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Tivo beta demo of movie downloading and uploading video to a TiVo

The TiVoCommunity recently gathered in Las Vegas for a huge meetup that included previews of TiVo beta products. Someone that was there took a bunch of shots of a demo. Here's a note that someone wrote in with:

Seems like something was demoed at a Tivo Community Gathering. Looks like Netflix downloads, or some other kind of movie downloads is almost ready.

Also, it looks like home video playback on the Tivo will also soon be available.

Some pics below:

looks like buying/downloading movies being demoed (note the "TiVo Downloads" as a source)

Appears to be video uploaded to a TiVo being played

This is great to hear and I can't wait to see these features make it into the production OS soon. A lot of people have been asking for both these features for quite a while.

update: Just to be clear, I personally don't believe this is a "netflix downloads" demo as TiVo and Netflix have significant rights issues to work out, but it does appear to be a movie download demo and upload feature being shown.

by Matt Haughey June 15, 2005 in TiVo

Comments

This is wildly incorrect speculation concerning what was said. Please refer to the comments of people who were actually there.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=2965205#post2965205

Posted by: justin thyme at Jun 15, 2005 1:30:01 PM

The pictures are identical to what I saw from TiVo last January at CES.

Yes TiVo will offer video downloads, but the Netflix part is pure speculation.

Posted by: SV Sleuth at Jun 15, 2005 2:27:30 PM

Ah, I should have made it more clear that I don't believe this is a Netflix demo, that was in the comments of the person that submitted this. It looks like a downloadable movies demo and a video upload demo to me.

I'm sure there are loads of licensing issues to work out before Netflix is allowed to let TiVo users stream/download movies, so much so that I doubt it ever sees the light of day, which is the same thing I've said here on PVRblog ever since the Netflix talk started.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Jun 15, 2005 2:57:31 PM

I don't see how the Netflix talk is "wildly incorrect speculation." Netflix has continued to state that they plan on offering TivoFlix by the end of the year, although Reed Hastings admited that the offering would be "modest" during his Motley Fool interview on NPR.

Netflix clearly wants to partner with them. What I found more interesting was that Yahoo was refered to as a source in the screenshot. Wasn't there some speculation that there would be a partnership that may or may not involve an equity transaction between Tivo Google and/or Yahoo? This seems to indicate that Yahoo is going to have some relationship with Tivo at the very least. Of course this line of thinking only leads to more unsubstantiated speculation, but isn't that what blogs are supposed to be about?

Posted by: davis freeberg at Jun 15, 2005 5:36:26 PM

Other than Marketing Hoopla...Why does TIVO need Netflix to download shows. TIVO is a big boy and could easily obtain rights / permission to offer first run movies etc.

Posted by: David Freeman at Jun 15, 2005 6:43:19 PM

I'm the original submitter of the post. I did write "or some other kind of downloads", so I didn't mean exclusively Netflix.

I guess it is somewhat speculation, but Tivo has publicly said that Netflix would start this year sometime if I remember correctly.

In some of the TC Community Posts, people at the event did say that Tivo has already built the receiving and management side but are waiting for other details to get hashed out. (Most likely licensing?)

I agree that there's nothing special in having it be Netflix as the deliverer. Tivo can probably have anybody deliver to their systems. Point is that it's probably built already.

Posted by: ptivo at Jun 15, 2005 9:08:36 PM

Inaccurate, untrue, and "wildly incorrect speculation."

There were 70+ people in the room.

Just ask, no need to make shit up.

Posted by: Turtleboy at Jun 16, 2005 7:00:29 AM

"Why does TIVO need Netflix to download shows."

Because most of Hollywood hates TiVo. All the TV networks are freaked out by it, and most networks are connected to parent companies with hands in the movie studios.

If TiVo wants to offer downloaded movies, they need to become a PPV outlet, but I suspect there are already plenty of PPV customers and TiVo had a hard time getting permission to become another one.

So I suspect Netflix, which already has the rights to rent pretty much every movie on earth to people, is a partner that has cleared the licensing hurdle in TiVo's mind, so they can build off existing rights to sell PPV downloads. Then TiVo doesn't have to ask anyone if they can do this.

But I'm also guessing Netflix's right to rent a movie isn't the same license as the one you need to download a movie for pay. I also bet that because the TiVo movies are delivered by the internet and not broadcast airwaves, the studios are incredibly nervous about allowing TiVos to grab copies of movies via that method, probably fearing network/hardware hacks to grab and share copies.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Jun 16, 2005 7:55:22 AM

Netflix doesn't need "rights" to rent movies to people. At least not any more than anybody else. There were legal cases in the 80s that showed that renting legally bought videotapes was perfectly legal.

(I realize that Netflix also seems to have direct relationships to movie producers to get barebones DVDs in some cases, and has arrangements to get the DVDs cheaper in return for some of the calculated rental income... But this is separate from the simple right to buy DVDs and rent them.)

Posted by: mattack at Jun 17, 2005 7:21:23 PM

mattack: ummm... http://www.mplc.com/aboutLaw.php

Posted by: Noah at Jun 17, 2005 9:45:12 PM