They obviously see more potential in the PVR market than in the non-OEM car stereo market.

My personal view on their willingness to release the RTV 4000 product despite pending litigation is this: They want to sell as many of them as possible while the legal battles take place, make a pile of money, and abruptly EOL the product once they can no longer fight off the thousands of plantiff lawyers, leaving the end users with an unsupported product.

Sound familiar? (minus the lawyers)

I disagree with the Yahoo article. I think SonicBlue will definitely lose the lawsuit(s), but the law is sufficiently "gray" enough in this area to allow for a very long time before they're cooked. The RTV not only allows commercial skipping, but it allows HIGH QUALITY distribution of the recorded shows over broadband. They state that you can only share with 15 people, but come on, hackers will find a way to defeat that to allow distribution to anyone. At that point, why bother watching TV, and sitting through ads, when you can just leech the latest episode from a friend? IANAL, but I think the Betamax case cited as a legal precedent is not nearly as relevant as is stated in the article, and won't hold up in court.

Needless to say, I am strongly considering ordering a RTV 4000.