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I was traveling on business this week and decided to make a quick side trip to Vegas to see all the new products unveiled at CES (I wanted to go mostly to see the TiVo stuff in person). 2004 has been a rocky year for TiVo -- they didn't launch a lot of new features in the product line and had to grapple with competitors crowding the space. I was starting to feel their future was uncertain and hoped they'd have a lot to show at CES.
After hitting their booth/press area and talking to a few TiVo reps (including meeting the guy behind TiVo.com -- Hi Todd!), I have to say I was really impressed with all the new ventures and directions they are moving towards.
For the past couple weeks, I've been brainstorming a big list of ideas to turn TiVo around which I hoped to publish before CES, but I'm happy to say that almost all the big ideas I could think of were hit on by this week's set of announcements. I'll go through each new piece of TiVo tech I played with and mention all the answers I got to my questions, and what it means for TiVo customers.
I got to play with a couple TiVos running the new OS (it was version 7.1 I believe) that includes TiVo ToGo and a demo PC they had running the new TiVo Desktop. The entire package works like this:

Closeup of the TiVo Desktop, with a Now Showing list read from a networked TiVo

Full sized TiVo Desktop (click for big version)

WMP 10 will ask for a password every time you hit play

Prototype Media Player Portables for TiVo (click for big version)
HME is an umbrella term for opening up various parts of TiVo to developers with a set of new APIs and software. I've long wondered why TiVo didn't poach ideas for features from the official and unofficial TiVo hacking communities and I've also wondered why they never embraced them to help let developers extend TiVo.

Prototype TiVo interface with new developer apps running (click for big version)
Basically with HME, TiVo's rolling out the red carpet for developers.
Here are my notes from talking to a couple reps:

Demo game running on a TiVo, done in java that runs on a networked PC
It sounded like the Video/Music/Photos stuff is mostly aimed at large content companies or people selling content through TiVo. So it's not like you'll be able to watch your own video of your child's first steps anytime soon, because TiVo reps lead me to believe only TiVo approved media apps would be deployable to TiVos, mostly for copyright concerns (without this, I guess someone could create a rogue porn video marketplace with stuff they found on the net, but didn't have rights to). That's a lot like how Danger controls the code on their hiptops -- only approved code can be deployed to other users.

Dual tuner CableCARD HD TiVo, rotating in a case
So the one big obvious thing on the cablecard TiVo accounced this week that seemed to get lost in the cracks was that it is indeed a dual-tuner HD recorder. It has two card slots instead of one, and I got to see one playing some generic HD content on a HD plasma. It looked terrific, though I'm still worried about their estimated ship date of first quarter 2006. I think Comcast will be able to get a lot of the Motorola boxes out to meet demand by then (a fellow TiVo fan that was grilling reps along side me admitted he had a new dual HD motorola PVR that he loved and couldn't wait until 2006 for this). I would have liked to see this device coming out this summer, while the demand is still great.
I'll be posting a few more bits today about Microsoft, my favorite product of the show Sling Media, and various random bits and photos from the show floor.
by Matt Haughey January 8, 2005 in News