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TiVo's New Beta Hosted Apps

This is good news: TiVo is beginning to test hosted Home Media Engine (HME) applications on the server side. So this would mean that soon all TiVos running the latest software would have some new applications available, and you might not need to run the HME software on a local networked PC. 

by Matt Haughey October 6, 2005 in News, TiVo

Comments

Uh, so much for respecting that non-disclosure agreement.

Posted by: warrenpeace™ at Oct 6, 2005 2:29:32 PM

Seriously. This is the second beta thats been publicized on a pvr weblog. TiVo's going to quit allowing us to participate.

Posted by: kim at Oct 7, 2005 10:31:12 AM

Hmm... this annoucement on PVR Blog didn't really disclose anything. It just says that TiVo is going to test *something*. So I'm not sure that TiVo will be very unhappy about this. If anything, this may be a way for them to publicize that new stuff is coming, and it may even motivate more people to sign up to be beta testers (which might be good if they are really load testing a server).

I'm not a TiVo beta tester, so this is pure speculation on my part.

Posted by: Don at Oct 7, 2005 12:07:13 PM

Warren and Kim: Read the linked post carefully... nothing in it is covered by an NDA. In fact, it's a form letter sent to beta applicants, warning them that they will be under an NDA if they continue with the process.

In other words, there's nothing in that post that TiVo is trying to hide.

Posted by: Roger Benningfield at Oct 7, 2005 2:48:42 PM

Uh, thanks for the scolding Dad. I did read the post 'carefully' and even though it doesn't give explicit details and included a screenshot, it's still bloody obvious. We can tiptoe around details and watch how we word things, but it's still biting the hand that feeds. When they test stuff they ask, over and over, that the details be kept secret because what they're testing isn't ready for public scrutiny. Otherwise they would have put it on the website.

And I was being 'sarcastic', thanks.

Posted by: warrenpeace™ at Oct 8, 2005 3:52:40 AM

Still lagging horribly behind on the mac side. :(

Posted by: jeff greenberg at Oct 8, 2005 10:06:00 PM

Actually it has nothing to do with Macs. The idea with hosted apps is that you don't even need a computer. And anyway, every HME app that I know of is Java-based and runs just as well on a Mac as it does on a PC (provided you have OS X).

Posted by: chowbaby at Oct 9, 2005 11:19:12 AM

Speaking as a TiVo Guy, maybe even the TiVo Guy who is running this program, the posted email is just fine to disclose, since it's basically an ad to recruit beta participants. Once folks have signed up for the beta though, we'd like them to honor their non-disclosure agreement. Sadly, we already didn't include some of the coolest apps in this beta because of past leaks.

Posted by: TiVo Guy at Oct 11, 2005 5:43:47 PM

Yeah, I'm sure Tivo is going to say, "Gosh, we'd better completely eliminate our unpaid beta program. We're getting too much work for free from people and it's just pissing me off when 1 in 5,000 talks."

"We'll just roll out untested software. That'll teach them!"

Nice work, detective.

Posted by: Pfister at Oct 19, 2005 12:23:32 PM

It's software physics. If we really can't disclose some applications (perhaps for deal-making reasons), then our choices are to roll out less thoroughly tested software, to take longer to roll it out, or to have fewer features.

If we could (somehow, magically) get a beta program that didn't leak, we could pick higher quality, quicker rollout, or more features.

Posted by: TiVo Guy at Nov 28, 2005 6:03:36 PM