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TiVo doesn't really get podcasting

I've been meaning to link to my friend Jason's rant that TiVo doesn't really get podcasting for a couple weeks now. Everything he says is spot-on.

I played with the dual tuner TiVo a couple months ago and it was the first time I got to play with the podcast tools. Like Jason, I was very disappointed to see the TiVo client seemed to rely on the network for everything. I couldn't get most podcasts to play due to slow downloads and I couldn't believe the pause/fwd controls were disabled.

After using it, I would guess that adding podcasting to the TiVo OS was something tacked on, maybe pushed through by marketing, and the engineers that worked on it didn't take the time or care to do it right. It's really surprising, since with the large hard drives in TiVos these days, caching and saving a few megabytes of audio and allowing basic operations on those files should be trivial, not to mention the dozens of open source podcast libraries that demonstrate how to do it right.

Hopefully future versions of the TiVo OS will remedy this -- it definitely feels like a disconnect when TiVo handles large video files so well, but is nearly useless and buggy when it comes to simple, smaller audio files.

by Matt Haughey June 23, 2006 in Op-Ed

Comments

Bob Pony has stated they don't want to get into to legalities of copying/hosting podcasts and that not all podcasts servers support pausing/ff/rw... which is why they're streamed with no controls. I agree as it stands Podcaster is of limited use. Fortunately, both Galleon and TiVo Dekstop offer alternatives though they require a home computer.

Here's some elaboration on the issues:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3541577&highlight=podcast#post3541577

Posted by: Dave Zatz at Jun 23, 2006 10:54:18 AM

This sounds like the first iteration of the PSP's podcasting support-- you could only "stream" episodes when you were online.

They fixed it recently.

Posted by: Ross M Karchner at Jun 23, 2006 11:21:11 AM

Podcast servers don't support pausing/ff/rw? Well, that's technically true, but underlies a complete confusion of podcasting and streaming, which is ironic for TiVo. TV stations don't support pausing/ff/rw either, which is the whole reason TiVo was invented!

What the podcasting client should be doing is letting you set up subscriptions ("Season Passes") so that when new episodes are put up, it downloads ("records") them and makes them available for playback, timeshifting, etc.

I can see the copyright issues being a pain, since big copyright is busy trying to uninvent all sorts of useful technology, but the timeshifting thing is a total red herring.

Posted by: George Hotelling at Jun 23, 2006 11:25:30 AM

"Bob Pony has stated they don't want to get into to legalities of copying/hosting podcasts"

Are there any issues with home users saving content from the web? TiVo wouldn't host anything, end-users would just be pulling audio files off the internet and saving them to their TiVos. I don't know of a single case of copyright owners going after end users of podcast clients.

I could see there being a problem if TiVo wanted to become Odeo.com and host them, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the very same functionality that every copy of iTunes has now. Periodically grab new episodes, let me replay later from hard drive storage and allow me to pause, skip, and interact just like they were a normal MP3 audio file.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Jun 23, 2006 11:42:32 AM

Wow... why would Tivo (the company) host the content of a podcast? Do they have bandwidth to burn? Do they know what happens if a popular podcast brings out a new episode?

The podcasters have the infrastructure in place. All you would need to do is "host" the podcast on your Tivo (the machine) - download the MP3 file like a regular computer, and instead of playing it from your computer, use the internal player to play it.

But I think podcasts (the audio only ones) are just the beginning. If Tivo really wanted to break ground, make video podcasts available. Just like recorded programs, just like Rocketboom, but instead of the highly pixelating Rocketboom, let me download Diggnation... much more entertaining anyways.. :) Plus it's more in Tivo's area - TV your way!

Posted by: Ronald Bruintjes at Jun 23, 2006 12:25:24 PM

There are several issues that are being confused here:

* Podcast authors don't want TiVo (or anyone else) to source a duplicate version of their material. They monetize their content based on the number of people who are listening to it. If we host it, they don't have any indication of how many of our subscribers are using their content (and no, we do not have the infrastructure to track or report that information for them).

* Not all podcast servers are built alike. Some support ff/rw on a stream, but some don't. Giving our customers an inconsistent experience leads to support calls, which do cost money. We can't incur extra cost because a favorite podcast decides to stop supporting transport controls, or doesn't support them at all, or in some non-standard way...etc.

* The technology that our online services is built on does not touch the hard drive. It's not allowed to, it's not designed to. Multiple issues here, not the least of which is security (imagine if a rogue program got control of your hard drive).

* A TiVo DVR is designed to record television programs, to always be ready, 24/7. If an online application accessed the disk...well, that means that the core DVR features may lose access to the disk, and you'd miss/lose recordings (or get some rather odd conflict messages). Or your buffer would be cleared.

* Now, on top of that...somehow the system needs to know how *much* disk space should be allowed to hold podcasts (or any other non-tv content) on the drive. If you ask for more podcasts than there is space available, should you lose recordings? What if your kids ask for a podcast, should it delete your football game if you're right on the edge of available space? In general this would require a dynamic segmentation of the disk for different types of media...behind the scenes stuff. And certainly new UI as well. Not something that's available today.

What often seems 'simple' or 'obvious' is usually not, and has implications far wider than a cursory look at the problem would reveal. If it was easy, it would be done already. TiVo hires smart people, good people, and we do good things.

If the online Podcaster application isn't to your liking, well...you can get exactly what you want from TiVo today! Download the podcasts to your home computer, and they'll show up on your DVR via the Music & Photos section of TiVo Desktop. With fast forward, pause, and rewind (because we control the server in this case).

Or, there are third party applications which will do the same.

So...you have choices. You can get exactly what you want. ;)

Pony

Posted by: TiVoPony at Jun 23, 2006 4:35:18 PM

Who asked Tivo to host them...just allow them to be downloaded to our Tivos on a reserved adjustable space (as set in the gui). The podcasters will still get an accurate count this way...and it's how all other MP3 players work.

MP3's/podcasts are really small compared to Mpeg video files. Hard to really believe their is too much of a concern here...make the space setting user definable.

Posted by: StuBee at Jun 23, 2006 6:15:59 PM

Ok..after re-reading TivoPony's comments...the only real hitch is his statement:
"our online services is built on does not touch the hard drive. It's not allowed to"

So basically it's their own software design preventing them from implementing it.

Posted by: StuBee at Jun 23, 2006 6:22:27 PM

And he expanded on why that is. It may be something they do later, and I believe he's said that in discussions, but it isn't something they will do lightly because of the issues with space conflicts with recordings, potential disk I/O conflicts while recording, security, etc.

Now, I think some of those issues are more readily solved that others - the system can already juggle recording multiple programs, downloading broadband content, and using MRV and TTG. So there is some ability to balance disk I/O without dropping recordings.

But the other changes take time and resources. What they have today is built on the standard HME API. It is enough for a many users, but if you want more you can pull them to your PC or use Galleon as a proxy and have full controls because it'll be buffered on the PC.

Posted by: Meg at Jun 23, 2006 7:02:56 PM

Can you transfer podcasts to the Tivo using GoBack? That would make podcasts a bit more usable for me since you could then have all trickplay functionality available. (sidenote: it's very frustrating trying to listen to a podcast on the ipod since it has no instant replay or skip to tick features, and a way, way slow fast forward.)

Posted by: Dylan at Jun 23, 2006 7:22:46 PM

"The technology that our online services is built on does not touch the hard drive."

This is a deal-breaker for podcasting. Podcasts are not streams; they're "TiVo for audio" that happens to work over the internet.

If the only way TiVo could get podcasting to work was to treat them as streams, then IMO, they should've waited until the platform was able to support them properly: by downloading ("recording") new episodes as they become available, then playing them off the hard drive.

In my experience, "limited use" is an overstatement: the podcasting feature on TiVo is next to useless due to the lack of pause/FF. Many podcasts are full of skippable crap just like TV shows, and if I'm not willing to watch 10 minutes of commercials in a 30 minute TV show, I'm sure not going to sit through 10 minutes of commercials, introductions, and boring interviews to get to the interesting parts (I'm looking at you, Official LOST Podcast).

Posted by: Jesse at Jun 23, 2006 7:27:08 PM

A few replies to TiVoPony:

Regarding the claim that podcast authors not wanting TiVo sourcing a duplicate version of the material: every single iPod-using podcast listener is doing this now, and it'd be ridiculous to argue that this capability isn't inextricably linked with the success of podcasting. I can't think of more than a half-dozen podcast-listening friends who listen to them tied to their computer and using some client that isn't playing back a file saved to their local disk; nearly everyone I know is taking the content with them in some manner (on their iPod or equivalent, in their aggregator, etc.).

Regarding the "not all podcast servers are built alike" argument: if a podcast is available as an MP3, you don't care what proprietary server app is being used to allow web-bound listeners to listen, because you're not talking about those listeners. As George Hotelling said, and I said in the original post Matt links to, the traditional television broadcast network doesn't support FF/rewind, but TiVo is the company that overcame this obstacle. Why the disconnect when it comes to audio content?

Regarding the argument that the TiVo online services can't touch the hard disk: how, then, am I able to save the locations of favorites in the podcasting client? Clearly, the folks at TiVo have granted permission for the client to store *some* bits on disk, but not *these* bits. Again, it's an odd disconnect... and if the answer is that the technology truly *does* provide the limits, then TiVo should change that technology, or acknowledge that the podcasting client will remain completely useless.

Regarding the final two points (the primacy of the DVR functionality, and the question of what happens when a user requests more podcasts than can be stored): again, there's absolutely no reason these conundrums can't be solved at the operating system level. (Of course, TiVo has already figured out the latter when it comes to TV content; why not apply the same logic to audio?)

Finally, I get that I can use my home computer to provide the functionality I decry... but in a totally backwards way. What I don't get is why TiVo doesn't see that it's unable to provide the same forward thinking for podcasting that it did in the world of video when it was establishing the foundation of the DVR market -- it's almost as if the company couldn't care less. If this isn't the case, solve the problems; if it IS the case, just give up on the podcasting client entirely, because it's Just That Bad.

Posted by: Jason at Jun 24, 2006 2:30:25 PM

Extremely disappointing. The lack of ff and pause makes podcasts on Tivo a novely or proof of concept at best.

Posted by: Lance at Jun 24, 2006 11:05:03 PM

RE Jason's comment that some apps already persist information (like your "favorite locations"), my guess is that the online services persist this information on a tivo server, not the TiVo box itself. Remember, the HME applications are hosted on a server, not your TiVo box.

RE: Jason's claim that TiVo should scrap the current implementation of the Podcast app, I completely disagree. I really enjoy listening to This American Life on my TiVo. I sometimes wish I could rewind or pause - don't get me wrong. But all in all, my TiVo is better with the feature than without.

Posted by: B at Jun 25, 2006 9:31:30 AM

In response to TiVoPony's comments on access to the hard disk by online services, then how does Rocketboom get on my TiVo. It's downloaded directly to the hard drive so I can watch it anytime. It downloads at the same time as other recordings without any issues. How about using that mechanism as a proxy for podcasts to the TiVo hard drive? I'd love to listen to podcasts on my TiVo, but only if it's same as the rest of my TiVo experience.

Posted by: Nate Straz at Jun 26, 2006 9:00:51 AM

I need not say more other than "Lost Podcast". I have to sit through 20 minutes of absolute blather to get to 5 minutes of spoilers. That is not TV my way. If there are no controls on the podcast; you have delievered content not as a convenience, but as a 20-30 minute advertisement.

Posted by: Chas at Jun 26, 2006 3:41:50 PM

Expanding on Nate's idea, it'd be brilliant if Podcasts were just another Now Playing item - just like the CNET and Rocketboom content. That's way closer to an ideal implementation than the current setup.

Of course, I'm not a TiVo employee, but I concur that the current setup is half-baked. Is it better to have a half-baked feature than none at all?

Posted by: Paul at Jun 27, 2006 12:06:23 PM

The basic truth is the podcasting client was tacked on to TiVo at the last minute. It was probably more of a marketing ploy. I am confident that TiVo will resolve the issues in subsequent releases either by turning podcaster off or enabling basic podcasting capabilities (download to hd).

Thank you TiVoPony for trying to explain why TiVo didnt do a good job at its first try.

Posted by: bigkah624 at Sep 1, 2006 8:46:24 AM

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