December 2004 Archives

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So you got a PVR for Christmas...

A lot of people received a PVR like TiVo, Replay TV or a Windows XP Media Center for Christmas and are thinking "OK, now what?" We at PVRBlog, aside from wishing you happy holidays, want to provide a sort of introduction to using your new device. Inside this post we'll be linking to tips and guides for your new PVR to help you get started.

TiVo

TiVo Customer Support: TiVo has done an excellent job answering common questions. They also have some good tips and tricks to check out.
Tivo Community Forum: This is the most popular TiVo forum, chances are any question that hasn't been answered on the Customer Support page is answered here. Don't miss this post of common questions and these tips for new users. Also, be sure to search their archives before posting a question.
TiVo Central Online: You can schedule your TiVo through the web using this site, which might be a good way to set up your Season Passes
TiVo Rebate Center: Don't forget to send in those rebates!
The 30-Second Skip: Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select. This button combo on your remote will enable a hidden 30 second skip button. Personally I prefer using the fast forward, but a lot of people like using this, so try both and decide for yourself.
PVRblog's TiVo posts: Because we've written a thing or two about these TiVos too.

ReplayTV

ReplayTV Owners Home Page: A overview of offiial resources and support options.
MyReplayTV.com: Schedule recordings for your ReplayTV over the internet through their web site.
ReplayFAQs: Lots of news and information for ReplayTV owners, including the titular FAQs.
ReplayTV & Showstopper PVRs - AVS Forum: Community forums for ReplayTV owners to post questions and discuss. Be sure to read their FAQs and search before you post a question, it's probably already been answered.
PVRblog's ReplayTV posts...: ... which we really should flesh out more.

Thanks Ben for your help filling out this section.

Windows XP Media Center Edition

Using Windows XP Media Center Edition: I don't know much about the Windows Media Center community, but this looks like the best place to start. They have links to a getting started guide, and a comprehensive community portal.
The Green Button: This is the Media Center equivalent to the TiVo Community boards mentioned above.
microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter: Microsoft's Media Center newsgroup, an official forum from Microsoft to talk Media Center and get help from other users.
Addicted to Digital Media, Matt Goyer's blog and Chris Lanier's blog: Two blogs from people on the Media Center team and one from a "Media Center MVP," they regularly write about Windows Media Center Edition.
PVRblog's Windows Media Center posts: Which also feature stuff from Thomas Hawk.

Thanks to Thomas Hawk for his help on the Media Center links (and you should check out his site for more info about Media Center). I invite PVR fans to add their own picks in the comments to this post. If you still have a question that hasn't been answered, submit it to Ask PVRblog and our smart readers will do their best to help you out.

December 23, 2004 in How-To | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack

Motorola's serious looking DVR rolling out to Comcast

Dct6412_bigview_1 I've been reading reviews and reports of Motorola's dual tuner, HDTV 6412 DVR, and word on the street is that it's finally reaching a lot of major Comcast markets. While almost all reviews of cable company DVRs have been mostly poor, due to bad software, bad hardware, or an overall low quality experience, this one looks like a serious TiVo fighter, since it packs a lot of features you just can't get in a TiVo.

Dual tuners for cable - DirecTV users with TiVo know the joy of this. Basically season pass conflicts are rare once you've got two tuners going at once, plus you can watch other live programs while things tape, which comes in handy.

Records HDTV - only 15 hours of HD content max, but there are only about ten channels on Comcast systems so it's probably not too much of a problem.

60 hours of regular TV recording - pretty good number, probably using a 80 to 120 Gb drive to fit that much standard TV and HDTV.

HD VOD - video on demand movies, in full glorious resolution (though you can't record them). I'm not the biggest fan of VOD, but it's certainly a cool feature when you can get a pay per view movie right now instead of having to wait for TiVo to grab it later tonight to watch tomorrow, which is how I use DirecTV's PPV.

My friend Lance got one of the first units in San Francisco and he posted a full review on his site, and we did a little back and forth interview about the particulars, which follows:

So how's the new HD recorder? Glorious or just so-so?

The interface is kind of klunky, the remote has way too many buttons on it, picture-in-picture isn't really, and it lacks the thumb's up/thumb's down capabilities of tivo, naturally, so it won't record anything you don't tell it to

On the plus side, two tuners is aces, recording hd programming is great, it's relatively cheap, it's simple, it has a huuuuuge program buffer (up to 60 minutes for digital programs, according to the manual) and the remote is fairly programmable.

You can't record on-demand programming, it'll hold 60 hours of regular programming or 20 hours of hd. It's very quiet.

you have to watch the VOD stuff live?

Yes, you have to watch on-demand as you order it

The ffd and rew are really smooth, and ffw goes hella fast if you want it to

The tivo-lag in changing channels disappears, of course, and it takes some getting used to to remember that you can now swap tuners and record one thing while watching another, or record two things at once.

As usual, the installers don't have any clue about what they're doing (yet) - same problem I had when I got hd-cable installed. they can plug stuff in, but when it comes to answering questions they have no clue -- which is why i suppose they gave me the wrong box on friday. i said "this looks exactly like the old one," and he said "it is, except for the hard drive" but it didn't weigh any more. the real box weighs a few pounds more and it's labeled DVR on the front, otherwise it looks exactly the same

Whoa, that's crazy.

I think they realized the problem, though, because the manual includes how to tell the box what kind of tv (740, 1080, 480i, 480p) you have so your signal works properly. It records dolby digital when the broadcast uses it, too.

I haven't checked on what ports it has -- and which ones actually work. Looks like two usb on the front, probably 1.1 rather than 2.0 but you never know. The back has digital video out as well as component and rca

No DVI or anything?

The things i miss most are being able to tell it what channels i use versus which ones i receive, and the guide isn't as well integrated as tivo - yeah it has dvi out

You're using component to drive your widescreen Sampo TV, right?

Yeah.

The 'last' button seems to have endless memory. It goes backwards through whatever channels (or screens) you accessed as many times as you press it

Whoa, like a browser history. That's cool

You can change the color of the guide screens through about a dozen different templates, i'm using 'pewter'. there are two guide views, one (when you press guide) takes over most of the screen and shrinks what you're watching into the upper right, the other (when you press OK) appears on the bottom of teh screen showing just two channels at a time

heh, it's always about the skins.

Digital cable channels look uniformly crisp and not too much jaggedy going on. analog channels in the low register look ghosted and uniformly awful. Luckily, most of those are also hd-capable since they're the networks and pbs.

Haven't found too many glaring idiosyncracies. the pic-in-pic needs relabeling or they need to make it work. the guide has an hd-only mode but it doesn't show all the channels for some reason, most obviously it doesn't list hbo-hd.

You can record a series and it has the usual options (first run only, keep until space needed or keep until i delete it, re-order based on priority) but you can't search a database, you need to go into the guide, find the show, hit record twice to bring up the recording options and then it'll record the series.

That kind of blows

it's awkward. when you go into the dvr, there's a bar that shows how much memory you've used up so you can kind of manage things. if you tell it to record a single show, that will always override a series recording but you need to remember that.

Oh, it doesn't notify you of the conflict? lame.

TiVo seems much more 'set it and forget it' than comcast's solution, but i think they see their competition as directv rather than tivo, because of hd and twin tuners. You either pay a grand for a satellite dvr hd solution, or $10 a month for this

Right.

It sounds like it's great except for a few "yeah, but..." things

I'd say that's about right. if i had no tivo experience, i'd give it a 9 out of 10. but having seen the tivo interface and being used to its ease and simplicity, i'd downgrade this to an 8. the stuff i miss isn't the stuf i use all the time, it's more about my convenience.

and the ability to record hd, plus having two tuners raises the bar a lot.

i think i may miss 'tivo selects' surprises as the days go on. i kind of enjoyed sitting down on a weekend and seeing what tivo found for me that i didn't know was on. now i don't get that, so i've sort of lost my programming concierge.

and i never really used tivo media and i doubt i would have found tivo-to-go very useful, personally.

Thanks Lance!

December 22, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (198) | TrackBack

Patent Database Search

My friend Andy showed me the US Patent Office's public search engine. Here are all pending TiVo patents and here are all of ReplayTV's pending patents.

December 22, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Media Center Extender for Xbox Review

The Windows SuperSite has a great review of the Media Center Extender for Xbox.

Recently, Microsoft released "media center extenders" for people that wanted to keep their media center PC as an office computer, but watch video/audio in other parts of the house. Those devices seem to struggle from network problems and high prices ($250-300 each). This review covers the xbox version of the extender, which is only about $80 and seems to do everything well.

I recently picked up a hacked xbox that I'm using to stream music/photos/video from a PC in my office downstairs to my TV and it works fantastic. I'll post a review of the unofficial Xbox Media Center software in a few weeks.

December 22, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Mention in Discover Magazine, January 2005

Just a quick note that the January 2005 issue of Discover magazine has an article about me and PVRblog, in relation to Google ads. Here's a shot of the first page from my cameraphone.

update: here's the article on Discover's site.

December 20, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Free TiVo-for-Toys this Friday at TiVo HQ

update: Here's the full story, direct from TiVo PR:

Free, while supplies last, TiVo 40 hour Series2 DVR for new TiVo customers that provide a current Comcast cable bill and new gift (toy/clothing) for The Family Giving Tree Charity. Will be activating service on-site.

Time: 11am-1pm

Date: December 17, 2004

Place: TiVo, 2160 Gold Street, Alviso, CA (Yahoo Maps)

Why: Reinforcing our position as a champion for consumers and to deliver on the broken promise from Comcast to deliver DVRs to Bay Area customers. Best of all, bringing holiday cheer to those in need through our alliance with The Family Giving Tree.

Good on TiVo for doing this (and yes, an obvious dig at Comcast DVR customers). If you're in the Bay Area on Friday, help out a charity and get something cool in return.

December 15, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

PVRs illegal in India?

Did you know PVRs are illegal in India? Me neither, but according to Nilanjana S Roy on rediff.com they are:

Current regulators are not sure whether TiVo breaches the rights of advertisers to advertise or channels to run ads. That means you shouldn't legally use TiVo-if you're watching TV on a TV screen.

Not to fear, a company called Reliance Infocomm is bringing Microsoft's IPTV to India and with it the control over televised space/time that comes with a PVR.

I should point out that I couldn't find anything about this TiVo ban anywhere else online, so like all single-sourced information it should be treated with a healthy skepticism until it can be confirmed.

Back in America there have been some rumblings about advertisers rights when it comes to PVRs, most recently a nasty Senate bill that would have criminalized fast forwarding (which died in the House). In 2002 the CEO of Turner Broadcasting called ad skipping "theft," which has would have some pretty big implications if it were true. The EFF defended the right to skip commercials in Newmark v. Turner but unfortunately ReplayTV went bankrupt before people's right to control media in their own house could be affirmed.

Of course, if advertisers knew what was good for them they would be encouraging people to fast forward through ads. As Mark Cuban speculated and a study by CBS confirmed, no one pays more attention to an ad than someone making sure they don't miss the start of their show. Maybe someone should tell that to the regulators in India?

December 15, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Moxi has, well...

When the Diego Moxi PVR debuted at CES in 2002 they quickly gathered praise from all corners and were by all accounts destined for big things. Then, nothing. When the CEO stepped down a little over a month after that same CES, the press were quick to declare the company DOA. I don't blame them, I hadn't heard of them in the nearly 3 years since that CES and kind of figured they had gone the way of DivX DVDs. As it turns out, the Moxi is not dead.

According to Daily Wireless the Moxi, which is only available to cable companies, got picked up by BendBroadband of OR. They are the fifth operator to carry the Moxi, after Adelphia, Comcast, Sunflower Broadband (they're in Kansas, from what I can tell) and Digeo corporate cousin Charter.

A couple of the features the Moxi has above the normal pause-live-TV and scheduled-recordings are HDTV support, DVI and S/PDIF output and A 'ticker' at the bottom of the screen that you can personalize to show news, stories, sports scores or stock prices that sounds interesting. Updated: Looking over their product info it looks like the Moxi has a DVD player a standard DOCSIS cable modem built in, as well as support for ripping CDs into MP3s that are stored on the device.

For pricing, BendBroadband charges $7/mo for service, $15/mo for Moxi rental or $450 to buy the Moxi.

I haven't heard anything from anyone who has a Moxi, so if you've used one please let us know what you think in the comments.

December 14, 2004 in Products | Permalink | Comments (141) | TrackBack

JavaHMO hits 2.0

JavaHMO, an open source replacement for the TiVo Desktop, has released version 2.0 of their software. It cleverly exploits the developer API's ability to publish pictures to display all sorts of useful information such as movie times and weather. New in 2.0 are email, RSS feeds, stock prices, web page viewer, USENET and more.

Check out the screenshots to get a better idea of how it works on the TiVo end. It also has support for the TiVo Beacon API which means that you can run it alongside other HMO servers like TiVo Desktop.

December 12, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Cool Tools on the cheapest TiVo Free unit available

Tivo_toshiba Kevin Kelly's excellent Cool Tools site carries reviews of gadgets and helpful technology, and last week he featured a review of the Toshiba SD-H400 DVD playing TiVo which carries the distinction of being the cheapest standalone TiVo you can buy that doesn't require a monthly fee. TiVo Free is a bit of a crippled product and I'd personally pay for the full feature set, but $12.95 a month can get expensive and I can see why folks would look for a free monthly DVR. You don't get the basic Season Pass functionality, but if you don't mind constantly having to save the same shows in the 3-day window, it's a good basic box.

Prices on the unit go down to about $210 at the lowest end for this unit.

December 10, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

TiVo To Go on its way? (Updated: yes it is!)

Looks like TiVo To Go is ready to launch, as someone tipped me off to the new Media Access Key page in the TiVo account area. My guess is that this media access key will tag your shows and your player to let you view TiVo video on other devices. This is a good sign that TTG software will start hitting TiVo units in the next week or two.

UPDATE: The official URL is giving a "coming soon" message now at http://www.tivo.com/togo/ so this looks like the real deal.

December 8, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBack

The PVRBlog Interview: Ten Questions with TiVo's Director of User Experience, Margret Schmidt

This past summer, I was building some new website interfaces (it's part of my day job) and thinking about TiVo's combination of power and simplicity in their interface and I got to thinking about all the things I wished I could ask someone about the TiVo UI but was afraid to ask. Then I realized I could track down someone at TiVo HQ and corner them for an interview. Thanks to a few designer friends in the Bay Area, I ended up speaking directly to the top, the head honcho of all that is TiVo User Experience, Margret Schmidt.

Margret was kind enough to answer ten questions about how TiVo's UI was originally developed, how new features are added, and how the sound UI came to be, among others. I'm grateful for TiVo and Margret taking the time to do this, so without further adieu, here's the interview:

Matt Haughey: TiVo is a revolutionary product and aside from the basic recording features, the interface is often seen as a key killer feature among both typical users and the design-savvy. I'm constantly hearing it referenced as the hallmark of useful design that masks powerful features. Was an easy-to-use interface a key design goal from the beginning of TiVo's development? (considering TiVo was developed in 1997-8 that was incredibly forward thinking at the time).

Margret Schmidt: In 1998 the "design mantras" for TiVo were:

It's entertainment, stupid.
It's TV, stupid.
It's video, damnit.
Everything is smooth and gentle.
No modality or deep hierarchy.
Respect the viewer's privacy.
It's a robust appliance, like a TV.

From the very beginning ease-of-use was a goal of the team. They were inspired by appliances and interfaces that "just work" and don't require reading manuals or learning the controls. Donald Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things" was required reading. They spent a lot of time talking to "TV people" about what made for good broadcast television design.

As TiVo has evolved, we've revised our design mantras, but with many of the same themes:

The TiVo box makes TV better...

It is reliable.
It puts me in control.
It's easy to use.
It's smart and helpful.
It's responsive.
It's all about entertainment.

I can't imagine life without it.

MH: I'm guessing UI feature development is a relatively long process, involving much internal debate and testing. Can you take us through the process? As a feature goes from idea to deployed to users, about how long does it take and what steps does the UI team take along the way?

MS: The business case for product features and functionality originates in Product Management. The UI Designer works closely with the Product Manager and Technical Lead to refine the requirements.

Depending on the nature of the feature we may do some early user needs research to understand how users think about a concept, and what they might be looking for in a feature. From the requirements and the research findings the Designer creates an initial design concept which is reviewed first with the User Experience team, and then with the stakeholders for the project.

The design concept is a walkthrough of the most frequent tasks we expect users to undertake. If the stakeholders believe the concept meets the requirements, we begin usability testing of the design. TiVo has an on-site lab and a strong research team. Typically we will create a fully functional prototype that we can display on a TV and control with a TiVo remote -- it feels just like the real thing! Based on the findings, we iterate on the design. (Some times *many* iterations!)

The Designer then creates a written specification for engineering that details every screen, error condition, edge case, and final text. Engineering starts building it, and we can begin using the feature at home, and then deploying it to Alpha and Beta testers.

The Researcher designs the tasks and surveys for the testers to complete in order to get further user feedback. Some tasks can't be easily modeled in the lab and need to be evaluated when the user can live with the product. For instance, dual tuner channel surfing behavior didn't lend itself easily to lab-based testing. We received much better feedback when users could live with the product and accurately report how they used it and not how they *thought* they would use it.

We continue to make tweaks to the user experience throughout the development cycle, always conscious about our need to stay on schedule. The Design and Research leads are on the project from the initial investigation until the moment it ships. The length of the process varies with the complexity of the release.

Anyone can apply to participate in our beta or usability programs.

MH: When you've got a breakthrough product like TiVo, you're constantly innovating in a space that doesn't have a ton of established competition and I bet user research can be tough. How do you ensure that you're developing something that is usable, desirable, etc. when it's never existed before? Do you have to build a lot of proof-of-concept prototypes and test with users to see if people want it?

MS: Innovation is a by product of a talented team. We regularly brainstorm, collect, and categorize new product ideas. We have a cross functional approach to refining the ideas into product features. We have one person dedicated to creating prototypes so we can iterate quickly.

It can be difficult to test an innovative product because people are often not good at predicting their own future behavior. We overcome this by using a variety of research methods including in home studies, usability studies, in depth interviews, card sorts, surveys, field experiments, data analysis of existing behaviors to a name a few. By using different methods we are able to triangulate and get a sense of future use in the development process.

MH: Does market research play a big role into user experience? Do you check out what publications, forums, and sites are saying they wished TiVo did, then use that to develop new features, or are feature ideas more home-grown?

MS: We keep a catalog of good ideas called "RFEs" (requests for enhancement). These RFEs can come from anywhere -- from employees, Beta testers, Customer Support, the TiVo Community forum. We categorize the RFEs by feature, like Season Pass(TM) recording or WishList(TM) search.

When a UI Designer is tasked with changes to a particular feature he reviews all of the related RFEs to see which ones are appropriate to incorporate into the design. In addition, the User Experience team keeps a "Hit List" of the features or improvements we would most like to see addressed in the product. We routinely review this list with the Product Management team to get the business justification for spending engineering effort on specific features or improvements.

MH: As I've watched TiVo over the years, I've seen it morph from a company that challenged Hollywood to one that was eventually embraced it. Have there ever been problems weighing what users are asking for, and what TV studios are comfortable with? I would imagine the upcoming TiVoToGo features would be a good example.

MS: It is actually pretty easy to balance the needs of the two groups, because in general they have the same goals. Users want to watch quality programming when, where, and how they want to. Studios want their programming enjoyed by the masses. TiVo simply empowers users to control their TV consumption within the guidelines of fair use. We have strong security system called TiVo Guard(TM) that protects the interests of the studios. We don't support the inappropriate distribution of copyrighted content, and our users aren't asking for it.

MH: Given the large current userbase of TiVo and their comfort with the interface, I see parallels with eBay in terms of a rabid fanbase that has historical problems dealing with major UI changes. Has stability in the UI ever been a problem when developing new features?

MS: We are very careful not to change the UI just for change's sake. For example, three years ago, when we were shipping our 2.5 release we were thinking of changing the behavior of the ADVANCE button on the remote. Instead of simply jumping to the end of a program and then jumping to the beginning of a program we wanted it to stop on every 15-minute tickmark on the status bar. We thought this would be a handy way to get to a different part of the program more quickly.

We went to Beta and our testers complained. They were used to easily jumping to the end of a program and pressing LEFT to be prompted to delete it. Some had even programmed their Pronto remotes with this functionality. We quickly changed the design, and now the mode only applies if you are in fast forward or rewind mode.

Now we challenge each other to remember the "skip-to-tick incident" if we are considering making behavioral changes to fundamental UI behaviors. To mitigate having these problems, we try to design for the future (where we want to eventually take the feature) and then pare it down to what we are going to ship in a particular release. This lets us show how the experience will naturally evolve rather than having to radically change it to accommodate future functionality. We try to add to the experience rather than change it or take away something users rely on.

MH: How does your team decide when a feature or functionality is too complex to fit into the TiVo paradigm?

MS: In general a feature won't be ruled out as "too complex" because we have strong design team that can make anything easy to use. A feature will get ruled out if it doesn't apply or appeal to enough users. The TiVo service is for anyone who watches TV. My grandmother can use it. My toddler can use it. We are unlikely to add a specialized or power-user feature when our engineering effort can be better spent making entertainment better for everyone.

MH: What's the one feature or concept people find most confusing and how did you determine that?

MS: We learn about user confusion by tracking emails and calls to Customer Support, survey responses, issues in usability testing, watching people use the product in their homes, Beta reports, etc. There isn't one area that stands out as the most confusing, but there are areas of the UI we want to make as easy as possible. We would like the experience of un-packing the TiVo DVR, hooking it up to your TV, and configuring it for your cable or satellite provider to be simple and fun. We are working on innovative UI to help with this.

MH: TiVo is not only one of the best examples of powerful-yet-easy visual interfaces, I'd say TiVo is probably the only device that I actually enjoy hearing. The sound interface is a helpful, effective addition to the UI and rarely gets in the way. I can't point to many products that use sound effectively aside from TiVo and I'm curious how the team developed it. Were there long discussions or testing involved to help determine how intrusive sounds should be?

MS: Since TVs aren't silent, we didn't want the TiVo interface to be silent either. The initial sound concepts fell into a few categories. Some were mechanical, some synthesized, others more organic. We quickly identified the organic, happy sounds as better in line with our brand value of "playful". It actually didn't take too many iterations to get it right.

MH: The remote control that comes with a TiVo has been the subject of much writing in the past, but I'd love to hear about how that came about as well. While the TiVo UI was a breakthrough without equal, in the case of the remote, TiVo took something with 30+ years of history and remade it into something more useful than anything that had come before. How long did it take to develop the new remote? Did user testing prompt the team to make the pause button the largest or was that an early design that stuck around?

MS: The creation of the TiVo remote is well detailed in this New York Times article.

We continue to evolve the remote. The Consumer Design and User Experience teams work closely together to evaluate every button and question whether we *really* need it. We use the same research methodologies we use to evaluate the on-screen interface, only our prototypes are made of foam. A complex remote leads you to believe it is a complex product. Our remote is simple and elegant just like our UI.

Note: Paul Newby (Director, TiVo Consumer Design) and Margret Schmidt will be speaking at the monthly meeting of BayCHI (Bay Area Computer Human Interaction group) on Tuesday, December 14 in Palo Alto (open to the interested public).

December 8, 2004 in Interviews | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBack

Beyond TV: A PC PVR for Mortals

Editor's note: For this review of SnapStream's new BeyondTV product, I decided to let friend and fellow book author Paul Bausch do a quick review (since they advertise here, I thought it would be a conflict of interest to review it myself). Last year I reviewed their previous Snapstream product and this looks like a nice update.

Btvbtv250ffthumb It’s hard to believe we’ve had streaming video for over 70 years. Well, ok, we don’t normally think of television as streaming video—but I’ve found it hard not to think of TV this way since I added it to my PC.

I remember my first glimpse at what we currently call streaming video. I downloaded the Real Media Player, and the video was sort of like TV, only tiny, pixilated, and endlessly buffering, buffering. Early streaming video was sort of like watching TV with a VCR. You could watch it when you wanted, pause the video, move around in the action with a slider. All in all, it was pretty bad. I had no idea at the time that a PC would become a better place to watch television.

When TiVo arrived, I snatched one up right away. TiVo is basically a PC in disguise, which brought the good features of streaming video to my television, with some added intelligence about program schedules and my personal viewing preferences. After using TiVo for several years, I noticed the DIY PVR software like Freevo, and MythTV popping up. I was always tempted to try them so I could have even more control over the video. I consider myself a technical person, but I’ve never compiled my own Linux kernel, so these options seemed out of reach for me. Which brings me to the point of this review: SnapStream has put together PVR software for mere technical mortals.

The Interface

I’m very familiar with TiVo’s interface, so finding my way around Beyond TV was second-nature. The interface is set up for all-remote, push-button access—you wouldn’t even need a keyboard or mouse attached. (Though they are handy for speeding up the search/record process if they are attached.)

Like the TiVo Series 2, you can view your shows by series, or as a list:

Because all shows are simply files on your machine, the list mirrors what you’ll find if you browse the SnapStream shows folder:

And because all of the shows are standard mpeg files, you don’t even need Beyond TV to view them. Here’s a look at an episode of Futurama playing in the open source Media Player Classic:

For me, the best part about this is if I’m going on a trip, I can simply copy some of these files over to my laptop and view them with a lightweight player. Instant Futurama on the plane! Not to mention opening the files in an editor so I can quote video clips on my weblog, or share clips with others. (I’m talking about fair use only here, of course.) Saving video files in a completely accessible format gives me the control over the video I've been looking for.

Adding Programs

Beyond TV has season-pass style recording. You can search by keyword or title:

Or browse the lineup.

Clicking a program will give you the option to record the episode, or set up a recurring recording for the series:

Btv7

All of the channel guide info comes from SnapStream, and is updated every few days. Beyond TV differs from TiVo in a key way: there are no continuing subscription fees for program guide data. The one-time fee of $70 for the software is all you pay to have continuing access to the guide.

Nice Extras

Another nice feature is Skip Forward. Instead of hiding the commercial-skipping option as a back-door feature, Beyond TV has skip forward as a customizable feature in the settings. You can adjust the skip forward button to jump ahead as many seconds as you’d like:

Because Beyond TV is remote-centric, it’s almost a necessity. The video capture device I’m using is Hauppauge’s WinTV PVR USB-2, which ships with a fairly standard remote:

Remote

It’s not as nicely designed as the TiVo remote, but it works perfectly with Beyond TV. The only feature I found missing was instant-access to the full schedule of programs—there’s no “Guide” button.

Beyond TV supports multiple tuners, and I was lucky enough to test drive a two-tuner setup.

Basically this means I could record one program while I watched another, or I could record both shows at the same time. This worked well, and I didn't even notice the hard drive grinding away at the extra work. The drawback to implementing this, of course, is the cost of the extra tuner, but it's a nice option.

The final perk is that Beyond TV itself is also a web server. If you open up port 8129 on your home network's firewall, you can access most of Beyond TV's functionality through a browser from any location with web access. I can see that this would be handy for setting up last-minute recordings from the coffee shop, but I haven't actually used this feature yet.

A Note of Caution

There are a couple of caveats to consider before you rush out and replace your TiVo with a Windows box running Beyond TV. Be sure to check out the hardware requirements very carefully. I tried to install the program on a four-year-old laptop without much success. Beyond TV needs the latest and greatest .NET framework and Windows Media Player 10, so you'll want to be sure your Windows software is completely up-to-date before installing. Also, the video quality of the Hauppauge PVR isn’t as crisp as my television, and the Beyond TV picture is only as a good as the capture device can provide. Beyond TV has a free trial version, and you should definitely try it out first.

I’m not ready to replace my TiVo, but I will be using Beyond TV in addition to TiVo. Piping cable into my computer feels like the next step in streaming video, and Beyond TV makes this 70-year-old technology feel like something new.

December 7, 2004 in Product Reviews | Permalink | Comments (33) | TrackBack

TiVo Spam Mixup

Several members of the TiVo Community Forum complained about emails from Nissan at email addresses they shared only with TiVo:

Is TiVo "sharing" email addresses?
Today I received an advertising email message from Nissan -- sent to my TiVo email address. Nobody except for TiVo has this email address.

Nissan email, any else getting them?
Within the last month I have received 2 emails from Nissan (actually from Digital Impact for Nissan) sent to my tivo@domain.com email address. There is no way I would have subscribed to Nissan with my tivo address.

TiVo's response to them is that someone using their TiVo had requested more information from a Nissan "gold star" ad, which jives with section 3.5 of TiVo's privacy policy.

I found all this after getting an email from Nissan about a sweepstakes at an address I use only for TiVo and trying to find out if this had happened to any other TiVo users. I didn't remember asking for any information from Nissan via my TiVo and was afraid that my email address had been sold.

What had actually happend is I had not been checking my TiVo-specific address between May and November and during that time TiVo had run an offer for a free Nissan 350Z DVD and I thought Free car DVD? Why not? While I'm not sure what happened to the DVD, Nissan decided to add me to their mailing list and when I got an email from them I freaked a bit to be getting commercial email I wasn't expecting from a big name on my TiVo address.

I would have two suggestions to TiVo and other companies that want to avoid freaking me out: First, make sure that when your customers ask for more information about a specific product they don't automatically get added to mailing lists too (even if it's a "partner"). Second, include how you acquired an email address in the bottom of the email so we forgetful-types have a gentle reminder.

December 6, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Implications of Fast Forward Ads

Shelly Palmer, Chairman of the New York Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Advanced Media committe, has several thought experiments (via unmediated) up on his blog:

You're watching your favorite show on your PVR equipped television set. You press the pause button and a series of commercials start playing ... who should get the money?

This discussion stems from TiVo displaying ads during fast forward, which as I understand it will only display ads from the company whose ad is being fast forwarded through.

The continuation of this line of thought is the possibility of a company putting their ads over their competitor's fast forwarded ads, which is troubling due to evidence showing PVR users who fast forward through ads have higher ad recall rates. From Shelly Palmer again:

You are probably thinking that all of these scenarios are impossible and, even if they aren't, they're illegal. Wrong on both counts. This is totally possible, it will start happening everywhere very, very soon and the copyright laws are a bit murky since this technology was not contemplated when they were penned.

What this means is that if it starts happening, we could see more anti-PVR legislation coming down the pipeline.

December 5, 2004 in Op-Ed | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

First impressions of DirecTiVo superhackery

I've spent the last twelve hours or so enjoying one of the first preview drives from PTVupgrade's new PTVnet service. I'll do a full write-up later this week but so far it's really amazing stuff.

I'd like to share a quick preview. Once you've got a DirecTiVo on the network, you can use TiVoWebPlus as a front-end to add shows, sort recordings, and do some deep searching. Along with the included FTP and telnet, you can extend the basic toolkit in all sorts of ways.

This is really exciting stuff, and the start of the perfect TiVo toolset I always dreamed of having.

updated: removed stuff about hacks not related to PTVnet.

December 4, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack

TiVo talk in the Bay Area Dec 14th

BayCHI is a great organization for interface designers, product researchers, and academics, and one of their highlights are the monthly talks they host down at Xerox PARC. I've attended a few before but wish I could make it for this month's talk on December 14th, where the director or TiVo product and director of TiVo UI will be giving a talk about TiVo. If you're a designer and always wanted to know more about the development of the product, this should be a great talk.

December 2, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Networks teaking show start/end times, messing up PVRs

NBC started it last year, as a way to eek out a bit more advertising dollar per big ticket show, with the side effect of messing up TiVos across the land, but it looks like other networks are jumping onto the same bandwagon.

This is why TiVo really needs to do dual-tuner standalone units.

December 2, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBack

And suddenly I love TiVo again

After weeks and weeks of waiting, today my free tivo branded iPod arrived, courtesy of the TiVo Rewards program. Mostly it was a few friends upgrading their old boxes that saw this post, but lately a few random strangers have also signed up and referred me so I'm getting close to another free iPod or a free TiVo for one more.

December 1, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

SnapStream launches Beyond Media

Snapstream's Beyond Media launches today. It's an extension of their excellent (my review from last year) PVR software to include all the other common home theater PC functionality you'd want like streaming music, photos, movies, as well as connected PC things like fetching the weather. This basically brings Snapstream's product up to equal something like Microsoft's Media Center, and it looks like a pretty impressive product from a small startup.

I'm tapping a friend to do a full review here soon, since I don't really have an easy HTPC setup at home anymore.

(Obvious disclaimer: they're an advertiser here, but I'm not pimping them for that reason.)

December 1, 2004 in News | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Alienware's new Media Center box

Dhs2_hdr_shot There's a whole movement to make Home Theater PCs as component-like as possible, so you can throw a fanless computer below your DVD player without too much notice. Usually that means volume knobs and form factors that mimic typical home theater component hardware, but Alienware's new Media Center box really, really looks like something at home under your TV.

And check out the crazy number of ports available, both front and back, on the unit. They should have called it the portmaster 2000. Prices start at $1400 and ramp up from there. [via Gizmodo]

December 1, 2004 in Windows Media Center XP | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack