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Tell us something we don't know

PRNewswire has a piece on how analysis of DVR owners shows that they like their DVRs and when they have more than one TV, they want DVRs on all of their TVs.

Results of the analysis of the survey data showed: (a) a deep and broad interest in Multi-TV DVR among DVR owners, (b) a high correlation between multi-year presence of DVR in a home and consumer interest in obtaining DVR capability throughout the home; and (c) a high correlation between consumer interest in multi-set DVR capability and multi-set ownership.
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"It is particularly striking to see strong evidence that this effect deepens over time. Consumers with multiple TVs are increasingly likely to own multiple DVRs as time goes on. As well, their interest in DVR everywhere continues to build. It's clear evidence that consumer interest in DVR does not stop at one TV and that the right solution for the consumer is a whole home, multi-TV solution."

PRNewswire:: Latest Consumer Research Indicates Broad and Growing Interest in DVR on Every TV

September 30, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

DirecTV Growth

In a Motley Fool article about the growth of DirecTV, there are some rumors that may impact Tivo.

Meanwhile, while DirecTV is marketing a digital video recorder (DVR) that's co-branded with the popular TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO), many are wondering whether that might end soon. The reasoning is that since News Corp. owns NDS Group PLC (Nasdaq: NNDS), which has a similar technology, it might lose interest in TiVo once it controls DirecTV.

Needless to say, if DirecTV drops Tivo as a partner for the DVR service, that would be a tremendous blow to the company.
Fool.com: DirecTV Booming - September 30, 2003

September 30, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004

Microsoft has just announced and released Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004, the updated version of the media center OS. Here's a list of all the updates.

The biggest new feature appears to be the addition of radio to the media mix, and the ability to pause and rewind live FM radio. They don't mention the ability to schedule recordings, but I'm sure that's just another software update away, and they'd have created every geeks dream: tivo for radio. I would love to come home and be able to enjoy one of many recorded radio programs at my leisure.

The interactive demo is a great way to see everything that is new. Due to the weird restrictions that the OS is only offered on new PCs, users of the previous version will need to contact their vendor to get the new OS, which is kind of lame.

September 30, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Disney unveils VOD that's almost a PVR

Disney announced a new service called MovieBeam today. While it's video-on-demand using a Samsung setop box, it looks like a combo aimed squarely at services like Netflix and TiVo.

Basically you've got a box with 100 movies on it at all times, with 10 new ones available each week from Disney's stable of movie studios. They charge $6.99 a month, plus $2.50-$4 for each movie you watch, which could be quite lucrative to them, especially since they are selling direct to consumers and cutting out middlemen like Blockbuster video.

The setop box does do digital audio out and s-video, but I wonder what sort of copy protection is in place on delivered movies. Also they mention all transmission is over-the-air, using a small antenna, but I haven't seen any details of the technical specs on that.

September 29, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBack

Roku, from founders of ReplayTV

Serial entrepreneur Anthony Wood (founder of ReplayTV, Dreamweaver, and other products) has started a new company to focus on the HDTV market. An HD PVR must not be too far behind, although I wonder about the HD space needed for HDTV.

[Roku is] the first digital media player to be designed for high-definition televisions, which are gaining in popularity as prices drop.

The HD1000 can play slideshows, video or music files from its four built-in memory card slots, or play files streamed from a computer via an Ethernet network connection.

AP - ReplayTV Inventors Aim at Living Rooms

September 29, 2003 in ReplayTV | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

TidBITS reviews Tivo Series 2

Alex Hoffman of TidBITS loves Tivo Series 2. For him Tivo = no need for NetFlix.

But despite the cost, believe everything you have heard about how great TiVo is. We have gotten more out of it than we would have gotten out of a new computer. Or two new computers. Whether you love movies (catch them to record even when you don't know that they're on), episodic television (never miss a show) or sports (watch replays when you want to, and then catch up by fast-forwarding through the commercials), TiVo changes the way that you watch television, and the Home Media Option is the best way I've seen to play MP3s on your living room's sound system.

TidBITS: TiVo Series2 Improves on Original

September 29, 2003 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

PVR stats US and worldwide

Yankee, Instat, and Jupiter are all predicting big changes for TV viewing due to the popularity of PVRs. You have to take this stuff with a lot of salt, in my opinion.

Adi Kishore, Yankee Group Media & Entertainment Strategies analyst, estimates that by 2007, nearly one-fifth of all U.S. homes will be able to fast-forward TV commercials, eventually disrupting the entire value chain for television. The report details the impact the PVR will have on the television advertising industry, noting that roughly $5.5 billion in revenue — or 11 percent of their TV ad budgets — will be lost by 2006 when more than 19 million U.S. homes own a device.

We all know the advertisers and broadcasters will do anything not to lose that revenue that Kishore claims could be lost.

Remote Power: Can PVRs Kill TV Spots?

September 29, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

New Series 1 upgrade brackets

Anyone thinking of upgrading their old Phillips or Sony series 1 TiVo should know about Weaknees' new TiVo Series 1 upgrade bracket. It's simple, cheap, and includes the torx tools needed to crack open your TiVo. If the fit and finish is anywhere close to their series 2 twinbreeze kit, it's a bargain.

September 27, 2003 in Products | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Echostar scores millionth customer

Today Echostar reported surpassing one million Dish Network DVRs. This is a huge industry milestone that TiVo was projected to reach by the end of this year. Analysts have long said after this "tipping point" is reached, subscriptions may skyrocket as the technology hits critical mass. Echostar took a different aim at the market, by giving their boxes away to gain new satellite customers and increase satisfaction among their current users.

I think this does a great job of demonstrating that TiVo's business model of moderately priced boxes and monthly fees is likely their achilles heel; other upstarts are gaining marketshare by the day through either including free service for life on single cost boxes, or giving hardware away freely in exchange for content subscriptions.

September 25, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Building a Wireless Home Media Network Server

Extreme Tech has a great, comprehensive article on Building a Wireless Home Media Network Server. They explain system choices with regards to cost/benefits and performance, and also throw in a smaller Shuttle PC case as an alternative. The review contains a lot of great information about what good, cheap parts are out there, and where you could save money, and where you should splurge. They picked SnapStream as their PVR software after reaching many of the same conclusions I did. In the end, the systems come to around $1400, but if you are using parts from old computers, it's possible to cut that down quite a bit. [via gizmodo]

September 25, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

NBC launching attack on competitors by tweaking PVR owners?

PVR blog reader David Young pointed out some strange listings at NBC this upcoming fall season. Is something sinister going on?

Note the time of the Scrubs premiere show. It starts at 8:32PM. huh? Coupling is a new show that also sports an odd time slot: 9:27PM-9:58PM. ER starts at 9:59PM that same night. Friends runs for 47 minutes and is followed by a 39 minute long Will and Grace. What in the hell is going on? My TiVo is currently reporting these start times as the actual slots for this Thursday and next Thursday's line is mostly back to normal, but ER starts a few minutes early as well.

It appears that NBC might be doing this to tweak PVR owners wanting to record CSI or Survivor over on CBS opposite their shows. If you had a season pass for both CSI and ER (both shows would likely have audiences that overlap) and you wanted to record ER you wouldn't be able to tape CSI during the preceding hour, thanks to the minutes of overlap that would produce a conflict.

Is this how NBC is going to fight the other networks and TiVo owners? By subtle time shifting that requires viewers to cancel their programs on other networks? Didn't they invest a few million into the company a few years ago? What's going on here?

update: Several threads at the tivocommunity site covered this issue and manual hacks are shared. Theories range from NBC trying to steal viewers at CBS to NBC trying to pad ER's higher ad rates as much as possible and spread their audience out to other NBC shows that are offset. Any way you look at it, a lot of TiVo owners are pissed.

September 22, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBack

$199 TiVos

TiVo is again doing a rebate deal so that new boxes start at $199. The rebates run until 12/31/03, so if you were thinking of getting a new box, you've got the rest of the year to decide.

September 22, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

The King of All Media on TiVo

Today's New York Times magazine has a brief interview with FCC Chair Michael Powell. The topic of TiVo comes up early and often.

You mentioned TiVo. How has TiVo changed your life since you got it?

I think there's something going on in the world that's very profound. We're moving to a world of incredible intimacy in mass media. I'm my own programmer, not NBC. I've got a system looking all around the 300 channels I have. And picking out the stuff I like, putting them together and letting me decide whether ''24'' is on at 9 o'clock or 9:45.

Powell mentions the dark secret that having a TiVo means he watches more (and better) TV, which is something I hear from just about everyone that owns one.

September 21, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Forbes: Will Networks Survive Digital Technology?

A new article from Forbes "Will Networks Survive Digital Technology?" continues the theme of the earlier Wired article.

An interesting point is made about commercial-skipping technologies like Echostar's DVR and TiVo. Expect to see more product placement in shows and within DVR products themselves. A coca-cola ad hack has an interesting quote:

It is inevitable that technology will give consumers more choices, and that includes when and how many commercials they want to view

Um, is never and zero an acceptable answer? Because that's what your market wants.

September 19, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Wired 11.10: The Fast-Forward, On-Demand, Network-Smashing Future of Television

The October 2003 issue of Wired features the article "The Fast-Forward, On-Demand, Network-Smashing Future of Television," all about how recent technical advances are changing networks' business models and what the future may hold for them. There's also an interesting sidebar article about a theme covered here again and again: the shaky future of TiVo as a company.

September 17, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

The Morning News: TiVo'd

Joshua Allen's story "TiVo'd" in today's Morning News is an amusing tale of therapy, god-like TiVo power, and the sort of evangelism that most readers here can relate to.

September 15, 2003 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Tivo: First Mover Disadvantage?

There's a challenging piece at Forbes on why Tivo is so loved by it's users and the Tivo community, but how that hasn't translated into mass-market demand for the product and service. Adi Kishore, a media and entertainment analyst for the Yankee Group in Boston, says

"I can't think of any product that has had the satisfaction levels it has had but has been as sluggish in terms of the growth of the market. It's certainly unusual for a product to have this kind of enthusiasm from the community that's using it without being able to tip over and really become a mass-market phenomenon."

Forbes.com: TiVo Sales Remain Tepid Despite Fanatic Fans

September 11, 2003 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBack

Nokia Throws Its Hat Into The PVR Ring

Nokia is the latest company to join the PVR market with their Mediamaster 260 S product.

All the familiar features are there: digital satellite receiver, digital video recording, comes with an 80GB hard drive. But there are some added goodies as well.

Like many of the new PVR's on the market, the Mediamaster has photo album functionality, as well as having a few (albeit hokey) games built-in. It also has smartcard support for various pay TV services.

Perhaps the most intriguing feature is the Bluetooth support. One will be able to take a photo on a Bluetooth enabled camera-phone and upload the image to the Mediamaster for viewing.

However, it appears the device is not yet available in the United States.

September 8, 2003 in Products | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Caller ID on your TiVo

Serious tinkerers might like to know there are network based Caller ID Programs out there to bridge the gap between your phone and computing devices, for mac, windows, linux, and even TiVo. The package doesn't look for the faint of heart, requiring file and command-line access to your TiVo, but it's a cool feature I've seen in a lot of satellite receivers and wonder why it's not already in TiVo.

September 5, 2003 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

PVRblog ♥s Gizmodo

There's an amazing amount of news worth sharing over at Gizmodo — if you don't already visit that site daily, you really should.

Sony and Dell are coming out with Windows Media Center PCs, hopefully sporting the updated edition of the OS set for release later this month.

And not one, but two different companies have announced TCP/IP aware televisions, with KiSS technology announcing what could possibly be the coolest TV on the planet: a HDTV-capable 42" plasma screen with 802.11g integrated. Toshiba is also working on larger TVs sporting ethernet jacks, including a 42" flat panel too.

Although the 802.11g protocol can theoretically attain network speeds in the 55 Mbps range, real world reports are that reliability and reported speeds are much less than optimal. If I were moving video from a PC to a TV and back, I'd opt for the 100 Mbps ethernet and run wires myself.

September 5, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

10 Reasons to Try TiVo

Most of us don't need reasons to try TiVo, but Satellite Direct has published Phillip Swann's compiled "10 Reasons to Try TiVo" for the rest of the world. Included are the standard familiar points like "No Timers", and "Pause Live TV" -- but what I think is the most important point is not on the list. So, i'm going to throw in my number 0: most other PVRs just do not work. TiVos are trivial to setup, have an intuitive interface, and generally do what you expect them to.

September 3, 2003 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Sony's monster DVRs invade Japan

Sony has announced a new line of 250Gb and 500Gb DVR devices in their "CoCoon" line. I don't know if they plan to bring them stateside but they will be selling in November in Japan. I've heard the CoCoon line will offer all sorts of features including DVD read/writing and possibly gaming. With a quarter and half a terabyte of storage, they might even do HDTV recording.

The name of the device line kind of cracks me up, I assumed the japanese lifestyle trend among young people of "cocooning", or staying at home instead of going out, was a derogatory label, but maybe it's something consumers embrace or don't really notice.

September 2, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBack

Roomba Hacking

While not exactly TiVo-related, the robotic vacuum Roomba has recently launched a community site that encourages hacking of the little bots. The cluefull CEO was recently quoted:

Roomba hacking is alive and well….I'm personally happy about that. It's a great robotic platform for hobbyists

Great to see a company embrace their most ardent supporters, and I couldn't help but notice the similarity to TiVo.

September 2, 2003 in News | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

SnapStream Personal Video Station 3.0 review

SnapStream's Personal Video Station is an ambitious product, aiming to be a PVR software package that works with any windows PC sporting an approved video card. With many new PCs shipping with built-in TV cards and homes being outfitted with cable in every room, all you need to add is the $79 (currently selling at $59) software package to have your own personal recorder on your PC.

The first TV tuner card I ever had was an ATI all-in-wonder I got in early 2000 and I remember playing with the earliest versions of SnapStream back then (which didn't really work, but then my video card barely worked). About a month ago, the folks at SnapStream asked me if I'd like a review copy of their software to check out, so I looked at their site it appeared that the product had really matured. I agreed and have been playing with the package for the past few weeks, taping dozens of shows in the background while I work.

The Install

I got a package with a Hauppauge WinTV PCI analog TV tuner card and the SnapStream 3.0 software (now up to 3.2), and the install went smoothly. I got the latest drivers from the Hauppauge site and it worked perfectly under XP. Next I installed the SnapStream package and that also went painlessly. After rebooting, I tried out some live TV watching but had sound card problems. I had a $10 PCI sound card that acted erratically, sometimes sending feedback out, and after troubleshooting with the drivers to no avail, I replaced it with a $29 Creative Soundblaster card that worked flawlessly.

Basic Operations

SnapStream's software lets you view TV in three modes, either in a window, full screen, or through a local web browser (the local web browser is used primarily for navigating your recordings, not live tv). The window and full screen modes are very TiVo-like, and only differ in the size of the window. I didn't have a remote control with my TV card, so I had to use keyboard commands to navigate once the TV viewing was launched. It seemed a bit odd that mouse input wasn't allowed, and from time to time I had to look up the keystroke command to pause or change the volume.

Watching SpongeBob live

Channel surfing was quick and the overlay offered a lot of extra info about a program, including an original air date (I can't even get that info on my TiVo). Pausing live TV worked as promised and hitting record while watching live TV didn't drag my PC's system down nor did it result in any noticeable rise in processor temp (after almost melting a motherboard I pay attention to these things now). I could easily minimize a show being recorded and work on my PC normally.

Overall, the interface was straightforward and looked amazing (the screenshots don't really do it justice).

So very TiVo-like

After playing with live TV, recordings, season passes, and viewing recorded shows, I couldn't believe how close the functionality was to TiVo. Here are a variety of screenshots demonstrating each major feature:

Main screen

This is the first welcome screen when it starts, and resembles TiVo Central a great deal, letting you jump to the other features.

Now Showing list

This screen is the equivalent of the Now Showing screen, listing the previously recording programs ready to watch.

Season Pass list

The screen above shows a season pass screen set with a couple shows.

Upcoming shows list

This is a list of upcoming episodes and I have to say it was easier and faster to work with data like this with SnapStream, than a TiVo. Granted, my PC is sporting a multi-Ghz processor, but it was nice to see a snappy interface that responded to commands instantly.

TV schedule grid

The program grid was easy to surf through and easy to access, though you had to exit live TV to use it.

Extra Features

My favorite feature in Snapstream's software was the outside scheduling service available at SnapStream.net.

SnapStrem.net guide interface

While TiVo has a similar feature in the Home Media Option, the functionality at SnapStream.net was much more impressive. After selecting a lineup, I could do searches across the grid for keywords and easily record single episodes or grab new season passes in a single click on an icon. The part that amazed me was that my desktop's SnapStream program would pick up my internet recordings in just a minute or two after I set them. I used SnapStream.net to set most all of my season passes thanks to the search engine there.

SnapStream offers a bevy of additonal features I didn't get the chance to try out. Apparently SnapStream.net also has a WAP version, so I could set, search, and record shows on my PC from my phone. It also offered the chance to stream recorded shows to other computers on your network, though I couldn't get it to work in Windows Media Player for one of my other macs on the network. One other crazy niche feature was the ability to stream your recordings to a PDA like an iPaq on your home network, complete with a scheduled service to compact your recordings down especially for the PDA. I don't really know anyone that watches video on their PDA, but I'm sure they would find this a killer feature.

Video formats

SnapStream records by default in MPEG2, which looked ok but was a tad bloated when storing shows. Hour long shows ran about a gig in size, similar to a TiVo. I experimented with different codecs and settings and eventually settled upon Windows Media Video's "Near-DVD" quality that looked fantastic but was half the size of MPEG2 recordings.

The nice thing about SnapStream was also that after you recorded a show, it was a movie file on your PC's hard drive. You could make a DVD of your favorite show's season, you could transfer it to other computers for watching later, or you could even stream it across your network to outside viewers (watch a show at work, streamed from your home PC) though most home networks aren't that fast. After watching TiVo and ReplayTV cave to Hollywood's unrealistic demands, it's nice to see a software package that lets users freely do whatever they want with content and doesn't block legitimate and fair uses.

Downsides

Of course, my biggest problem was figuring out how to watch TV on my desktop PC for extended periods of time, but this problem is shared with any PVR software that runs on a PC. Normal PC operation puts me about 2 feet from my monitor, while normal TV watching puts a screen over 10 feet away, so when watching hour-long programs, I would usually run the show full-screen and roll back in my office to a comfortable distance to watch.

Local Webserver interface on a PC

The only area for improvement I found was that I had trouble with the local webserver interface on my powerbooks. The web interface mimics a XP file explorer window perfectly, but uses Windows/IE specific tricks to launch movies and switch between window views. I tried viewing the local server in IE, Mozilla, Safari, and Opera on my mac but none could even display the index page correctly. It would have been nice if they coded the page to basic web standards, so any browser and any other device could play along.

Conclusions

Overall, I was very impressed with the package. For $59, with no monthly service fees ever, the software is a bargain compared to offerings like TiVo. I've been thinking about building a home theater PC, and I wasn't sure if I'd run MythTV or try and get a copy of Windows Media Center running, but for a fraction of the work and/or price, this package does everything TV-related that I'd need. You could probably build a barebones PC system with the TV card, a remote, and S-video out to a television for about $300 and use the software to manage all your TV recording and storage.

Would I trade a TiVo for a small PC running Snapstream? After playing with it for a few weeks, I'd have to say it is certainly possible. A home theater PC can do more than a TiVo (play videos, any audio format, photos, show the web on your TV, etc), and this package certainly covers the TV recording features that TiVo pioneered.

If my reviews carried ratings, SnapStream's software would get nearly a 100% score for the low cost, loads of features, and easy video sharing, with the non-PC platform sharing being my only criticism.

September 1, 2003 in Product Reviews | Permalink | Comments (36) | TrackBack