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Take that, Dish: Samsung, DirecTV partner on 'boxless' DVR streaming

Samsung's 2012 Smart TVs will let viewers stream shows from a DirecTV DVR to televisions throughout the house--without additional set-top boxes.

Don Reisinger
CNET contributor Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has covered everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Besides his work with CNET, Don's work has been featured in a variety of other publications including PC World and a host of Ziff-Davis publications.
Don Reisinger
2 min read
Samsung's 2012 LED Smart TV.
Samsung's 2012 LED Smart TV. Samsung

Samsung and DirecTV have partnered up to make watching DVR-recorded shows in other rooms a bit easier--one day after Dish Network unveiled its own multiroom DVR setup.

The companies said today that Samsung's 2012 line of Smart TVs, announced yesterday at CES, will allow viewers to stream recorded programs from DirecTV DVRs to televisions in other rooms. That alone isn't new, although to date, most such setups require you to have multiple DVRs attached to your TV sets. (Dish yesterday unveiled DVR "extender" devices it calls "Joeys"--check out this slideshow to see why--that would connect TVs wirelessly to a base DVR unit.)

The Samsung/DirectTV option, however, doesn't require any new devices--the television sets themselves are capable of managing the DVR stream. The companies are calling the technology "set-top boxless viewing."

It's no surprise Samsung and DirecTV have linked up. The companies are both founding members of the RVU Alliance, a group of firms trying to make remote user interface (RUI) technology a reality in homes across the world. The idea is to provide home-networked products that allow users to stream entertainment media from device to device. Cisco, Broadcom, and Verizon are also founding members of the consortium.

In order to get this new technology to work, Samsung has embedded the RVU protocol, which is based on DLNA and UPnP, into its 2012 Smart TVs. The protocol will work with DirecTV's HR34 Home Media Center HD-DVR, which can interact with multiple Samsung televisions at the same time.

Samsung plans to ship its RVU-compatible Smart TVs this spring.