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BBC Internet Media Player (IMP)

The BBC is planning to launch a PVR service called iMP (Internet Media Player.) It will be using Microsoft DRM, and will only work on Windows PCs. It will have a rolling 14-day schedule (one week previous and one week ahead) and will use some sort of a P2P backend for content delivery.

Why am I almost positive this will fail miserably?

BBC ponders P2P distribution [theregister.co.uk]
More details of BBC iMP revealed - All content DRM'd [digital-lifestyles.info]

February 26, 2004 in Products | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBack

Scientific Atlanta PVR crashes due to leap year

Joe Clark, an expert on captioning and accessibility issues, recently got a new Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 PVR for his Rogers Cable system in Canada. He's been keeping track of it on his accessibility blog and recently found that the box crashed and lost information a week before Feb 29th, this year's leap day. Slashdot noticed as well and it seems to be a date bug in the box's software, similar to a y2k bug.

February 26, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBack

Program Andrew's TiVo!

This is wicked cool technology. Andrew Grumet, the guy that developed the RSS module for his TiVo has continued hacking away and come up with a pretty sophisticated recommendation system for it.

Check out the app here: Program My TiVo!

You put in a title, it searches TV listings and then lets you leave info on who you are and why you suggested it. It's a pretty cool use of technology and a great example of clever hacking.

February 26, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

TiVo $50 off, new 140 hr units

c|net has news of TiVo repeating their $50 rebate offer and also unveiling new 140hr units. It's interesting to see TiVo cutting into the crowded upgrade market by offering a TiVo with significant storage. It's a bummer they stuck below the 137Gb limit imposed by the operating system (I'm assuming it's a 120Gb drive reporting the lowest quality recording time).

It'll be interesting to see if this move by TiVo reduces sales for companies like weaknees and ptvupgrade.

February 25, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

HD DirecTiVo in stores now?

Orbit Satellite seems to be selling the Hughes HD-DVR250T, showing a price of $999 and a status of "waiting list". It's probably still a few weeks from shipping but it does appear that they're taking pre-orders on it. Hopefully the price will come down in the coming months for both existing and new customers as well.

February 24, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

TiVo New Features Survey

Remember the TiVo To Go feature announced at CES last month? It looks like TiVo is doing some quick market research before they ready their betas. They're hosting a New Features Survey open to all. If you ever considered taking video off of your TiVo to archive or share with a friend, by all means take the survey today.

They ask about several features including the ability to move programs from your TiVo to your PC, the ability to burn DVDs on your TiVo or on your computer, the ability to edit video on your tivo to cut portions out, and the ability to move videos from your computer to your TiVo.

February 22, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack

Industrial design and the TiVo remote

The New York Times has a fascinating article about the evolution of the TiVo remote control. Almost everyone that I have spoken to about the remote raves about it (I personally am a fan of the SVR-2000's remote over the Philips one), and this article goes in depth about what it took to make it. Lesson learned? Don't let engineers design the remote control and let your designers go crazy -- it gives us an insight on how far the TiVo design team actually reaches.

"There tends to be this conservatism in the design process," he said. "I encourage young designers to go off and scare me.''

Some of the results fell under the category of "Be careful what you wish for." One sketch was of a remote that looked like a horned toad. Another resembled an ice scraper for a windshield.

February 19, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Akimbo coming soon

Akimbo Systems is getting set to launch their television-via-internet service. They're working with a smattering of sites that provide video (including, of course, a porn site or two) that are instantly accessible via your television, thanks to a big silver box.

It's an interesting attempt to circumvent the cable/satellite/over-air broadcast model entirely by using the internet in a new way, and it's great to see a new company innovating in the space. However, unless they sign on some pretty significant heavyweight content providers, they'll have a tough time luring customers with their current offerings (which seem too niche and not that extensive). They're also limited to DRM-laden Windows Media 9 video, so don't expect to be playing your own DVD backups captured as MPEGs anytime soon.

February 16, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

ReplayTV Sharing Server

Poopli sounds like a long overdue service for owners of certain models of ReplayTV units. They used to allow the sharing of shows between friends, and Poopli helps turn strangers into friends by letting users request a program while the folks that have them can send their programs to others.

I always knew ReplayTV had the chance to become a great big TV version of Napster and Poopli looks to be the missing part.

February 16, 2004 in ReplayTV | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

RSSTV: Syndication for your PVR

Andrew Grumet, who earlier posted code to read RSS feeds on his TiVo, has announced a new proposal for sharing your recordings with others, using RSS as the xml data format.

It's a really compelling solution to a classic problem: I have five friends with TiVos and I'd love to know what they are taping and I'd be happy to show them what I like (just like Amazon's friend features that show purchases and reviews by your pals). Currently I get this done via conversations in person or email, but it'd be great if there was an automatic way to accomplish this within our TiVos themselves.

With the recent hoopla around social software, it'd be great to see this project get some legs and get adopted by TiVo for a future OS. I can't see any reason to block this adoption, it's not about sharing files with others, just sharing playlist of your to-do lists and recorded programs among friends. If anything, this would cause me to watch more TV and I'd be happier with my TiVo since I'd be finding new compelling programs.

February 11, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack

TiVo wins Pause Technology patent suit

Good news for TiVo today as they won a patent suit against Pause Technology. Pause Technology has a patent on the functionality of pausing TV, buffering live TV, and catching up to live by fast-forwarding. It sounds pretty close to what TiVo does, but a judge sided against Pause. It'll be interesting to see how well TiVo does in its own patent suits against other DVR manufacturers. [thanks Scott!]

February 11, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Wireless g cards for the Gateway DVD connected player

Thanks to a comment on an earlier thread, I've learned that Gateway is now selling a 802.11g card specifically for the Connected DVD player. It's only $50 (even cheaper than most mainstream g cards) and they offer free shipping. I just ordered mine and will post a quick review after it shows up.

Hopefully it's the end to the occasional hang-up on video for me.

February 11, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

David's PVR wishlist

David Galbraith has a bunch of great ideas for how a TiVo or other PVR box should work that turns all the existing business models on their heads. I especially like the attempt to create very personal one-on-one advertising that actually benefits people. Although I'm generally an opt-out kind of person, I welcome beneficial advertising and do request catalogs from time to time. Modern day PVRs do have the ability to market products to you, yet no one so far has taken personalization to that level yet.

February 7, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Avert Your Eyes! High-def porn has arrived

There's an old saying that porn drove the technology uptake of the internet; things like web security, video and audio, and business models all originated from porn sites driving the development. With the dearth of High Definition content and the prices still quite high for a HDTV set, it was only a matter of time before a HD porn channel would be announced, though as the author warns in the piece, it'll just show off more of the less-than-ideal conditions actors and sets suffer from, perhaps ruining the appeal for HDTV in the first place. That said, it'll be interesting to see if this drives adoption of HDTV equipment in any way.

February 6, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

TiVo watchers uneasy after post-Super Bowl reports

After the news from a few days ago, and comments from TiVo owners here, it probably comes as no surprise that TiVo watchers are feeling uneasy after post-Super Bowl reports.

It's definitely a little unsettling that TiVo knows when and where every single user hit their remote. I don't feel violated by it though, TiVo has taken every opportunity to defend user privacy and only reveal data in aggregate. Plus, to be honest I think the data is really interesting and cool, and so far is worth the slight worry.

Still, after the past few years of Supermarket card privacy violations mandated by the courts, it doesn't seem too far off to think that someday a court might request a TiVo user's entire history to prove they had a motive in a crime, and then this could be a major problem for its customers.

February 6, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

HDTV DirecTiVo demo video

Here's a nice short video taken from last month's CES where a DirecTV company head shows off the DirecTiVo HD in action. This has been widely reported previously on this site, but it's nice to see it actually work and how seamless the integration seems to be (the menus don't look any different than my standard DirecTiVo).

He also reiterates the March release date and the $999 price. It'll still be $4.95 a month for the TiVo fees (same as I already pay), and you'll just need to add their $10.95 HDTV channel package if you don't already get it.

Now I just need to buy an LCD tv, new home theater system that can handle the HD connections and the thousand dollar tivo. :)

February 6, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Home Theaters in the NYT

There's a great article in the NYT today "Let's All Gather Round the Screen," about the role of home theaters and their increasing presence. Given the falling prices on cutting edge equipment (you could build a decent low-end HDTV theater for just a few grand), people are finding the home theater experience is quickly becoming better than going to a theater to see a film. My favorite quotes in the article come from plasma and projector owners complaining that commercial multiplexes showing films are often "out of focus" compared to their home systems.

There's also a nice companion article about HDTV chips, comparing LCD, DLP, and LCoS. HDTV is a minefield of confusing acronyms and technology (even for a gadget freak like me!) and these types of articles help explain what all the confusing new technologies mean.

February 5, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

TiVo's watershed event :)

Every major technology has a watershed event that demonstrates its use to millions in a very specific way. When there was a coup in the Philippines, citizens mobilized using text messaging on cellphones. In the aftermath of September 11th, people flocked online to read independent accounts of the events and catch up with loved ones.

Check out a search at Google News for TiVo and Janet Jackson. Tivo may have had its watershed event this past weekend, when Janet Jackson's boob demonstrated how TiVo's quick rewind and replay works. I always thought a TiVo was a sportsfan's best friend (when I watch football or basketball, I probably use the 7-second quick rewind at least a dozen times per game), but given all these press mentions and a recent price drop taking the cheapest TiVo down to $150, I bet they sell a lot of TiVos in the next few weeks.

February 3, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Myth-TV HOWTO

Tom Walsh has a great article over at Newsforge entitled "A happy MythTV user shows the way" where he walks people through his trials and tribulations in getting MythTV up and running in his entertainment setup. And best yet, he's honest about its difficulty and cost

I do agree that a MythTV setup is not economically cheaper than a TiVo unit and that the MythTV project is a rather advanced Linux project. But if you have the experience and are willing to put in the time and persevere, you can be as satisfied with the result as I am.

What I personally recommend is trying out KnoppMyth if you are even remotely interested in MythTV to test it out before spending that one grand to get all your dream hardware together. It might not be for you. Or your spouse.

February 3, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

TiVo confirms the obvious, re: The Super Bowl

Anyone that caught yesterday's Super Bowl game probably knew the halftime was the most TiVo'd moment and this press release fresh from TiVo confirms it: Justin and Janet Steal Super Bowl Show.

My favorite bit from the news:

The Jackson-Timberlake moment drew the biggest spike in audience reaction TiVo has ever measured. TiVo said viewership spiked up to 180 percent as hundreds of thousands of households used TiVo's unique capabilities to pause and replay live television to view the incident again and again.

(my emphasis added, heh).

February 2, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack

PVRs will diminish TV programming?

The Chicago Tribune has a piece on the impact of DVR/PVR technology and how the business model for TV (advertising) is circumvented by these new technologies.

Television has always been the entertainment medium most immediately sensitive to popular taste. Ratings are provided almost instantly, and the very business model is not to sell the entertainment, but to use the entertainment to gather an audience. The audience is what is sold, to the advertisers.

And, as leaders from all aspects of television have warned, when you diminish advertising's effectiveness you mandate that TV has to find a different way to pay for itself.

That means three likely results: the end, or shrinking, of over-the-air free TV to be replaced by much more pay-per-view; more stealth ads sneaked into the content of a show itself, like today's product placement only more so; and, in all likelihood, probably more repeats and a greater ratio of reality schlock to carefully produced scripted fare, because the latter is so expensive to make.

I personally think that the article is a re-hash of all the "industry fears" surrounding new technologies but is nonetheless worthwhile to read for that perspective. In light of all the efforts by the satellite and cable companies rushing to bring these new boxes to market, it is clear that DVR/PVR technology is here to stay.

With growing amounts of programming (cable, satellite, etc.) and the lure of video games, Internet games, and the Internet itself, we all are watching less TV. So advertisers must be much more precise with their advertising in order to target the customers who will appreciate/react to their messages. Blaming new technologies for changes in market behavior? Cue the tiny violins, please.

Why more choices may mean fewer [chicagotribune.com]

February 1, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack