TiVo adds movie tickets, photos to offerings, plus priority signup

A few days ago, a beta tester leaked images of TiVo's new online features. According to yesterday's USA Today, it sounds like the previously beta-only features are going live. TiVo has a page all about it.

It requires a system update to get these features enabled on your TiVo and it looks like this is the URL to sign up to be first in line to get it. [thanks, Todd]

Comments

[billyecho]

Video podcasts would be a natural.

[MegaZone]

Perhaps not as natural as you might think, since the TiVo's decoder can only do MPEG1 and MPEG2, and only with specific parameters as to resolution, bitrate, and frame rate, etc. Few video podcasts conform to those requirements. So there would have to be some form of proxy that transcoded the video.

[Adam E]

Thanks for the link - got signed up last night.

[Ryder]

Do you think Tivo/Yahoo would add a email service to their product.

[Tyson]

I think there will be email, news, yellow pages, groups, music, games, classifieds, im... (video im?), etc.

I bet it will begin to look like the Y! services page on the Yahoo homepage.

[eric]

Has anyone seen the new Yahoo stuff yet? I got the email announcing it was availabel for beta testers, but none of the stuff is showing up yet...

[Michael]

Anyone think Yahoo might become so partnered they might just buy them out?

[trapper]

A Yahoo buyout might not be such a bad idea... could give Yahoo some leverage over Google and MSN.

[eric]

Wow, the Live365 service is really underwhelming. Only a small handful of stations are available for free, most require a Live356 paid subscription. That's not cool in the context of TiVo, since I'm already paying a monthly fee. Either negotiate a deal to provide all of Live356 to TiVo subscribers, or offer us something like Shoutcast.

[matt]

Seconded on the Live365. Not to mention that (at least
yesterday) the live365.com/tivo webpage wouldn't set
up the free trial.

Also, is it my imagination, or does the whole thing
move really slow? Is that a common problem for
all the HME apps?

[The Jeremy]

I got my update last night. Although the radio stations may be deficient for some, I really like the other features like the Weather and Traffic reports, as well as the Podcaster service. I was happy to see that *Diggnation* was included but what disappoints me is that this is just for audio. Why not video? Especially since *Diggnation* does a vidcast which you can get either through authorized Torrent distribution, through their website, or through iTunes. I realize some TiVo owners only have the 40 hour models and downloading content may take up space, but many of us have 80 hour, 160 hour, and the modders have even more capacity. And of course, you would have to download the video content to make it worthwhile, as opposed to streaming which is what they are doing with the audio content.

Otherwise, its a great start to distinguish TiVo from all the wanna-be's. I wonder if this will carry over to the TiVo enabled Comcast boxes next year or if Yahoo will have to separately negotiate with Comcast to deliver the services.

[schalliol]

I guess with XM on DirecTV I'm not that excited about live365, but it's a reasonable thing to add on. Maybe Live365 paid TiVo to put it on there.

[eric]

The traffic, weather, and movie channels are great. The podcasting channel needs some help. Adding my own URLs with the TiVo remote is sooo painful. They really need to allow users to manage feeds on the web site, in addition to the box itself.

Actually, it would be good for all of these new additions. Offer an option on the My Account web site to add/edit/delete podcasts, weather forecasts, traffic cities, etc.

[Todd Lokken]

With Google and AOL talking, maybe Yahoo! needs something to spice up the company as well.