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Happy Commercial Day!

From Chas Edwards' post about Japan’s TV Ads: TV Ads Not Working:

Throughout August, 133 Japanese TV stations are airing commercials to promote the importance of…commercials. Japanese advertisers, like those in the U.S., worry about growing use of digital video recorders, now in 15% of Japan’s homes. By letting users skip ads, DVRs have knocked $489 million off the value of commercials to advertisers, says the Nomura Research Institute. To win back advertisers, the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan named Aug. 28 TV CM (commercial) Day.

Interesting to hear that Japan is way ahead of the US in DVR use (The US is at around 5%-7% right?) and this is their way of dealing with it.  Too bad I learned about Commercial Day a day after it happened, I would have bought my TiVo a gift had I known.

August 29, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Yesterday's investor call

Yesterday was the quarterly investor teleconference at TiVo, which was open to the public through streaming audio and a massive conference call system. I was letting it play in the background while working on other things, so I might have missed a few key details but the big picture news consisted of the following:

• TiVo finally broke even, and made a small profit after 7 years of losses. They are hopeful that the following quarters will continue the trend and show increasing profits instead of losses
• There are teams of TiVo and Comcast engineers working on a combo TiVo/Comcast unit that is set for release sometime in 2006. They referenced this several times as a big future subscriber growth path.
• TiVo is moving to a cellphone plan business model (something I've heard suggested since TiVo was released) where you get a TiVo for practically free if you sign a long-term service contract of a year or two. They believe a major sticking point with new customers is the cost of the box.
• TiVo's goals for the next year or so is to drive for more subscriptions and start working with advertising within the TiVo service, which they believe could be profitable once their subscriber base grows.
• It costs TiVo about $200 to acquire each new customer.
• They spent a significant amount of time comparing themselves to Sirius Radio, which has half of TiVo's subscriber base at a similar monthly subscription price, but Sirius has a $9 billion marketcap while TiVo's is only around $500 million. It sounded like a bit of sour grapes on the part of TiVo executives. :)
• While DirecTV is moving away from TiVo to the NDS R15 box, they are ordering up loads of R10 combo DirecTV/TiVo units for their existing promotions. DirecTV is still using the TiVo to drive new subscriptions even though their own product is coming soon, and this was a bit perplexing for TiVo execs.
• They are in dicussions with multiple cable operators, trying to use free TiVos as a way to lure new cable customers away from satellite. They talked about the Cebridge deal and a new Cablevision deal and said more deals are in the works.

August 25, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Exclusive First Look: The New DIRECTV DVR

TVPredictions has some info and screenshots from their post about New DIRECTV DVR. The information is taken from an early manual that was passed around to distributors (and offered up here by someone) and talks about all the features that will be part of the unit. The unit is rumored to ship in October, but it has been pushed back a couple times and I wouldn't be surprised to see it pushed back further (especially when DirecTV is ordering more combo TiVo units to meet demand for their current promotions).

I'm most interested in hearing about the expanded HD content offerings as well as the recording/playback quality of the new mpeg4 HD channels, or if they're even available yet, but I'm sure we'll have to wait until someone has an actual unit to test out.

August 25, 2005 in DirecTV | Permalink | Comments (68) | TrackBack

PCWorld.com: How to Buy a Flat-Screen TV

PCWorld has a good introductory article on How to Buy a Flat-Screen TV. They cover the differences between plasma and LCD, the basics of HDTV, and the connections that provide the best picture.

With prices dropping on plasmas and LCDs, now is as good a time as any to finally upgrade your big old CRT and mount something sleek on the wall but of course, the longer you wait the more TV you'll get for a cheaper price. Also worth noting is that HDTV content still feels like it is lagging behind the adoption of HDTV sets -- you'll have a few over-the-air options if you are near a major city, but otherwise cable and satellite HD offerings are still somewhat new and expanding.

August 24, 2005 in How-To | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Tivo, Internet Archive, and GlitchTV

Worship the Glitch (WTG) has a great post about finding free MPEG2 content online to stream to your updated TiVo. The Internet Archive is a huge repository aiming to be the world's library, with the goal of capturing and curating all human knowledge. Part of the Archive is their immense video library, which includes MPEG2 versions of all sorts of public domain, freely licensed, and open source movies.

WTG has offered a useful new service, GlitchTV. It's a daily feed featuring a movie from the Archive. Coupled with some podcasting software mentioned in the post, you could have automated nightly downloads of every movie in the GlitchTV feed delivered to your PC. Then it'd just be a matter of firing up your TiVo each night to see what wacky new movie awaits viewing.

August 24, 2005 in News, TiVo | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

TiVo announces deal with small cable provider

Well, it ain't Comcast, but at least it's something. That's the message I got from TiVo's latest press release announcing a partnership with Cebridge Communications. Cebridge is a small provider offering cable TV and internet to 300,000 homes in over 20 states, and they've partnered with TiVo to pitch standalone 80 hour TiVos to their customers.

This is a good sign for TiVo and hopefully one of many such deals in the future (I'm still waiting for my standalone HD TiVo that will work with Comcast). [thanks MegaZone!]

August 23, 2005 in News, TiVo | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

PC to Tivo Playback released

Looks like the TiVo 7.2 beta is over, as Tivo Desktop version 2.2 was released today. Coupled with the newly released Tivo OS 7.2, transfering video from a PC to your TiVo is now possible. The same earlier referenced TiVo support article explains the functionality and how to convert your other formats into the proper mpeg2 version.

A reader that has the new OS and desktop software writes:

Your PC with Tivo Desktop shows up as a server on your Tivo's now playing list, and any mpegs in your "Tivo Recordings" Folder show up on the Tivo.

If anyone has the new OS and software, can you leave a comment on whether or not streaming video from the PC to the TiVo is possible? It'd be a shame if you had to move half a gig of video files over before you could play them. If streaming is possible, this would allow you to use your PC as a video archive, by storing video there instead of the TiVo hard drive.

August 22, 2005 in News, TiVo | Permalink | Comments (37) | TrackBack

Next Gen TiVo's to support CableCard

Dave Zatz continues to notice that TiVo's job openings seem to be revealing where the company is headed next. This latest one hints at the CableCard supporting HD Tivo is being developed/produced.

Senior Network Porting Kit Engineer - CBD038
TiVo is seeking a senior software engineer to join the Network Porting Kit team. This team is responsible for providing abstractions and programming interfaces for multiple broadcast networks including satellite, cable, and over-the-air sources. Your code will manage mission-critical data at the heart of the TiVo service: channel and line-up information, program guide data, network-specific tuning, on-screen display of messages, and more. Furthermore, you will gain experience in open standards such as CableCard and proprietary service provider systems.

They announced a CableCard dual-tuner HD TiVo at CES this past January, and personally I can't wait to buy one, so this newest job posting is a good sign of things to come.

August 18, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBack

TiVo Investor Call next week

TiVo has announced their quarterly investor call, scheduled for next Wednesday, August 24 at 2PM. I'm curious how they'll talk about DirecTV dropping TiVo and any details about upcoming features or deals with Netflix and Comcast that have yet to become public.

August 16, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

TiVo wishlist tip

Matt Cutts, an engineer at Google posted a great wishlist tip:

Make a wishlist with keyword (say) 2004 and restrict it to the genre of Movies. Presto: browsing the wishlist gives you all the movies from 2004.

I often forget that the wishlist functionality is so flexible and so deep. Ever since I got a 16:9 aspect ratio TV, I've had a wishlist for movies/letterbox but it sounds like I could add in 2004 or 2005 and get just recent films.

I kind of wish that season passes and wishlists supported "greater than" or "less than" when adding criteria. For instance, often when I discover a new show, if I set a season pass, it will grab every new and old show, when sometimes I just want the current season of that show so that I'm not seeing things out of order ("give me all copies of 'six feet under' that debuted in 2005"). For this new movie wishlist, I wish I could say "give me all letterboxed movies that are less than five years old".

August 16, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack

TiVo 7.2 allows PC to TiVo transfer

filburt1 sent this tidbit in:

TiVo has released new knowledgebase articles referencing the current beta version (7.2). One in particular mentions the often-requested feature of transferring video from a PC to a TiVo. You need the latest version of TiVo Desktop, plus the videos need to be in standard MPEG-2 format.

Sounds exactly what I was hoping for a short while back when the privacy policy changed, as it sounded to me like customers would be able to move video to their TiVos in the future. Of course, since a lot of people use quicktime, DV, and divx to store their own video, hopefully we'll see a guide to prepping and transcoding your video into mpeg2 pop up.

August 15, 2005 in News, TiVo | Permalink | Comments (21) | TrackBack

Exclusive pics of TiVo Download

Engadget has the full story along with: pics of TiVo Download, featuring preview shows of IFC's new fall season. Sounds like a good test bed to try the service out on. Downloading a 30 minute show shouldn't be too bad, but I'm curious what the quality of playback looks like. If it's full TiVo mpeg quality, those files could be mighty large and take several hours to fetch.

August 11, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack

Flickr on XBox MC

Jon at jonsthoughtsoneverything.com has a number of interesting plugins to allow Flickr on XBOX Media Center and Tivo Media Center as well. If anyone can get these to work, please post your impressions here or at Jon's site.

To me, it's clear that the companies building "media center" platforms need to enable their users to tie in data (in the case of flickr, it's photos) from other platforms that have open APIs in a simple and easy manner.  This is a great way to extend the platform of whatever "media center" you might purchase and would be a clear differentiator.

Jon’s Thoughts On Everything � Tivo Xbox Media Center Plugin Updated
Jon’s Thoughts On Everything � Introducing Flickr For Your Xbox Media Center
Jon’s Thoughts On Everything � Flickr Plugin Updated

August 7, 2005 in Hacks | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Orb: Slingbox without the box

Orb is a free software-based place-shifting service that lets you access your media from anywhere over the internet. Orb runs on computers with Windows XP or XP Media Center and provides streaming access to the audio and video on the computer. It also can stream live TV if you have a tuner attached to your computer, and it provides TV listings and scheduled recordings.

Once your computer is set up to stream, you can get your media streamed in WMV, RealVideo or 3GP. That means in addition to watching your videos on your computer, you can also see them on some PDAs and mobile phones. You can also access your photos and mp3s through the service, in case you're into that sort of thing.

Update Aug 11, 2005: It looks like there's a TiVoToGo plugin that lets you watch your Series 2 TiVo from anywhere, available here. I haven't tested this but if you do please leave a comment saying how you like it!

August 7, 2005 in Products | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBack

How to configure Vonage with your DirecTiVo

Getting a Vonage phone to work with a modem isn't easy, since there are several conversions between digital and analog audio along the way. Khan.org has figured it out, with step-by-step instructions: how to make nightly calls on DirecTiVo with a Vonage line.

Of course, it'd be nice if DirecTV enabled the USB ports so customers could use their broadband connections, but this is a good alternative for those using VOIP on their network. [via MakeZine]

August 6, 2005 in DirecTV | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

New TiVo Open Beta!

Longtime friend of the PVR world, MegaZone sends along news about TiVo's newest Open Beta call.

tivopony, the TiVo employee that frequents the community boards, posts some details of the beta and hints at features that will be tested.

I'll tell you up front that it's a minor release, not a major one. But there's a lot of groundwork buried within. But should you get it? Well, if you own a 540 or a 590 prefix recorder that's experienced macroblocking with the previous release, you'll probably want this. If you have a TiVo-powered DVD Recorder or DVD Player and would really like to have TiVoToGo asap, you'll probably want this. If you'd like to have network support within Guided Setup, you'll probably want this.

Sounds like some bug fixes for certain models, TiVoToGo for the DVD recording TiVos finally, and another long-term request that goes all the way back to one of my first posts here over two years ago: allowing guided setup to use the network connection instead of a phone. [thanks Megazone]

August 5, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Tivo looking for a Senior Mac Developer

Dave Zatz and others wrote in about TiVo's new macintosh developer job posting.

Senior Software Engineer, Macintosh Development - CBD033

TiVo is looking for an experienced senior software engineer to work at TiVo's headquarters in Alviso , CA . The job consists of developing TiVo desktop software on the Mac platform.

Essential Requirements:

    * 5+ years software development on the Mac.
* Experience with Macintosh programming on OS X is required. Windows and/or Linux programming experience is desired.
* Proficiency in C++ and Java is required. Experience with Objective C is also highly desirable.
* Object-oriented design skills and robust coding practices are required.
* Must demonstrate the ability to develop complex applications leveraging newly written software with existing legacy code and libraries.
* The ability to work at both design and implementation levels is required.
* Excellent communication skills.
* The ability to work in a cross-platform development environment.
* BA/MA Math/CS or equivalent experience.

Desired Skills:

    * Experience with the Xcode development environment.
* Experience implementing robust communications software.
* Experience with component-based architectures.
* Experience with DRM or encryption/decryption software.

Looks like a sign TiVo is getting serious about mac software support. My OS X TiVo software wishlist would include TiVo ToGo, playback of purchased AAC files in the Home Media Option, and porting of the Home Media Engine software into a mac client (it's all java, it should work).

August 4, 2005 in News, TiVo | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

DirecTV giving away 80hr TiVos

Just got a reader tip that BestBuy was rolling out "free standalone DVRs" to current customers signing on for another two years and all new customers this past weekend. This page on the BestBuy site mentions the free 80Gb DVR. This image from the promotion calls it a "DirecTV DVR".

I was wondering if it was a free standalone TiVo or a new mysteriously branded DirecTV model, but after hearing from someone that got one of the units, he verified that it was indeed a 80hr standalone TiVo.

What's kind of strange here is that DirecTV isn't giving away the DirecTiVo combo unit which has dual tuners and records at full satellite quality. It seems the DirecTiVo unit phase out is underway and  they are giving away standard TiVos until their new non-TiVo satellite combo DVR comes out. Or maybe the 80Gb standalones are cheaper than the combo units in the long run.

August 3, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBack

NBC returning TV shows to regular start/end times

After a couple years of NBC tweaking start and end show times to push their advertising dollars (and tweak PVR owners in the process), it seems they're abandoning the practice of starting early and ending late.

This fall line-up preview of NBC's shows shows a clear return to shows ending on the hour and half-hour, exactly. This is good news for those missing network shows due to 1-minute conflicts.

August 3, 2005 in News | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBack

TiVo Banner Ads released

I don't know if their content download service is ready to launch, but TiVo has definitely launched their banner ads.  One just showed up on my TiVo.  Here's what it looks like:

I saw it on 3x and 20x fast forward, but not on 60x.  If you hit thumbs up it takes you to a screen that will let you choose between receiving ads from GMC (TiVo will share your info with them if you choose this), watch a video or read some text.

August 3, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBack

Tivo Content Download Service ready to release?

Chris Davis writes:

Got a service message from Tivo last night with the title 'An Important Message on Privacy from Tivo' which sounded boring, but I read it anyway. The interesting part is the third sentence of the second paragraph:

'For this notification, the updates [to the privacy policy] pertain primarily to the addition of new functionality that will enable TiVo subscribers to download content to their Series2 DVR.'

I dont really care about the privacy policy updates - I already assume somebody can see every little thing I do with my tivo. But 'download content to their Series2 DVR' ?!? Yowza! I just hope the download TO the tivo isn't as stupid slow as download FROM the tivo is...

Hmm, that sounds pretty cool if it's true that users will be able to move video to their TiVo for playback. I would guess it'd require an application to transcode your own video to TiVo MPEG2 format and send off to your TiVo, and perhaps a new version of the TiVo desktop is coming to make that happen.

update: Dave Zatz passes along the offical TiVo site explanation for the policy change.

August 3, 2005 in TiVo | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Comcast needs to get a handle on spoilers

Comcast is pushing PVRs so hard these days you'd think they were giving birth. It's kind of funny that they are using their website to remind people of one of the drawbacks of PVR ownership: they published Six Feet Under spoilers in their entertainment headlines (contains spoilers as of Aug 1, 2005. Obviously).

Imagine it. A customer has seen enough ads for the Comcast DVR that they decide to set it up to record Six Feet Under so they can watch it the following night. Meanwhile, they check out Comcast's site and have a major plot point ruined. Do you think they're going to be all that interested in time-shifting after that?

August 1, 2005 in Op-Ed | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack