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On TiVo Rebates

Rebates seem to be a way of life for gadget loving shoppers, although I've never heard from someone who enjoys waiting for their savings to come in the mail. Over on the TiVo Community forums, TiVo Customer Support Program Manager Bill Dailey explains why TiVo uses rebates:

As to the idea of just lowering the price rather than offering a rebate, rebates are used for a couple of reasons (by just about every consumer electronics company out there):

1. Not everybody claims them. The fact that only a certain number of people will complete the rebate paperwork is figured into the cost of a rebate. Lowering the price would have a much larger financial impact than a rebate, likely making it impractical.

2. Just having a rebate drives people to buy products. Lowering the price $100 does not have the same effect as having a $100 rebate. People buy more products when there is a rebate - regardless of if the final price would be the same either way.

Above Dailey's post, another forum member points out that because not everyone redeems their rebates "if TiVo was going to drop the rebate, the price would drop by less than $100." Which would you rather have: a $99 TiVo with a $100 rebate or, for argument's sake, a $150 TiVo?

February 28, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBack

Thomas Hawk interviews Media Center Bloggers

Thomas Hawk recently posted his interview with Windows Media Center bloggers, which is an interesting insight for people like me who don't really keep up with Microsoft's offerings.  One thing I liked was that the developers have pinpointed the most important litmus test for PVRs:

Speaking of wives, there’s something what we call internally here at Microsoft the "SAF"- Spousal Acceptance Factor. It’s a very important informal metric we use internally just like the "eating our own dogfood" metric where we take builds home to test in addition to formal betas and usability testing.

[Update: Parts two, three and four are live now.]

February 28, 2005 in Windows Media Center XP | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Late Guide

The Late Guide is one of the slicker apps recently added over at our HME site.

It's a simple little RSS reader that pulls down info on who will be the guests on all the late night shows, but shows how slick even something as simple as this can look on a TiVo.

I can see folks adding dozens of little apps like this to their TiVos soon if it's easy enough to find, add, and use them without getting too bogged down when you have a bunch. I can't wait to see what other niche apps get built for the HME.

February 24, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Why would Apple even want TiVo?

Still no news on the rumors that Apple is buying TiVo, since Apple isn't suing anyone this time there's no way to be sure one way or the other. However, people putting their TiVo stickers on the backs of their iBooks might want to hold off a little while. It's unlikely that either company will come out and deny the rumors even if they're untrue, so we'll just have to wait and see if they get confirmed.

While we're waiting, let's look at what the companies could offer each other. First off, TiVo is built on top of Linux, Mac OS X is built on top of a NetBSD FreeBSD port called Darwin. I'm no kernel hacker, but it seems like it would be possible to port TiVo's Linux changes to Darwin. It would be easier for Apple and TiVo than most companies because they both are built on PowerPC architectures - at least easier than if there were rumors of Microsoft buying TiVo.

Meanwhile, Apple's iTunes Music Store continues to sell iPods (well, they don't sell them on the iTMS, but you know what I mean). There is speculation that Apple will be building a QuickTime Movie Store; if Apple could make money selling the hardware they could use the iTunes Music Store business for it as well. It would also help cement the position of the Quicktime Streaming Server, which would likely sell a number of Xserves.

A TiVo acquisition would also provide a place for iTunes in the living room. Apple's AirPort Express proves Apples interest in moving out of the office and into the living rooom. There's even a way to control an AirPort Express from the TiVo using HME.

The TiVo could also tie into Apple's iLife suite. TiVo already plays well with iPhoto and iTunes, why not add iMovie and iDVD integration as well? My sister could make an iMovie of my nephew and send it to my TiVo between my 10 hours of Law & Order a day, then I could burn it using iDVD. Heck, why not let me show my Keynote slideshow using my TiVo?

Then there's the perennial talk of a video iPod. This fits in perfectly with TiVoToGo, you would simply dock your iPod on your TiVo and download your shows. Obviously there are some technical challenges there for the TiVo and iPod, but TiVo provides a great platform to build on.

So what does TiVo gain from this? For one thing, Apple is sitting pretty well these days. It could afford TiVo some elbow room to innovate; right now Ramsay is frustrated with investors not seeing the bigger picture. As an Apple division they could focus more on user experience and product development.

Apple's name would also give Om Malik the premium branding he says will save TiVo. Apple has a firm grasp on how to survive with a premium product and a small marketshare. TiVo's competition with the cable providers looks a lot like Apple's competition with Microsoft. Apples experience in this fight could prove invaluable.

Apple's offerings also tie into TiVo's Tahiti plans. TiVo knows that in order to compete with the cable companies, it needs to offer something they can't. Access to content through Apple would be a great start to that.

We may never hear anything else about this rumor but there's certainly plenty of reasons why an Apple/TiVo merger could work.

February 24, 2005 in Op-Ed | Permalink | Comments (30) | TrackBack

Rumors Apple Acquiring TiVo

Reuters is reporting that TiVo stock is up up up based on rumors that Apple might acquire the company.

"What we hear on the street is that Apple is interested in their business and that they are a takeout target," said analyst Steven Kroll Jr. of Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co.

Representatives for Apple and TiVo both declined comment.

While Reuters likes to talk to "analysts" and "representatives," we all know it was our post about playing AAC files on a TiVo that really sent Wall Street into a tizzy.

So what would an iTiVo look like? White plastic all around? Complaints about there only being one TiVo button on the remote? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

[Update: Smith Barney says a merger is "highly unlikely." They say "it appears as though Apple want to stay focused on selling select proven products (e.g. iPod) rather than gambling on unknown initiatives" and "Apple indicated that the DVR market seems to be a commodity whereby all players will eventually have similar hardware and software longer term." So now we have rumors that nothing will happen to contradict rumors that something will happen. All you Windows people are getting a taste of what it's like over on the Mac side of the fence.]

February 23, 2005 in News, TiVo | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBack

Play AACs with TiVo Desktop 1.9

Being a zealot for both TiVo and Apple can be tough at times. We can't watch TiVoToGo files yet, even though the CEO is a switcher. We have to listen to people constantly telling us about how the companies are about to die. At least now people who encode their music in Apple's AAC format have a way to play their music on their TiVos through TiVo Desktop 1.9.

According to Dennis Wilkinson on the TiVo Community forums, 1.9 includes a program called "SoundConvert" that will run AACs through LAME, if LAME is installed in /usr/local/bin/. All you need to do is install LAME and restart the TiVo Desktop. macosxhints has a guide to installing LAME, or you can get it from Vas the Man.

Unfortunately, you can't play songs you bought from the iTunes Music Store because they have DRM. If you thought you should actually be able to listen to music you bought on your TiVo, you'd need to strip out the DRM with something like jHymn.

February 23, 2005 in Hacks, TiVo | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Opera speaks up

Opera, the company that makes the browser you're too cheap to use, is stepping up their PVR options.  They have a software platform for set top boxes that provides media playing, web browsing and interactive TV.  While we'll leave it for historians to decide if "iTV" was an idea before its time in the mid-90's or just a bad idea, Opera's voice controlled program guide sounds like a great idea. Truly, we are living in the future.

February 22, 2005 in Products | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Plasma mounted mini

While everyone's working on software to turn the mac mini into a home theater PC, NoDRM has some shots of a mini mounted directly onto the back of a 42" plasma screen. It's so small on the back that I wouldn't be surprised if someday Apple sold HDTV monitors with mounts like this.

®†

February 20, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Browse Flickr from your TiVo

Developer Andrew R. Wallace has created a way to browse the photo-sharing site Flickr from TiVo using the new Home Media Engine feature, and it looks great.  I just tried it out and my Flickr account is completely available from my TiVo.  I think this has a good chance of winning Best Photo Application in the TiVo Developer Challenge.

HME apps require System 7.1, which includes TiVoToGo.  If you have System 7.1, you'll need to allow HME apps to run by going to System Information and pressing clear clear 0 0 on your remote.  Then, just download the Java program and run it on your computer.   You can find out more at the developer's site or rate it at HME PVRblog.

February 20, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Om Malik on how to save TiVo

Om Malik is in the TiVo Deathwatch camp, and he has some opinions on how to save the company (via Waxy):

TiVo should basically give away two million of these devices in next one month - hit the 5 million subscriber mark. That’s $65 million in monthly revenues (assuming everyone pays $13 subscription fees.) At those numbers the company can do $750 million in annual sales.

...

Next cut back on marketing completely, ala Apple in lean years. Stop pushing the service - and turn TiVo into an exclusive club, a BMW among PVRs.

First, I'd like to point out that there are plenty of Apple and BMW ads on TV.  I think that establishing a premium brand requires lots of marketing, turning the product into a lifestyle choice is a lot of what marketing is.  Apple's turnaround was launched with the iMac and the commercials with it.

Contrary to establishing a premium brand, the iMac was an attempt to make Apple's accessible to any home user - i.e. the "3 steps" commercial.  I could imagine something similar to this for a Series 3 TiVo with cable card support: "Step 1: plug into TV, Step 2: plug in cable card, Step 3: Jeff Goldblum laughing."  (Note: I haven't even read the phrase Series 3 anywhere, but if they announce one in the next 2 years I'll point to this post as evidence that I knew first.  How else could I know that 3 comes after 2?)

As for giving away 2 million TiVo boxes, if we assume (i.e. perform a rectal-number extraction) that they cost $100 per unit - which is probably a low estimate - then a company with $88 million in the bank is spending $200 million to give away their product.  This seems bad, but if they're given away with the cell phone free-with-contract model, then TiVo could make back the cost of those units within 8 months (again, assuming a cost of $200 million).

TiVo has done give-aways before, but never to that extent.  In 2000 they had an essay contest where they gave away 14 hour Series 1 units at a rate of 10 a day from mid-September through Halloween.  More recently they gave away 2000 Series 2 units to people in the Bay Area that Comcast had led to believe were getting a PVR.  Giving away 2,000,000 units would be several orders of magnitude larger than anything like it in the past.

Om picks up on the fact that if TiVo stops trying to nab new subscribers with advertising, investors won't be thrilled. 

Of course, no growth in subscribers means Wall Street isn’t going to like it. To that, I say screw them. How about taking the company private. Leveraged buyout! Small, company, which can become profitable. I know there is one gentleman who reads my blog, and is a tech buyout guru who could pull it off. Slow growth and profits versus certain death - well I take the former.

Add on a one time loss for 2 million TiVo units (2/3 the size of their current subscriber base) and people will reminisce about the "good times" when the stock (which has a 52 week high of nearly $13) was at $3.85.  A low stock price would certainly make it easier for the company to go private, but it also makes the company a prime target for takeover.

February 20, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack

TiVo 802.11g Support

Rumors about TiVo's "coming soon" 802.11g support have recently come true. The Houston Chronicle has a short article about two 802.11g adapters for a TiVo running software version 7.1 (Netgear's WG111 and D-Link's DWL-G120).   

The support page for TiVo Wireless Adapters confirms that these two wireless adapters will work with your TiVo in wireless G mode, as long as it has the most recent 7.1 OS release. This should make show transfers go a lot faster. [thanks Mike!]

February 20, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBack

TiVo 3 million strong

TiVo announced today that it added 698,000 subscribers in the quarter ending January 31st, pushing them over the 3 million mark.  Given all the recent bad news for the company the 3 million subscriber milestone is probably a good reason to celebrate out in Alviso.  Not all is well though, they're still very dependent on the DirecTV market; the split between DirecTV and standalone was 447,000 to 251,000.

February 18, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Whitepaper on TiVo's filtering

Every wonder how the collaborative filtering system works on a TiVo? Wijnand van Stam from TiVo co-authored a detailed paper describing how it all works (word doc) (google's html version of the word doc).

The abstract:

We describe the TiVo television show collaborative recommendation system which has been fielded in over one million TiVo clients for four years. Over this install base, TiVo currently has approximately 100 million ratings by users over approximately 30,000 distinct TV shows and movies. TiVo uses an item-item (show to show) form of collaborative filtering which obviates the need to keep any persistent memory of each user�s viewing preferences at the TiVo server. Taking advantage of TiVo�s client-server architecture has produced a novel collaborative filtering system in which the server does a minimum of work and most work is delegated to the numerous clients. Nevertheless, the server-side processing is also highly scalable and parallelizable. Although we have not performed formal empirical evaluations of its accuracy, internal studies have shown its recommendations to be useful even for multiple user households. TiVo�s architecture also allows for throttling of the server so if more server-side resources become available, more correlations can be computed on the server allowing TiVo to make recommendations for niche audiences.

February 17, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

TiVo trying to get eyballs in front of TiVos

One of the ways a lot of TiVos get sold is from people seeing them in someone else's house.  TiVo's marketing department finally found a way to encourage this, in the latest newsletter they included a link to create a TiVo-themed Evite for an Oscar party.  It's nice to see TiVo focusing on publicity that works, instead of freaky drawings in the New Yorker.

February 17, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

TiVo Chairman Loves His Mac

According to Om Malik, the departing CEO Mike Ramsey did at least one thing right at TiVo: he switched to a mac. :)

February 16, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

eBay coming to TiVo

Jeff McManus, a developer lead at Paypal/eBay announced that his group released a eBay client for the HME. The developer package is here and like he says, it's an early proof-of-concept, but someday soon you may be able to browse and purchase items on eBay, from your couch.

These screenshots look amazing:

February 15, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (29) | TrackBack

Humax DRT-800 Review

Levi Wallach posted a comprehensive review of his new Humax DRT-800 TiVo/DVD-recorder. I've heard nothing but good things about these units and this review is much of the same. He shows off pretty much every aspect of it and explains how each part works.

I love that TiVo makes DVD menus that look just like a TiVo, that's a great idea and way to show off the service to those that don't have it and might borrow a DVD from time to time. I also love the idea of using a TiVo remote to control a DVD player. I'm often using the TiVo controller for volume when watching a movie and I often forget that the pause and ffw buttons don't actually control the movie I'm watching, though I wish they could.

February 14, 2005 in Product Reviews | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

MythTV 0.17 released

MythTV, the open source PVR program, has released version 0.17.  While 0.17 seems pretty low, version numbers in the open source world can be misleading.  I'm not saying to base your new start-up on MythTV yet, but it's been in development for almost 3 years and works for a lot of people.  If you're building your own PVR and handy with Unix, you'll want to take a closer look at MythTV.

Some of the new features in this release are:

• Support for playback on Mac OS X (no recording yet)
• "Timestretch" to speed up/slow down video playback without affecting the audio of the pitch - Arrested Development at 1.5x won't sound like the Chipmunks
• Recording from Firewire HDTV cable boxes

February 11, 2005 in Products | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Tivo To Go Primer

Dave Zat offers up a comprehensive primer to Tivo To Go. It covers pretty much all the common questions, with tips and links to helpful utilities. If you're just getting started with it, or wondering how it might work, this tutorial is a great place to start.

February 10, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Questions Frequently Asked About TiVo, Answered by Someone Who Loves TiVo Too Much

The Morning News offers up a very amusing Q&A: Questions Frequently Asked About TiVo, Answered by Someone Who Loves TiVo Too Much.

It almost reads like parody of me among my friends and their questions.

February 10, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Tivo Deathwatch @ Engadget

Engadget has started a "TiVo Deathwatch" with almost 50 comments from users. This does not bode well...

Sorry TiVo, but we’re declaring this deathwatch until further notice. We hope you’ll seriously turn things around—you know what you need to do. We’ll be updating this post periodically to reflect new developments until TiVo either declares bankruptcy, gets acquired, or (hopefully) reports a profitable quarter.

TiVo Deathwatch - Engadget

February 9, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Snapstream's ten tuner Hydra PVR

A few months ago, Snapstream released their software and posted a story on their six tuner demo box. TV card maker Hauppauge recently released a dual tuner TV card for the PC and Snapstream upped the ante by using five of them to build a ten tuner PVR. Obviously, just a proof of concept but it does sound like their basic system operated fine while recording on multiple tuners and playing back at the same time. I suspect most enthusiasts would be fine with just one dual tuner card, maybe two, tops, but it's good to know most off the shelf PCs can do much more with the software and hardware available.

February 9, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

American Idol blocking fast forwards

Lost Remote is reporting that one of their readers couldn't fast forward while watching an episode of American Idol he recorded on his Comcast HD-DVR, but could on other shows.  The reader in question, even sent in this photo showing the unversal "no" symbol, which we assume showed up while fast forwarding.

This appears to be the 'transitional fair use' that we've been hearing in action. Some of the comments on Lost Remote speculate that it was merely a bug, either needing a reset of the PVR or caused by an encoding problem.  We've previously heard of fast forward problems on 24, another show on Fox.  Have any other Comcast HD-DVR users had problems?  Let us know in the comments.

February 9, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (65) | TrackBack

TiVo Community Forum Down

The largest TiVo community site for tips and help from other users, TiVo Community Forum, is currently down due to server load problems, but the message talks about it being "closed" which isn't a good sign. Hopefully that's just a bad choice of words and the closing isn't permanent. The TiVo Community Forum is a killer resource for TiVo owners old and new and I'd hate to see it go away.

Update: it came back soon after I posted this, but went down again. Hopefully they get things sorted out and the community comes back soon.

February 8, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBack

TiVo's Super Bowl stats are out

TiVo released some aggregate date about the Super Bowl today, showing audience size in real time throughout the game and this play/pause graph above. Looks like the big commercials were the few that showed some female skin.

Overall, it was a pretty boring Super Bowl in terms of big commercials and I never thought I would say this but there is a such thing as too many monkeys in comedic ads. I never thought I had a limit for laughing at monkeys, but on Sunday I hit my monkey wall. After two ads, I had enough. The game was ok, but having two teams with good defense means low scores and few highlights. Oh well, at least the pizza was good.

February 8, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The PTVnet DirecTiVo upgrade drive review

Let's face it, DirecTV customers with the combo DirecTiVo boxes have been left in the cold for the past few years when it comes to TiVo announcements. Thanks to an agreement that shifted DirecTiVo customers to DirecTV's control, folks with the units haven't got to use the Home Media Option for the two years it has been out, and there's no sign of when TiVo ToGo or the Home Media Engine developer's toolkit will arrive for the units.

But that doesn't mean DirecTiVo owners don't have options. I've been happily using a PTVnet upgrade drive in my Philips DSR7000 (series 2 DirecTiVo) for the past couple months and I felt it was time to share all the possibilities this upgrade offers.

Stranded by DirecTV

When I first got a DirecTiVo combo unit in early 2002, It was a series one version and I activated it through TiVo.com. I paid for it just like a regular TiVo and got software upgrades at the same time as regular TiVo owners. Soon after, DirecTV stopped handling just the satellite subscriptions and instead moved to control both the TiVo subscription fees and the channel lineups. This made it easier to sign up a new box, since you just had to call one number to get both the TiVo running and your satellite channels paid for, but it also produced a fork in the codebase, where the software for DirecTiVo boxes was now under DirecTV's ultimate control instead of TiVo. This is when things started to go sour for customers.

The turning point was when series 2 DirecTiVos became readily available. Like the standalone TiVos, these new boxes offered all sorts of capabilities with their new hardware. The USB ports could enable wired and wireless networking. The faster processors could do more intense tasks. But unlike the standalone owners that quickly got to take advantage of their new hardware, DirecTiVo has remained essentially unchanged for almost three years. While DirecTV has left its users behind the innovation curve, the healthy hacking underground has been toiling away at various projects for over six years, and the projects have reached levels of maturity in terms of interface and features. The PVTnet upgrade drive draws upon the best projects.

Opening up with the PTVnet drive

The PTVnet upgrade drive fills a void, letting you talk to your DirecTiVo box over a network and opens up a world of possibilities afforded by the hardware. It includes the following:

• Enables single, large drives that go beyond the 137Gb limit (with the LBA48 hack)
• USB ports work (usb 2.0 even) with wired and wireless adapters
• Comes preconfigured with TiVoWebPlus (a web front-end to your TiVo), telnet, FTP, and a small handul of utilities

Installation

I got a prototype version of their 160Gb drive upgrade, padded and packed in a box with a sheet of instructions for installation.

The installation was as smooth as could be, taking only about five minutes to take the case off, swap my old hard drive with the new one, and button it all back up. The obvious drawback is that you lose all your settings and recordings by moving to a new disk, and as always keep away from both the power supply (lower left of the drive) and the white ribbon connector to the top right of the drive.

After it booted up (complete with custom screens) and grabbed the satellite info in setup, a quick reboot later and my old Linksys WUSB11 wireless adapter lit up and grabbed an IP off my router's DHCP server.

Using the web to control your TiVo

Definitely the coolest aspect of the upgrade was getting TiVoWebPlus. This differs from the tivo.com integration dubbed TiVo Central, where standalone Series 2 tivo owners can search for shows and set recordings. Unlike TiVo Central, this is actually running on your TiVo, so when you hit record the show will be added to your ToDo list immediately. If you open up your network to allow outside connections to your TiVo this also lets you set recordings from anywhere on earth.

Every web browser on my home network has a bookmark to the Now Showing list, like the screenshot above. It lets you know what is stored on the TiVo, and if necessary, lets you delete recordings immediately, through the web interface. I only have one TV in the house, and frequently work for hours upstairs in my home office. This page lets me know if there's anything worth watching the next time I take a break.

Clicking on an episode will show you info on it, and what episodes are soon to come (and whether or not they are new, which also helps plan recordings)

The one feature I use most often is definitely the search engine (above is a result for "American"). Even with the upgraded Series 2 hardware, my DirecTiVo box is still slow and clunky to find new shows and set them to record. Given that every computer has a handy keyboard attached, when I think of a show I'd like to add to my season pass list, I grab a laptop and pull this page up. It lets me search for any text string and I can record them in just a couple clicks, without having to use my remote to key in words or get stuck waiting a minute or two at the end for a season pass to get added.

Clicking on your search results brings up an info screen like this one.

Show details feature the additional info about original air dates, which no DirecTiVo can currently do. I love knowing whether or not next week's Saturday Night Live is a repeat from last seaon or not. Setting a season pass and single recording is just a click away and you will be notified immediately if there are any conflicts.

Every feature from the TiVo user interface is included in the package, letting you see the ToDo list of recordings set, the season passes, and what is currently showing. The TiVoWebPlus install also includes HackMan, a script manager that lets you turn features off and on, like an included Caller ID hack.

The info screens offer all the geeky info you'll ever need, including a way to find out how much free space is on the drive, and how that space is being used up.

Other features and extending the package

The other features mentioned at the start of this review, the large drive and the other network services, are great additions that round out the package. The LBA48 hack extends the limit that most TiVos have where the biggest free space they could see on a drive was 137Gb. With this fix in place, instead of running two drives with their added heat and noise, you can stick with a single large drive (as big as 300Gb).

The other network services are handy for any additional hacks you want to try out. As I explained last month here, I used the built-in FTP server and telnet server to upload some scripts that let me show off my TiVo's contents and upcoming recordings. It was all fairly straightforward, requring me to simply connect, poke around directories, upload scripts, make them active via chmod, and they ran just fine after a restart of TiVoWebPlus.

Of course, once you've got networking into a TiVo, the limits are almost endless, though I didn't want to push it further (I'm still new to linux stuff and tcl scripts). I've heard updating the OS to a 4.0 version with Home Media Networking is possible. Adding video hacks and streaming is also possible if you know what you're doing and where to find the scripts.

Conclusion

The obvious question is whether or not the upgrade is worth the cost. I'd say it is worth it, especially if you haven't upgraded your DirecTiVo's hard drive yet, since plain old upgrade drives have comparable price tags. If you're interested in networking or hacking a DirecTiVo, this definitely opens it up and gives you a useful way to interact with your TiVo.

Now that I've had this setup for a couple months, I can't see how I could live without it. I've never liked the limits of using a remote to key in show titles when searching and the way a TiVo UI lags for a minute after setting a recording is frustrating. This package solves those problems and opens up a whole world of fun tricks and features that rekindled my interest in playing with my DirecTiVo. I'm planning to move to a HD DirecTiVo soon and the first upgrade for it will be one of these drives. Building up season passes and finding shows is just so much faster in a web browser compared with using the TiVo UI.

URL: http://www.ptvupgrade.com/networking/PTVnet.html
Cost:: $199-449, depending on how many hours of storage you'd like
Compatibility: Series 2 DirecTiVo models: Hughes HDVR2, SD-DVR40, SD-DVR80, SD-DVR120, Philips DSR7000, DSR704, DSR7000, RCA DVR39, DVR40, DVR80, DVR120,Samsung SIR-S4040R, SIR-S4080R, SIR-S4120R, Hughes HR10-250 HDTV

February 6, 2005 in DirecTV, Product Reviews | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBack

Sonic MyDVD and PACE Anti-Piracy software

Jason Levine recently got the TiVo ToGo update and proceeded to try out the free trial of the Sonic MyDVD burning application. When the trial was up and he was ready to purchase the full version, he did a little poking around the TiVo Community boards, just in case there were any drawbacks to the software. Eventually he found the software had installed an anti-piracy package silently that couldn't be removed, and there no mention of it anywhere on Sonic's site. If you're considering upgrading to the full version, you might want to follow through on Jason's story first.

February 6, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

CinemaNow to offer NBC shows for download

A recurring theme in internet businesses is how to turn folks from freeloaders into customers, which I think most industries do well. The ones that lag behind are TV and Movie studios. I've long wondered why they didn't stem the tide of file trading shows by simply offering a reliable fast download for a small price. I'd much rather pay a little to grab exactly what I need without having to search or wait for it. The iTunes Music Store is a great example of this in action.

So with that in mind, I was happy to hear that CinemaNow will be offering NBC shows and movies for download at $1-3 each.  They already offer tons of movies, but adding TV Shows into the mix is a welcome addition. It'll likely come in handy if I miss TiVoing something and need a way to catch it.

February 4, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Ramsay on Comcast: "We're still talking"

Last month we posted about a New York Times story that said TiVo walked away from Comcast.  USA Today published an interview with Michael Ramsay, ex-CEO and current-Chairman of TiVo, that asked about the Comcast deal reported in the Times.

Q: There've been reports that TiVo was close to striking a licensing deal with Comcast, but you scrapped it.

A: That is totally untrue. I sure as hell am not going to walk away from something that makes sense for the company and its shareholders. That rumor, wherever it came from — and God knows where it came from — is totally fabricated and completely false.

Q: How close did you and Comcast get?

A: Well, we're still talking. We're in discussions with cable companies. We have a variety of offerings for them. These kinds of deals can take months, years to develop because they have great strategic importance for both companies. We're committed to developing those relationships no matter how long they take. If we thought the outcome was futile, we wouldn't be doing it. There's been no pulling back. In fact, it's accelerating.

TiVo's stock has dropped from a 52 week high of $12.94 to $3.63 this morning, due to the loss of DirecTV as a future partner, slow introduction of HDTV and TiVoToGo and most recently the resignation of their President.

Thomas Hawk, who tipped me off to the story, is frustrated with a couple oddities about the timing and the New York Times sourcing.

Well for starters Mike, it is a leading misleading to say "and God knows where it came from" when I damn well hope that you are reading something in a publication as influential as the New York Times about the future of your company. Ok maybe you meant you didn't know where it came from prior to the Times printing it.

If in fact this is not how the deal went down I think this points to a significant credibility problem for the New York Times. The Times published, "Yet, at the last minute, Michael Ramsay, TiVo's chief executive, decided to pull out of the deal. Comcast was not going to pay TiVo enough money or give it enough control over its service, Mr. Ramsay told the company's board, according to people involved in those discussions."

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However, on a second point, you wait until February 3rd to come out and call the news completely false? I mean yeah the closing price the day before the news of $4.44 a share is not much better than the $3.51 closing price of today but on a percentage basis it's kind of significant.

One of the things that frustrates TiVo fans and investors alike is its inability to effectively communicate.  Is this another case of bad PR or is there something else going on? 

A deal with Comcast would be huge for TiVo, but TiVo's plan to use the Internet to make an end-run around cable and satellite providers might be a deal breaker for Comcast.

February 4, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Kevin Werbach on Tivo

Kevin Werbach, assistant professor of legal studies at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and organizer of the popular Supernova conference, writes Tivo's obit.

OK, I have to admit it. Tivo's goose is cooked. I've been a Tivo user for years, and like most Tivo owners, I absolutely love the product. I've been convinced since I first plugged it in that some day, all TV would work like this. And I'm still convinced of that. Television as a fixed schedule grid determined by networks and cable operators is doomed. User control is the future of TV.
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Tivo, though, still has two big assets. I'm reasonably confident those assets will be valuable enough for one of the major industry players to purchase, or perhaps a consortium. The assets are Tivo's brand, and its patents.

What do you think will happen to Tivo?  Who might benefit most from Tivo's patents or brand?  Or is there another important asset of Tivo that Werbach missed?

Werblog: Who will buy Tivo for scrap?

February 2, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Comcast DRM weirdness?

Someone submitted this anonymously yesterday but I hadn't heard anyone else report the problem. GadgetMadness posted it though -- it seems someone is claiming their copy of 24 in HD format could not be paused or fast forwarded. That sounds far-fetched and something that would garner lots of press if it were true, but I don't have a new motorola dual tuner to test this out. Anyone else find this happen to them? It sounds dubious and I would have expected to hear complaints about it immediately and from many sources if it were really happening.

February 1, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (78) | TrackBack

TiVo President Resigns

TiVo President Marty Yudkovitz announced his resignation today, less than a month after Michael Ramsay stepped down as CEO.  What does this mean for TiVo?  Yudkovitz came on board in 2003 to help "build closer ties with major TV players."  TiVo's schizophrenic role of trying to put people in control of TV while appeasing the TV networks has been criticized for not focusing on the features customers want, this may signal a turn-around for the company.

Thomas Hawk posts that the two recent departures don't bode well for the company as a whole:

To have a second high level executive, fresh after Ramsay's announced departure, leave the company as the stock has been under such pressure may be seen by some as further evidence of the rats jumping ship. On the other hand it certainly is possible that both Ramsay and Yuddovitz are being forced out by a Board that may be increasingly disappointed in company management -- particularly in light of the recent stock performance.

Yudkovitz was previously reported as saying "I have at least a dozen No. 1 priorities. But there is no priority more important than (landing a cable TV deal)," per TV Predictions.  Most recently the New York Times reported on January 17th that while a deal had been in the works with cable giant Comcast it had ended when TiVo CEO Mike Ramsay decided to pull out of the deal. "Comcast was not going to pay TiVo enough money or give it enough control over its service, Mr. Ramsay told the company's board, according to people involved in those discussions."

February 1, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack