Tivo launches download service
Blurring the lines between PVRs and VOD (video on demand), Tivo has annouced that they will begin a new service whereby Tivo customers will be able to download content (movies and music) to their Tivo units. Tivo is calling this something different from broadcast tv, cable and satellite. No pricing or launch date has been announced.
This is a critical move for Tivo because their business partner, DirecTV, recently sold off their 3.4 million shares in Tivo, causing the stock to drop by 14%.
One of the stumbling blocks for DVD or HDTV-quality downloads over the Internet is that many people consider a minimum of 5 Mb/sec. for the broadband connection. In Japan and Korea, the average broadband connection is 15 Mb/sec. and can go up to 100 Mb/sec. with fiber optic services, but in the US, the average is still 1.5 Mb/sec. at best.
New Service by TiVo Will Build Bridges From Internet to the TV [nytimes.com]
Holy shit! That's the idea I floated two years ago on my site.
Glad to see them try it out.
Posted by: Matt Haughey | June 09, 2004 at 01:03 AM
Good - because I've been trying to use Comcast On Demand and the quality sucks. Why should I have to watch from a server when Tivo can buffer the movie on my box and I can watch it in full quality?
Posted by: B.K. DeLong | June 09, 2004 at 04:57 AM
Will be interesting to see what DirecTV does since they appear to be slowly severing their relationship with Tivo. Conceivably, they should be able to use their satellites to provide VOD and not have to worry about the internet.
Posted by: Scott | June 09, 2004 at 05:50 AM
"slowly severing the relationship with Tivo"
I'd say selling off 3.4 million shares is pretty darn quick...
Posted by: Gen Kanai | June 09, 2004 at 06:56 AM
One thing that was noticably missing is whether or not independent content will be allowed to be loaded. Is Tivo the gatekeeper or would I be allowed to load video from, say, archive.org?
Posted by: akb | June 09, 2004 at 07:06 AM
"I'd say selling off 3.4 million shares is pretty darn quick..."
Yeah, but you don't see any replacement receivers for DirecTivo yet, do you?
It will probably be the generation of receivers after the current HD DirecTivos that we'll see DirecTV introducing their own DVR/VOD/Whatever receivers.
I'm curious as to which way DirecTV will go. Hopefully, it won't be something so bad that I'll be forced to go to Comcast! blah! :)
Posted by: Scott | June 09, 2004 at 09:36 AM
As for DirecTV - the new owners, News Corp, also own NDS - a DVR maker mainly known in the UK. That's the odds-on favorite to produce a cheap, in-house DVR. But they are still moving forward with the low-cost DirecTiVo box and DTV & TiVo do have an agreement through 2007. So don't expect them to be shown the door before then. However, DTV could do something like offer the NDS box free and still charge for DirecTiVo.
This video download thing is *no* surprise. I talked about them doing this when the S2 units were first announced with USB ports and network support. And again when Home Media Option came out and allowed transfers within the home. It was obvious that the boxes could support transfers from outside the home too, it was just locked down in software to only allow transfers from boxes with a shared certificate. So they just need to send down a cert for a central server.
They've had music and photos from a central server since HMO came out. In fact you cna put a 'TiVo Server' on the net, anywhere, and point any HMO enabled TiVo at it for music and photos.
Posted by: MegaZone | June 09, 2004 at 11:17 AM
Thats video download is cool and all but how the crap are the Japs and the Koreans betting us in broadband bandwidth? We invented the Internet we should have the fastest out there.
Posted by: Jeff | December 06, 2004 at 11:22 PM
What they really need to do is to tie in iTunes so you can buy music right from Apple and have it added to your Tivo music library. You could then hook that to iTunes on your PC and be able to move it to a portable device. Heck you could even plug a portable device into the USB port on the Tivo for those that do not ahve a computer and synch it right to the Tivo.
Posted by: BigBillTolbert | March 21, 2005 at 04:28 PM
>how the crap are the Japs
>and the Koreans betting us
>in broadband bandwidth?
Cause Americans are fat and lazy and
don't follow through.
Posted by: Laughing | April 07, 2005 at 05:24 PM