patent that's been at the core of TiVo's closed-but-not-quite-closed lawsuit with DISH / EchoStar is being contested yet again by the very same company. Not content just appealing to the Supreme Court regarding the Federal Circuit's ruling against a rehearing for the last case, DISH / EchoStar has started up a whole new lawsuit against TiVo, requesting a Delaware court find the new version of their DVR software does not infringe TiVo's patents -- presumably as an embittered and pre-emptive measure before TiVo could kick off its inevitable next suit. Don't worry if you're confused as all hell, so are we -- the point is, despite the fact that decisions have been made and rulings handed down, these two companies are still managing to sue, re-sue, and counter-re-sue one another.

DISH Network hasn't taken "no" "denied" or "not yours" for an answer before in its battle against TiVo, and it's not going to start now. In a statement, the company expressed its plans to appeal the Federal Circuit's ruling against a rehearing to the Supreme Court. No matter how it ends, customers don't have to worry about jackbooted government agents (or software updates, whatever) stealing their precious DISH DVR functionality, because its "next generation" DVR software has already been downloaded to your box, and does not infringe on any patents. We'll leave this up to the lawyers to fight out (and write amusing disclaimers about), but in the meantime hit the read link to hear DISH's side of things.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]