The DVR Debate

In the old days, DVRs needed hard drives...but if Cablevision has their way, nary a truck will roll out to your home to replace your ancient digital cable box with the latest and greatest DVR technology.

Cablevision (and I would imagine other cable companies) are planning to introduce "remote storage" DVRs. This will allow them to give cable TV subscribers DVR'ing goodness without ever sending a guy with all-too-low-slung jeans out to crouch behind your entertainment center and give your tube some new tech juice. Nope, they'll be able to do it with a flick of the switch (and a ka-ching to their pocket books since our droopy-jeaned cable guy will be stuck at home wondering if his fashion faux-paus caused his early retirement).

I've always kind of wondered about this. What if there was some large box in the sky that recorded everything and let you watch stuff when you wanted to? Well there is sort of. I had a friend back in the days of yore (well, I'm not THAT old) that worked at an operations center for a major cable company in Los Angeles. One evening, my buddies and I crashed the operations center with a box full of pizza and a ice cold beers to surprise our technically-entrenched friend. He gave us the grand tour and there it was. A computer the size of your kitchen. No, not your refrigerator, or your kitchen sink, but your ENTIRE kitchen. This bad boy ran some ancient version of Windows and held all of the TV shows for two whole weeks. He said the shows were delivered to this thing via sattelite and then doled out to some other gadgetry that turned them into dumb old analog signals for deliver to dumb old analog cable boxes and TVs. Think of it as a medieval Tivo in the sky, if you will.

With the advent of digial TV, there really is no excuse for not giving people whatever choice they want. I mean honestly, I pay my $20 per month for my two Tivos and my $40 for basic extended cable each month, why can't I watch what I want, when I want, where I want? Well it all comes down to the mighty and ever-persitent dollar. They'll make you believe that this technology is state of the art and will cost them more money than it would take to rebuild the sun and the moon if ever they fell out of the sky. In reality though, I've seen the kitchen-sized Tivo in the sky that held the key to all of this back when I was in college. I bet that thing is the size of a refrigerator now and costs less than your kid's college diploma to get going and load up with all of the world's TV shows. We could call it the TV fridge. I bet the guys publically crying about copyright and violation of terms of use are secretly patting each other on the back on how they're going to get a bigger slice of your paycheck, all because they can make you think that it's a really tough thing to make sure their TV fridge is plugged in and loaded up when in fact all it takes is a few college kids paid with late night pizza and ice cold beer.

Pay Me for Tivo

PVRBlog points out how Tivo is being used to measure popularity of superbowl ads. Hmmm...correct me if I'm wrong, isn't one of the largest problems in advertising figuring out if the ads were actually watched and enjoyed?

So how about this for a business model turned on its ear....Tivo gives away boxes to everyone and tweaks it's software. It allows you to thumbs up/down anything and everything...not just shows. TV Commercials, movie trailers, news reports, everything.

Then the data is sold to the advertisers and TV companies so they can figure out what works and what doesn't. The best part is that it can be broken down by demographics. Tivo can give little rewards for answering profile questions. How about free Tivo points that earn you schwag or something. That's say at least 250 million Tivo boxes serving up free place shifting and what not, collecting your thumbs up/down on shows (maybe even parts of shows) and commercials.

So let's sum it up:

Tivo + Walmart-sized data center - subscription fees = Tivo Forever

TiVo measures success of Super Bowl ads | PVRblog

Mental Note

Note to self: block off time to finally install old harddives lying around the apartment (I have an old 80GB and old 40GB ready to be Tivo'd) into my Tivos...PVRBlog step-by-steps you through the process: Preparing an upgrade drive for the TiVo | PVRblog

Tivo Updates Their Site

Looks like Tivo is trying to stay ahead of the pack with the recent update to their Tivo Central page on their website. A few things I noticed:

1. Tivo sounds...A couple of days ago, I was just thinking about using sound as an "experiece-unifier" to tie different devices/platforms together. Tivo is starting to put their nearly iconic sounds to good use on their site.

2. TV Listings...while the grid looks a little nicer it's still basically the same old grid format. They have some added widgets to personalize the grid by letting you highlight content categories with colors, but eh...

3. Rounded corners... All of the images and major content secionts have rounded corners. Makes for a nice look eventhough it is not technically a useful feature.

Anyway, See For Yourself.

Oh TV, I love thee

Oh TV, how can I watch thee...let me count the ways:

1. Live TV in the living room (so 1983)
2. Tivo'd shows in the living room (goodbye commercials)
3. Media Center PC in the living room (Tivo + $1000 - $13/mo.)
4. Tivo'd or Media Center'd shows on the Portable Media Center or Windows Mobile device (slow transcoding sucks)
5. Tivo'd or Media Center'd shows on the PSP (via some series of
decryptng and transcoding)
6. Video Ipod ($1.99/show is mighty pricey and they look ugly on any screen bigger than credit card)
7. Some off brand portable running Linux or BSD straight out of Taiwan or Korea (LOTS of formats supported, but usually bad UI, and bad PC software)
8. Windows Media Center Online Spotlight - Comedy Central Motherload from your sofa with a remote control...'nuff said (man we need some folks to fix the naming of our products)
and so on and so forth, forever and ever

You get the point...there are a LOT of ways to get your daily fill of Days of our Lives and guess what, there are going to be a LOT more ways coming up.

Yahoo Go! links Web services to phones, TVs - Wireless World - MSNBC.com
Microsoft partners with Murdoch in video pact (I guess no one remembers how DirecTV screwed Microsoft in the heyday of UltimateTV...here we go again)
Google sets up the Video Lemonade Stand

And soooo much more. Yes folks, TV 2.0 is finally upon us. I, like you, have been waiting for this for a long time. Man, I'm kicking myself for missing CES this year...CES TV junkies, I envy you.

Tivo drops the HD gauntlet

How I wish I was at CES. I'm a big fan of the show but of course, no one around here invites the one guy who loves and knows more about various gadgets around here than just about anyone within a 2 mile radius. Sigh. Maybe I'll drop my own cash to go next year (let's see how much MSFT stock rises hehe)....back to meat of the story:

Tivo (finally) announces a stand alone HD box. Yes you've read correctly. Tivo has seen the light. It'd be nice for Tivo to REALLY see the light and just port their UI over to Windows and Mac OS X, sell the remote for 50 bucks and let you install their stuff on your own PC, drop the monthly fee in return for periodic (and interesting) video ads, and just make everyone very very happy (On my knees praying for the surprise announcement from Tivo now...).

With the Tivo Series 3 (that's QUITE the creative name, I know), my only complaint is no Wifi built-in (c'mon man!) which seems lame at first, but really is a good idea since you wouldn't want to transfer the gargantuan files around on a piddly little 54Mbps wifi connection. Maybe it'll be compatible with some super high speed broadband or wireless USB connection? (Saying another prayer now...).

The details:

250GB & 320GB drives combined give you 70 hours of programming (Awww man...MPEG-2 again??!!)
OLED Front display shows show names being recorded.
Tivo will sell (probably overpriced) external drives you can add on.
Woirks with WMV (and other codecs yet to be announced, more praying for Xvid, Divx, Ogg, MP4).
Dual cable card slots, dual tuners.
720p or 1080i
Component and HDMI ouputs

Man I'm glad I didn't pay for "lifetime service" on my old Series 2 boxes (not that I can afford an HD Tivo, HD TV, or even digital cable, but hey). I'll still probably build my own Media Center box (but after Vista ships) but still make secret offerings to the gods for Tivo on my PC.

See For Yourself [via Gizmodo].

Review: Tivo with Podcasting, Yahoo, Live365, Movie Ticket

I've been sick at home for the past two days and it has sucked. On top of that, I've had to move A LOT of stuff around in my apartment, buy and pickup a mattress set off of craigslist, clean the entire apartment, and pickup my in-laws at SFO. Needless to say I'm beat.

This past evening, I finally noticed that Tivo had updated my box with the ability to access their new Podcasting/Yahoo/Live365/MovieTickets feature. Of course, I grabbed my Digital Rebel XT and started snapping.

The review comes after the jump...

This review contains a LOT of images as it is meant to be a detailed review. Here we go:

You've seen this screen before but I thought I'd put my version in just to be sure we start off on the right foot:

So I clicked on Yahoo Weather first

I immediately added my yahoo account (a little tedious, but you only need to this the first time):

The password entry is not very secure. It shows the current character and then covers it with an asterisk after a second or two.

And of course, you get the TOS page:

After all of that, I am treated to the weather from all of the saved cities on the "my.yahoo.com" page.

If I come back to the weather app, I'm already logged in:

I decided to see what the traffic map looks like:

I was expecting a map of some sort, but just got a plain old list:

Then I tried Yahoo Photos and get this screen:

I did not have any albums created so I was not able to view my photos (I will upload some sample photos with my PC soon to give it a shot). This app does not seem to allow you to add new photos or create albums. It looks like it is strictly a photo viewer (leaving all management for the PC). To find other photos, you must know the username of your friends and type them in with an onscreen keyboard using arrow keys and select button. I decided to enter the name of a friend on my yahoo contact list that I know has photos. Within a second or two, her albums popped up and I was able to view her albums.

Then next time I return to photos, it remembers my friend's name, but then I started thinking, "why didn't it just load all of my contacts from my Yahoo messenger contact list?"...I mean it loaded weather and traffic from my stored data, they COULD have just yanked my contact data from my Yahoo messenger contact list. I'm going to have to assume it has something to do with privacy since the Tivo seems to cache your credentials and they don't want random people seeing your contact list (think: your other Jersey wife), but the world may never know the true reason.

The next app I give a try to is the Movie Ticket app (some sort of intro screen, ummm ok):

After the intro screen, you get to the real homepage for the app:

Box office stats (very neat):

Coming soon (cool Memoirs of a Geisha):

Let's try one (ooooh LOST):

Browse other things while you stream a podcast.

PARTING THOUGHTS:
Yahoo Photos: Please pull my contacts from Yahoo Messenger's contact list as a default set. Please let me manage albums and photos on the Tivo box. Please let me copy photos from my home network to my Yahoo photos account.

Yahoo Weather: Cool, but a little formatting could go a long way.

Yahoo Traffic: Map please...

Movie Tickets: Let me buy for non-Century theaters please. Video trailers, interviews, outakes would make this really cool. It'd be cool to keep track of movies I've seen (not sure if it can do this since I didn't purchase anything). Let me play with the same credit card that pays my Tivo account. Otherwise, pretty neat.

Live365: I like it, but please denote Live365 "premium" stations in the list rather than having me click on something only to tell me that I can't listen to it. Better yet, take these out of the list completely unless I'm a premium subscriber.

Podcaster: Workings of a winner. Let me search instead of adding URLs (can't imagine typing in an URL on tivo). A wider selection would be nice (iTunes has a decent set). Streaming is cool, but let I save them to my Tivo box if I want. Let me transfer them from my Tivo to my PC. Let me burn them onto CD as audio or MP3 if I have a Tivo with burner.

Overall, I give this functionality upgrade a 3.5 out of 5. It'll be cool to see how they progress down this road, but I hope it involves giving me more choices about what to do wtih the content and making it more convenient to find and get the content.

Tivo Ups the Ante

It seems that our buddies down the 237 freeway (Tivo) are on a roll with teaching their old box some new tricks (thankfully). I think they're starting to realize that their little box not only allows you to get a handle on TV content, but can actually help you discover and move away from commercial TV content. Whoa! There's a scary thought (for the TV distribution companies)...people using Tivo to AVOID their crappy shows (can you say UPN and WB?).

[via Zatz Not Funny]

Tivo and Yahoo sitting in a tree

Tivo seems to be inching closer into to "THE living room box" model of things by working on integrating Yahoo! into their service in order to help justify the $12.95 per month fee.

Here's a screenshot of what they have so far:

As you can see, it looks rather intriguing. But I notice that it definitely doesn't deliver movies to the box (not surprising since Netflix gave up on doing this). This is going to limit it's appeal to me (not that I'd pay for movies all that often, but still having it would be neat to try). The other deficiency is the "walled garden" effect. You only get access to a few services and that's about it. And what about video podcasts? Will they work? How will transcoding between various formats work? Hmmm...how deep does the Rabbit hole go? Speaking of rabbits...

Tivo Going Mobile

In yet another bid to stay relevant to the TV 2.0 space, Tivo starts testing a service that will allow folks to download their shows from their Tivo to their iPod Videos and PSPs. I'm all for gradiose plans for mobile video, but if Tivo's desktop software execution is any indicator, we're in for a bumpy ride ladies and gentlemen...fasten your seatbelts.

See For Yourself.

Tivo launches application server

It looks like Tivo's application framework is about to come out of the woodwork and go mainstream. Tivo seems to have realized that having users running a PC just to use home media applications was a bad idea (and invitation to competition..."why not try Windows Media Center edition -- no monthly fee?"). Anyway, they've finally figured out the key to their survival is the same as the key to Microsoft's success: make it a platform. With over 3 million (more?) users, Tivo definitely qualifies as platform material. By allowing folks to run application servers over the internet, Tivo is opening the eyes of the little Tivo box and allowing users to enjoy homebrew applications on their Tivo without the hassle or installing the HME on your PC and having the PC running all of the time. The site apps.tv is the first directory of Tivo applications hosted on the net and is pretty sparse thus far, but as this catches on (and it should given the small yet significant market size) there is bound to be more applications and maybe a sure fire hit. I'll get cracking after I launch my secret afterhours project geared towards MSNTV2 and Windows Media Center devices (hopefully this application will be portable to the Tivo HME framework as well--but seriously doubt it since I'm writing it in the .net framwork)

See for Yourself

[via PVRblog]

Tivo Testing Content Downloads

Tivo and many others have been hankering for the supposed large slice of the Internet Video to TV pie in the sky. MSNTV has been working on delivering CinemaNow movies to the MSN TV 2 box. Akimbo has been signing up some cool content providers but has yet to catch on (maybe because people already get this content over their cable or satellite feeds). And now Tivo wants in on the game. There a couple of keys as to why Tivo may be a the 800 lbs. gorilla in the Internet Video to TV market:

1. Installed subscriber base: (3 to 4+ million?)
2. User Interface: The best
3. PVR functionality: The cornerstone which keeps churn low and customers happy

But the downside is that users need additional hardware to get broadband. Yes, I know it's not that big of a deal for most techies that don't mind dropping another $20-$70 on a USB to wired/wireless ethernet adapter, but to tech laymen of the world, this may just be too much to ask.

See for Yourself.

NetFlix close to launching online movie downloads

It seems that the whole movie download scene is about to explode. CinemaNow and MovieLink are the front runners in this space, but so far no one's made it easy to watch their downloaded movies on the TV without the PC whirring away. MSN TV has been working with CinemaNow for most of the year on getting the service ready. But still, the market is a small one...for now. I think what is keeping CinemaNow and MovieLink from exploding is that they're not making much use of the long tail theory which has kept iTunes humming along. A good example is the foreign movies (one of my favorite genres because most of the movies made in the US are pretty much cater to the day worker set these days). CinemaNow lists 74 movies in this category while Netflix has a whopping 6,700! So you can see the dilemma. And don't get me wrong, it's not CinemaNow's or MovieLink's fault. It's the (you guessed it) movie studios who continually do stupid things (like make movies like The Dukes of Hazzard). But I digress...

The online movie space is going to heat up very soon as Netflix is close to offering online movie downloads and Apple is rumored to be getting into the video download business as well. I personally can't wait and hope that MSN TV 2 works with Netflix's interpretation of the content delivery over the net, but we'll have to wait and see for that one.

Netflix-To-Tivo Soon?

We've all known about the Netflix/Tivo shackup for almost a year now, but Hacking Netflix breaks news of a "glitch" (read: accidentally exposed web page) that gave up the goods on how soon this marriage of movie watching nirvana will come to fruition. Anyway, my two Tivos can't wait to see these overly anticipated new features since we're getting tired of Friends reruns (although Hongyun has been digging them lately). Link.

MediaPortal...the ultimate Windows Media Center clone

I've been using SageTV for some time now and I must admit that it's a nice piece of software. My two complaints are that it's ugly and is expensive. Now there is an opensource Media Center clone that is gorgeous (I haven't taken it for a spin yet, but look at this screenshot):

Anyway, it's called MediaPortal.
Download, install, contribute, enjoy.

[via Download Squad]

PVR Rundown

Are you confused by the current state of affairs in the PVR world? What is a PVR you ask (where have YOU been?)? A PVR is basically a time shifting device for TV content. Wha?? It records stuff so you can watch it later. "But isn't that what a VCR does?" you ask. Oh pishaw! Did you ever really learn how to figure out how to program your VCR? I mean, I could have figured out how to launch the Space Shuttle in the time it took me to figure out the various arcane interfaces to programming the VCR. Well think of the Tivo and other PVRs as devices that let you pick a show with an on screen program guide (like your old school TV Guide, except on the TV) and it will record it. No fuss, no muss.

While there are many free services out there, I pay for my Tivo service because it works extremely well and is unbelievably easy to use. My wife loves both of the Tivos we have because we can sling shows back and forth between them depending on where we are choosing to "relax" (I use the word relax in quotes because she's using doing her artwork while I work on this site or my other site). In the end, I may switch to SageTV or Windows Media Center, but I need to get a 21st century PC at home first. Yes, I still have an ancient Pentium 3 750Mhz at home. Pathetic, but that thing still runs fine (I don't play many PC games so it works just fine with the web and email).

Anyway, if you're interested in finding out more about the world of PVRs, check out PCWorld.com - TV Time Shifters. It's a great high level overview of the state of affairs in the PVR world.

Free Tivo with 1 year service purchase

Here's a great deal from TiVo. If you've been wanting to get into the DVR pool, but have been wary of getting your feet wet because of the cost of entry, here's your chance. TiVo's a great service that I whole heartedly recommend (I have 2 that I use with my cable setup).

If you do buy, please enter tommysuriwong AT gmail.com (you know, put the "@" where the " AT " is) as the referrer. I get points which I will then use for a set of Tivo coasters...woohoo!

blinkx and iFilm partner to offer web clip searches

blinkx was a little known company to most but is fast becoming a leader in video and TV search. Now that they're partnering with iFilm, I see a decent content portal (don't you just hate that word?) in the works.

blinkx Partners With IFILM to Bring Premium Video Entertainment to blinkx.tv Users

DirecTV Breaks Tivo (on purpose?)

It's no secret that DirecTV is trying to bring their own Tivo-like system to fruition, but could this be the yet another salvo in the coming PVR Royal Rumble between Tivo, DirecTV, Comcast, Microsoft, Sony, (maybe) Apple, SBC, Verizon, etc etc? I mean what better way to tarnish Tivo's image than to "break" it when it comes to DirecTV? Especially when you're trying to bring a competing product to life? But why oh why are they doing this? The measly few bucks per month they'd charge on top of their service? Nah, I think DirecTV and others know that the TV landscape is quickly changing. The point is not the PVR functionality, but the ability to serve new forms of advertisements on top of shows, instead of existing ad slots, in the shows themselves, and whatever else they can think of.

Think of it this way. The TV produciton companies make money (a big pile of it) by selling air time to advertisers. TV distribution networks (like DirecTV and Comcast) make money via subscription fees (mostly). Now, what happens if DirecTV and Comcast were given the ability to serve ads over TV production companies ads? Who's making the ad bucks now? What happens if Tivo controls this? What happens if SBC gets in on the action and provides the ads?

These questions and more will be explored with interesting business models that are just starting and have yet to be thought of, but it's coming. Some will work, some will fail. In the end, though you'll see some great technology and great TV by the end of the decade.
Wired News: DirecTV Update Sparks TiVo Tizzy

TivoToGo Really ToGo

TiVoToGo goes mobile

I love both of my Tivos, but I too wish for my content to be unshackled from the domain of my home and set free into the depths of my pocket. I don't like watching stuff on my Sprint PCS phone (although they claim it has gotten better). What I'd really love is a video iPod that works with TivoToGo. Will I ever see it? Doubtful...with all of the DRM Tivo and Apple love.

Tivo to Go

FIC Press Releases

Wow! I was waiting for TivoToGo but could not believe there are going to be portable devices that are compatible with it...if it's compatible with Windows Media digital rights management and Windows Media Center content, then I believe AMD and Tivo may have just bettered the Portable Media Center.

By the way, the Creative Labs Zen does NOT charge from the USB port as I originally thought which left me lugging around a dead gadget. The USB connection does keep the Zen alive (which begs the question of why it does not charge the device...probably trying to be a good USB citizen and not overload the port). Anyway, I have the device back here now and am about to load more content on there (if there is room) for more portable media fun.

I can't wait for my TivoToGo to become active though...I just signed up my Tivos for priority upgrade (whatever that means). I think I'm going to have to cobble together a Windows Media Center for kicks. Also, I'll be watching MacWorld for Apple's announcements (praying for Media Center like stuff built into the Headless Mac or something like that to make me do the official switch-when my home desktop becomes a Mac...ooooh)